Thread: Obama to change immigration waiver rule

smdailyjournal.com
By Luis Alonso Lugo and Amy Taxin
The Associated Press
January 07, 2012, 05:00 AM


WASHINGTON — The Obama administration wants to more quickly reunite Americans with their illegal immigrant spouses and children in a move long sought by advocates but panned by Republicans as a way to push unpopular policies around Congress.

Currently, many illegal immigrants must leave the country before they can ask the federal government to waive a three- to 10-year ban on legally coming back to the U.S. The length of the ban depends on how long they have lived in the U.S. without permission.

On Friday, the Obama administration proposed changing the rule to let children and spouses ask the government to decide on the waiver request before they head to their home country to seek a visa to return here legally.

The illegal immigrants would still have to go abroad to finish the visa process, but getting a provisional waiver approved in advance would reduce the time they are out of the country from months to days or weeks, said Alejandro Mayorkas, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The purpose is “to minimize the extent to which bureaucratic delays separate Americans from their families for long periods of time,” Mayorkas told reporters.

It currently takes about six months for the government to issue a waiver, Mayorkas said.

The waiver shift is the latest move by President Barack Obama to make changes to immigration policy without congressional action. Congressional Republicans repeatedly have criticized the administration for policy changes they describe as providing “backdoor amnesty” to illegal immigrants.

The proposal also comes as Obama gears up for a re-election contest in which the support of Hispanic voters could prove a determining factor in a number of states. The administration hopes to change the rule later this year after taking public comments.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, on Friday accused the president of putting the interests of illegal immigrants ahead of those of Americans.

“It seems President Obama plays by his own rules to push unpopular policies on the American people,” the House Judiciary Committee chair said in a statement.

Immigrants who do not have criminal records and who have only violated immigration laws can win a waiver if they can prove their absence would cause an extreme hardship for their American spouse or parent. The government received about 23,000 hardship applications in 2011 and more than 70 percent were approved.

About 75 percent of the applications were filed by Mexicans, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Immigrant advocates have long complained about the current system, which can split up families for months or years. And since there’s no guarantee a person will win a waiver to return, many immigrant families refuse to take the risk of going abroad to apply for one.

Laura Barajas, a 42-year-old stay-at-home mom in Orange County, Calif., is due to travel to Ciudad Juarez in two weeks to try to get her papers. She and her U.S. citizen husband are trying to stay positive, but she is afraid to leave him and their two young children behind.

“I don’t want to be separated for a long time from my children,” said Barajas, who came to the U.S. illegally to find work, then met her future husband and stayed. “I’m not going to risk taking them to a place that I don’t even know after 18 years.”

Pro-immigration activists and lawyers embraced the change, saying it would keep families together and encourage more people now in the United States illegally to emerge from the shadows and apply for visas. Some said it could even save lives.

Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., recalled the case of Tania Nava Palacios, who went to Ciudad Juarez — a hotbed for drug-fueled violence — with her American husband and son in pursuit of a waiver. Drug cartel members killed her husband last year, his office said in a statement.

Kelly Alfaro, of Washington state, said her husband, Guillermo, waited in Mexico for eight months last year after he had his visa interview in Ciudad Juarez.

“I was terrified for his safety because I know how dangerous it is there and I had no way of knowing how long he would have to stay in Mexico,” she said.

Democratic lawmakers welcomed the Obama administration’s move to change the immigration system by rulemaking after efforts at a legislative overhaul failed.

“Has it taken a while? Yes. Is it happening? Yes,” said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who has encouraged such changes. “Am I looking forward to telling people to vote for him? Absolutely.”

Immigration has become a difficult issue for Obama ahead of the November election. As a presidential candidate, he pledged to change what many consider to be a broken immigration system.

To that end, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced plans last year to review some 300,000 pending deportation cases in an effort to target criminal illegal immigrants, repeat immigration law violators and those who pose a national security or public safety threat.

Napolitano said the DHS would delay indefinitely the cases of many illegal immigrants who have no criminal record and those who have been arrested for only minor traffic violations or other misdemeanors. A pilot program is under way to begin reviewing the case.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton also issued a memo in June outlining how immigration authorities could use discretion in deciding which illegal immigrants to arrest and put into deportation proceedings.
Congressional Republicans have decried the policy changes, arguing that the Obama administration is circumventing Congress.

Several attempts at an immigration law overhaul have failed in recent years, including the so-called DREAM Act, which would have allowed for some young illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to earn legal status if they went to college or joined the military.
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Taxin reported from Santa Ana, Calif. Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Alicia Caldwell in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

http://www.smdailyjournal.com/articl...75&title=Obama

Qualifying Illegal Immigrants Could Remain In U.S. While They Apply For Waiver

By Kiran KhalidCNN
POSTED: 9:38 pm CST January 6, 2012
UPDATED: 6:23 am CST January 7, 2012

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The administration of President Barack Obama proposed Friday a change to immigration rules meant to cut the time undocumented spouses and children of U.S. citizens are separated from their families while they seek legal status.

Most immigrants living in the United States illegally who marry U.S. citizens or are children of U.S. citizens are eligible for green cards, which allow them to live and work in the country permanently. Under current law, however, they must apply for visas from their home countries while being barred re-entry for three to 10 years, depending how long they lived in the United States without documentation.

Families affected by this Catch-22 can petition the government to allow them back into the United States before the time period has elapsed by asking for a waiver and proving that prolonged separation would cause a U.S. citizen to suffer extreme hardship.

Under the proposed rule change, qualifying illegal immigrants could remain in the United States while they apply for that waiver and as the government decides whether to grant it. Immigrants who obtain the waiver would still be required to leave the United States to apply for a visa, but would be all but guaranteed the possibility of a quick return.

The new rule could reduce separations from years to weeks or months and would represent a huge step forward in streamlining the process of obtaining waivers for undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters.

Last year, USCIS received some 23,000 waiver applications. Mayorka said that number would have been higher were it not for the current policy, which can result in indefinite and prolonged separations.

"They're unwilling to risk the extreme hardship to a U.S. citizen relative by virtue of lengthy separations," he said. "We may well not see waiver applications from people who would otherwise qualify."

Mayorka stressed that the standards used to establish eligibility for a hardship waiver will not change.

But, according to Ira Mehlman, with the Federation of American Immigration Reform, which seeks to reduce the number of immigrants, that doesn't make the proposal more acceptable.

"The bar re-entry rule was established as a deterrent to people violating immigration law -- that coming illegally could result in long-term denial back to the U.S. ," Mehlman told CNN after the proposed rule was announced. "The administration is undermining this important deterrent."

Supporters of the rule applauded the administration's effort to cut red tape and reunite families.

"This evens the playing field," said David Leopold, former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "I think it is going to encourage people who are undocumented to come out."

The proposed change is open for public comment.

Read more: http://www.wdsu.com/politics/3015542...#ixzz1imZ9TiB9

bostonglobe.com
By Julia Preston
New York Times
January 07, 2012

Obama administration officials announced yesterday that they will propose a fix to a notorious snag in immigration law that will spare hundreds of thousands of US citizens from prolonged separations from immigrant spouses and children.

The change that immigration officials are offering would benefit US citizens who are married to or have children who are illegal immigrants. It would correct a bureaucratic catch-22 that those Americans now confront when their spouses or children apply to become legal permanent residents.

Although the tweak that officials of the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services are proposing appears small, immigration lawyers and advocates for immigrants say it will make a great difference for countless Americans. Thousands will no longer be separated from loved ones, they said, and the change could encourage Americans to come forward to apply to bring illegal immigrant family members into the legal system.

Illegal immigrants who are married to or are children of US citizens are generally allowed under the law to become legal residents with a visa known as a green card. But the law requires most immigrants who are here illegally to return to their home countries in order to receive their legal visas. The catch is that once the immigrants leave the United States, they are automatically barred from returning to this country for at least three years, and often for a decade, even if they are fully eligible to become legal residents.

The immigration agency can provide a waiver from those tough measures if the immigrants can show that their absence would cause “extreme hardship’’ to a US citizen. But until now, obtaining the waiver was almost as hard and time-consuming as obtaining a green card.

It is one of many measures taken recently that can bypass Congress.

Immigrants had to leave the United States and return to their countries of birth to wait for at least three months and sometimes much longer while the waiver was approved. And sometimes the waivers were not approved, and the immigrants were permanently stranded, separated from their US families.

The journey toward the green card to which they were entitled was so fraught with risks for the illegal immigrants that many families simply decided to live in hiding and not apply.

Now, Citizenship and Immigration Services proposes to allow the immigrants to obtain a provisional waiver in the United States, before they leave for their countries to pick up their visas. Having the waiver in hand will allow them to depart knowing that they will almost certainly be able to return, officials said. The agency is also seeking to streamline the process to cut down the wait times for visas to a few weeks at most.

“The goal is to substantially reduce the time that the US citizen is separated from the spouse or child when that separation would yield an extreme hardship,’’ said Alejandro Mayorkas, the director of the immigration agency.

Yesterday, the agency was to publish a formal notice in the Federal Register that it is preparing a new regulation governing the waivers. But agency officials, speaking on condition of anonymity Thursday, stressed that this was only the beginning of a long regulatory process that they hoped to complete by issuing a new rule before the end of this year.

The change on how and where these waivers are issued is one example of a number of measures the Obama administration has taken in recent months that do not require the approval of Congress. The steps are designed to ease the burdens on US and immigrant families stemming from dysfunctional or outmoded immigration statutes.

White House officials are resigned to there most likely being no progress before the November elections on immigration legislation that President Obama supports that would give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants. They have been looking for ways to help immigrant communities without going through the partisan dissension in Congress.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nati...AJK/story.html

pittsburghlive.com
By Bloomberg News
Saturday, January 7, 2012

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration proposed changing federal rules to let some undocumented immigrants stay in the United States while seeking legal status, a move expected to be welcomed by Hispanics, a key voting bloc in the 2012 election.

The proposal is aimed at spouses and children of U.S. citizens who are eligible for a visa. The proposed change would let them remain in the country while applying for a green card, according to a statement by Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The law now calls for immigrants who have been in the country illegally for 180 days or more to leave the United States to apply for legal residence, a process that can last as long as 10 years. Because of the potentially long separation from their families, immigrants who are eligible don't apply for legal status, according to the American Immigration Council, a Washington-based pro-immigration group.

Congressional Republicans have stymied President Obama's drive to overhaul immigration laws to let temporary foreign workers enter the United States and to help illegal immigrants on a path toward citizenship. The proposed change does not need congressional approval.

It would "provide a more predictable and transparent process and improved processing times," according to the immigration agency's statement.

Hispanics contributed to Obama's margin of victory in the 2008 presidential election. Exit polls on Election Day showed 67 percent of Hispanic voters supported him compared with 31 percent voting for Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee.

That support helped Obama carry states with large Hispanic populations, including Florida, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. The states are among the ones likely to be the most competitive in this year's presidential race.

The illegal immigration issue has sparked disputes in the race among Republicans vying to be Obama's opponent.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia has said he supports a path to legality for those with "deep ties" to their communities. In a Dec. 15 debate, he gave as an example undocumented immigrants who have been in the United States for 25 years.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, in a 2006 Bloomberg interview as he geared up for a 2008 presidential run, took a similar position as Gingrich's, saying some illegal immigrants should be allowed to remain and get legal status. He has blasted Gingrich's stance during this year's campaign.

Read more: Some immigrants could stay while seeking legal status in Obama proposal - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pitt...#ixzz1imk939jL

It's simple, to get the Hispanic vote you have to be willing to let them break the law, by pass the law, and otherwise let them in without having to wait like other people who emigrate from their countries.

The Hispanic population feel it is their right to come in to the country regardless of what the law says; and the democrats have no problem giving the Hispanic people what they want.

The Republicans can't go there, at least not the republicans with any principles.

It's always been this way, democrats have no principles - they corrupt the system and manage to get rewarded for their efforts. The time will come when the folks coming in will supplant them, but by that time they will have also supplanted the rest of us. Social equality and justice will demand it.

The nation will become a mirror image of the places the immigrants came from. No day will pass when you don't have to pay a bribe to get things done or to keep things from being done to you.

There are a lot of people that embrace that way of living, but for most Americans it will be culture shock the likes of which will kill any joy or happiness you ever thought of having

bdnews24.com
Sat, Jan 7th, 2012 6:28 pm BdST

Washington, Jan 7 (bdnews24.com/reuters) – The US government is planning to reduce the time that US citizens are separated from spouses and children who have been in the country illegally and who are forced to leave for as long as 10 years while their visa requests are processed.

"The purpose of the new process is to reduce the time that US families remain separated while their relative proceeds through the immigrant visa process," US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said in its announcement on Friday.

The changes will not take effect for months. First, the government needs to propose a detailed rule and then it will take public comments, the USCIS said.

The move drew immediate praise from Hispanic groups, a key constituency for president Barack Obama in the 2012 election year.



Democrats and Republicans have said Hispanic voters could decide the 2012 election. Latino groups have been disappointed in Obama's lack of progress on immigration reform and have disapproved of a stepped-up deportation program.

The largest Hispanic civil rights group in the United States called the current system "unconscionable" and praised the plan.

"This sensible and compassionate proposal helps bring much-needed sanity to an often senseless process," said Janet Murguía, president of National Council of La Raza.

A group that works with Arab immigrants said the changes would help thousands of families who are kept apart because of the current process.

"The modifications ... are an important and humane first step toward alleviating that pain and suffering," said Nadia Tonova, director for the National Network for Arab American Communities.

bdnews24.com/ost/1805h

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