Immigration and Immigrant Rights
News that first lady Melania Trump's parents have obtained green cards raises questions about whether their legal permanent residency here benefitted from the very set of immigration laws that President Trump wants to eliminate. Lisa Desjardins talks with John C. Yang of Asian Americans Advancing Justice and Art Arthur from the Center for Immigration Studies about family-based immigration.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Feb. 23, 2018) — U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) made changes to its mission statement yesterday, taking out the phrases “secures America’s promise as a nation of immigrants” and “promoting an awareness and understanding of citizenship,” and adding the words “protecting Americans, securing the homeland.”
For years, activists have urged lawmakers to provide a path to citizenship for so-called “Dreamers,” immigrants brought to the United States illegally as minors. They’ve staged sit-ins, protested at the steps of the Capitol, and organized rallies across the country. But the Trump administration’s hardline stance has required advocate groups to go further and consider how much they’re willing to concede to protect young undocumented immigrants—potentially at the expense of other immigrant groups.
Dreamers looking for help from President Donald Trump’s administration have to keep waiting.
Last week, Trump told Republican senators not to include a solution for Dreamers in their end-of-year spending bill package. Trump’s decree could lead to an eventual resolution of immigration policy or a government shutdown.
(New York) – Human Rights Watch has joined a coalition of over 50 human rights and other civil society organizations in opposing Immigration & Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) proposed new Extreme Vetting Initiative. The Extreme Vetting Initiative is ICE’s proposal to monitor much of the internet, including social media, to automatically flag people for deportation or visa denial based on broad, ambiguous criteria. The program will not only be ineffective due to technical limitations, but it risks hiding politicized, discriminatory decisions behind a veneer of objectivity.
Washington, D.C. – As more details become available about the meeting between the White House and Congressional leaders on Thursday, civil rights organizations are calling attention to the White House’s efforts to get Congress to eliminate the family immigration system and diversity lottery in exchange for passage of legislation for more than a million immigrant youth whose lives hang in the balance since the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was terminated by the Trump administration on September 5th.
New Year Continues with More Anti-Immigration Moves from The White House
Atlanta, GA, January 8, 2018 - The Trump administration announced its decision to terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Salvadorans in eighteen months.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice, an affiliation of five Asian American civil rights organizations, released the following statement:
Asian Americans Advancing Justice deeply saddened by Senate failure to defend undocumented youth
Washington, DC — January 22, 2018 — Today, the Senate voted unanimously to reopen the government through February 8 without a solution for the 800,000 DACA recipients. Their refusal to resolve the DACA crisis that the Trump administration created ignores the will of the American people, 87 percent of whom are in favor of providing a pathway to citizenship for our immigrant youth.