Welcome to the National Immigration Forum’s weekly bulletin! Every Friday, our policy team rounds up key developments around immigration policy in Washington and across the country. The bulletin includes items on the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, as well as some coverage at the state and local levels.
Here’s a breakdown of the bulletin’s sections:
DEVELOPMENTS IN IMMIGRATION THIS WEEK
BILLS INTRODUCED AND CONSIDERED
SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM RESOURCES
DEVELOPMENTS IN IMMIGRATION THIS WEEK
Immigration policy is a dynamic field subject to constant change. Here, we summarize some of the most important recent developments in immigration policy on the federal, legal, state, and local levels.
Content warning: This section sometimes includes events and information that can prove disturbing.
Federal
Congress Averts Shutdown With Clean Continuing Resolution, McCarthy Ousted From Speakership
On September 30, Congress narrowly averted a shutdown by passing a continuing resolution to fund the government and allocate disaster relief funds — but not to provide assistance to Ukraine in its ongoing war against Russian invasion.
The short-term spending bill will keep the federal government open for around a month and a half, buying lawmakers time to reach a compromise. After days of trying to attach sweeping immigration and border security changes to a continuing resolution, House leadership ultimately relented and advanced a “clean” measure with bipartisan support.
But fallout from the weekend led to Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-California) ouster from the House speakership on Tuesday, when eight Republicans and all Democrats voted to remove him from his leadership role. The sudden turn of events has installed Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-North Carolina) as interim speaker, even as candidates including Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) vie to fill the position long-term.
Before being removed as speaker, McCarthy said his “priority” was “America and our borders,” threatening to tie funding for Ukraine to a deal on border security. Sen. Mike Rounds (R— South Dakota) has also implied that pairing Ukraine aid with border security could be “the only way” to get buy-in from a GOP-controlled House, Andrew Desiderio, a reporter for Punchbowl News, wrote on social media.
Biden Administration Announces Border Wall Construction, Resumes Venezuelan Deportations Amid Increasing Border Encounters
On October 5, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a notice waiving 26 federal laws — mostly environmental and cultural protections — to more quickly construct a new section of border wall in rural south Texas.
Facing criticism for seemingly breaking a campaign promise not to build “another foot of wall,” federal officials including President Joe Biden have said the project is part of Congress’s appropriations requirements, suggesting the administration had no choice but to comply.
But in the federal register, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas struck a different tone when he alluded to “an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers” that “prevent” people from crossing.
Plans for the new project have engendered swift and widespread rebuke, with Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) calling the border wall “a 14th century solution to a 21st century problem.”
Meanwhile, the Biden administration also announced Thursday that it will resume repatriations of Venezuelans to Venezuela, after authorities there agreed to start accepting returns of their nationals directly from the U.S. The policy shift comes mere weeks after DHS said it would extend and redesignate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelans who had arrived in the U.S. by the end of July, based on a determination that they could not safely return home amid “enduring humanitarian, security, political, and environmental conditions.”
These aggressive, enforcement-focused policy responses follow initial reports in CBS News indicating that migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border increased once again in September, after significantly declining months earlier. Apprehensions between official ports of entry reportedly reached around 210,000 last month, eclipsing August’s numbers by about 16%.
Roberto Velasco, Mexico’s chief of the North America bureau at the Mexican Foreign Ministry, told the Dallas Morning News that large-scale migration at the U.S.-Mexico border will continue until the U.S. builds out more legal pathways and alleviates root causes of displacement.
In the meantime, the El Paso Times reported Tuesday that Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector suffered 148 migrant deaths during fiscal year 2023 — a record high — many of them during Texas’s scorching summer months. And last week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released more details about a 1-month-old baby who died in the Nogales area, after her 16-year-old mother was found softly weeping by a Border Patrol agent.
Communication barriers between the U.S. official and the child’s mother appeared to contribute to confusion and potential inefficiencies during the emergency, as the agent said he “was not aware the infant was in distress” until they got to a Border Patrol station and the mom spoke with someone else.
U.S. Resettles More Than 60,000 Refugees In FY 2023
The U.S. resettled 8,762 refugees in September, the highest number in any single month all fiscal year.
September’s impressive resettlement numbers propelled the U.S. to reach a total of 60,014 refugees resettled in all of FY 2023. The last time the U.S. resettled more than 50,000 refugees annually was back in 2017.
This is a major accomplishment and a clear sign that the U.S. refugee program is on the road to recovery. That said, to meet the refugee ceiling of 125,000 refugees in FY 2024, the U.S. would need to resettle 10,416 refugees every month for twelve consecutive months.
Biden Administration Expands TPS for Cameroon
On October 6, the Biden administration announced it was extending and redesignating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Cameroon, giving around 2,090 current beneficiaries the opportunity to keep their immigration relief while expanding potential eligibility to thousands more.
Cameroonians who have resided in the U.S. since October 5 may now qualify, allowing as many as 7,900 new applicants to access deportation protections and work authorization.
Ongoing armed conflict that “has resulted in killings, kidnappings, displacement, and destruction of civilian infrastructure” — as well as other dire circumstances — has made it so that Cameroonians cannot safely return home, DHS said.
Legal
Texas Continues to Defend Controversial Floating Barrier in Rio Grande During Appeal
On October 5, Texas attorneys asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to let the state keep large buoys in the Rio Grande.
The massive floating barriers were designed to block migrants from wading across the international river. But the Biden administration argued that the buoys were illegally deployed without required federal authorization.
Although the circuit court judges did not indicate when or how they would rule, one of them appeared skeptical of Texas’s argument that the buoys were meant to only be temporary — which could work in the federal government’s favor.
Last month, U.S. District Judge David Ezra ruled that the barriers violated federal law and should be removed. But Texas immediately appealed and was granted a stay, allowing the state to keep the buoys in place as the case proceeded.
The 1,000-foot-long barrier was put in place over the summer and has caused tremendous controversy since, in part by stoking tensions between the U.S. and Mexico over national sovereignty.
SCOTUS Declines to Review STEM OPT Challenge
On October 2, 2023, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear the case of WashTech v DHS, in a victory for international students and the U.S.’s science and technology fields. The case stems from a lawsuit filed in 2016 by the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (WashTech) against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), after the department extended the on-the-job practical training (OPT) period that allows STEM international students to remain and work in the U.S. after graduation to 36 months. In its lawsuit, WashTech alleged that DHS did not have the authority to grant international students OPT, nor to extend it for STEM graduates.
Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the legality of the OPT program, specifically as it relates to certain graduating international students.
In support of DHS’s authority to grant and extend OPT, a group of 60 major U.S. companies and organizations filed an amicus brief in June 2021. Since 1947, OPT has allowed international students to gain new professional skills after graduation and share their talents in the American labor market.
The Supreme Court’s decision not to review the case is good news for STEM students, educators, and employers.
State and Local
Mayor Adams Visits Latin America Amid Increased Migrant Arrivals in New York
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is on a four-day trip to Latin America to learn more about what’s driving migration at the U.S.’s southern border.
Adams will travel to the Darién Gap, a treacherous region that connects Central America with South America along the Panama-Colombia border. He also traveled to Mexico City for an international business conference, and he planned to go to Puebla, Mexico, Quito, Ecuador, and Bogotá, Colombia.
The trip follows New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D) recent comments claiming that the border is “too open” and that the asylum seekers arriving in her state have created a “real problem.”
New York City’s inability to properly accommodate those asylum seekers became an even greater issue when — because of a new city policy to more quickly push out migrants from government-provided housing — people were asked to leave their shelters amid a dangerous rainstorm and flooding.
“They told me I had to get up and get out,” Argenes Cedeño, a 19-year-old from Ecuador, told news outlet The City.
Elsewhere in the U.S., Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) described the migrant situation in Illinois as “untenable.” In a three-page letter to President Joe Biden, Pritzker wrote, “the welcome and aid Illinois has been providing to these asylum seekers has not been matched with support by the federal government.” He added that “there is much more that can and must be done on a federal level to address a national humanitarian crisis that is currently being shouldered by state and local governments without support.”
BILLS INTRODUCED AND CONSIDERED
It can be challenging to keep up with the constant barrage of proposed legislation in Congress. So, every week, we round up new bills. This list includes federal legislative proposals that have recently been introduced and that are relevant to immigration policy.
Please follow this link to find new relevant bills, as well as proposed legislation from past weeks.
LEGISLATIVE FLOOR CALENDAR
The U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives are expected not to be in session Monday, October 9 through Friday, October 13, 2023.
UPCOMING HEARINGS AND MARKUPS
Here, we round up congressional hearings and markups happening in the field or in Washington.
There are no relevant hearings or markups announced yet for the week of Oct. 9, 2023.
GOVERNMENT REPORTS
Reports by bodies such as the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the Congressional Research Service, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General provide invaluable information on immigration policy and practice. Here, we give brief summaries of new immigration-related reports, with links to the resources themselves in case you want to learn more.
DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG); CBP Accounted for Its Firearms but Did Not Always Account for Ammunition or Monitor Storage Facilities; Published September 27, 2023
This report documents shortcomings with U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) firearm and ammunition storage, control, and accountability practices. “Without improved controls and oversight of firearms and ammunition,” the report finds, “these sensitive assets could be lost, stolen, or misappropriated, which could impair CBP’s mission and pose a public safety risk.”
DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG); Results of Unannounced Inspections of CBP Holding Facilities in the Laredo Area; Published September 28, 2023
This report covers the results of unannounced visits to four U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities around Laredo in early 2023. Inspectors found that the facilities “generally met National Standards on Transport, Escort, Detention, and Search standards for cleanliness, food and beverages, supplies and hygiene items, bedding, and medical care.” However, they raised concerns around “instances of high time in custody in some Border Patrol holding facilities,” and they noted issues with accurately tracking people’s personal property.
DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG); CBP, ICE, and Secret Service Did Not Adhere to Privacy Policies or Develop Sufficient Policies Before Procuring and Using Commercial Telemetry Data; Published September 28, 2023 (REDACTED)
This report concludes that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) immigration enforcement agencies – “did not adhere to Department privacy policies or develop sufficient policies before procuring and using commercial telemetry data.”
U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO); Federal Contracting: Agencies Can Better Monitor E-Verify Compliance; Published October 3, 2023
This report uncovers inconsistencies in how government agencies are monitoring whether contractors comply with E-Verify requirements. It also identifies issues with the process for disqualifying contractors from government contracts.
SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM RESOURCES
The Forum is constantly publishing new policy-focused resources that engage with some of the most topical issues around immigration today. Here are a few that are particularly relevant this week:
Fact Sheet: Temporary Protected Status (TPS)
This fact sheet explores Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which gives beneficiaries access to deportation protections and work authorization. The resource was updated on October 3 with recent developments.
The Reasons Behind the Increased Migration from Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua
This paper explores the reasons behind the increased migration from Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. While irregular migration from these three countries ruled by autocratic governments is not new, the situation has worsened in recent years. Commonalities include domestic political crises, weakening economies, Covid-19, natural disasters, and strict U.S.-led economic sanctions. Facing precarious conditions and the threat of political persecution, a growing number of people from these nations have opted to seek safety in the United States.
Explainer: U.S. District Court Judge Hanen Finds New DACA Rule Unlawful
This explainer details the September 13 decision on DACA holding that the program is unlawful. It also explores the decision’s implications for current DACA recipients and other Dreamers, discusses potential solutions, and provides a timeline for the court challenge around DACA.
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*This Bulletin is not intended to be comprehensive. Please contact Alexandra Villarreal, Policy and Advocacy Associate at the National Immigration Forum, with comments and suggestions of additional items to be included. Alexandra can be reached at avillarreal@immigrationforum.org. Thank you.