This Week in Immigration - American Immigration Council

This past week, the Council, alongside the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), had the privilege to present the report the organizations co-authored on U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) deployment during protests demanding racial justice after the murder of George Floyd at the Sixth World Conference on Remedies to Racial and Social Inequality. The […]

The post Council and BAJI Highlight Their Efforts on Government Transparency to Audience in South Africa appeared first on Immigration Impact.

Immigrant entrepreneurs continue to shape our economy and play a critical role in the success and innovation of major corporations. In 2024, this trend is clearer than ever, with 46% of Fortune 500 companies being founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants. This year marks the highest share the American Immigration Council has recorded […]

The post Immigrant Entrepreneurs and the Fortune 500: Powering the US Economy in 2024 appeared first on Immigration Impact.

Written by Raul Pinto, Deputy Legal Director, Transparency at the American Immigration Council and Jennifer Ibañez Whitlock, Supervisory Policy & Practice Counsel, Government Relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association Last month, a federal oversight agency published a report claiming that 32,000 children classified as unaccompanied minors did not show up to their immigration court […]

The post Oversight Agency Says 32,000 Unaccompanied Children Are Missing. But Are They? appeared first on Immigration Impact.

A mere three days after 16 Republican-led states sued the Biden administration over its “Keeping Families Together” parole process, a federal judge in Texas handed the plaintiffs a temporary “administrative stay,” ordering the federal government to stop granting any applications under the new process while the lawsuit proceeds.   The judge’s order, which allows the U.S. […]

The post Judge Grants Texas’ Request to Keep Families Apart, At Least For Now appeared first on Immigration Impact.

What would a second Donald Trump presidency mean for immigrants? It’s often hard to answer these questions using politicians’ own words – you have to parse what they wish to do versus what actions they’re willing to take. But one way to answer the question is to look at what former Trump administration officials see […]

The post What Project 2025 Says About Immigration appeared first on Immigration Impact.

A group of Republican-led states, headed by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, have sued to block a new rule that allows Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients to access health insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It is yet another legal assault on Dreamers, while the fate of DACA itself hangs in the […]

The post Republican-Led States Sue to Block DACA Recipients from Accessing Affordable Health Insurance appeared first on Immigration Impact.

Updated: August 22, 2024 This is an update to our blog first posted on June 18, 2024, when President Biden first announced two policies to help provide streamlined paths to legal status for certain undocumented immigrants. On August 19, 2024, details regarding the two policies described below were posted as a notice in the Federal […]

The post President Biden’s Keeping Families Together Program Has Begun appeared first on Immigration Impact.

Earlier this summer, a federal judge issued a strong rebuke to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s attempt to shut down the faith-based Annunciation House, labeling his actions as “outrageous and intolerable.” Federal Judge Francisco X. Dominguez’s July 2 ruling came as a response to Paxton’s attempts to compel shelters along the Texas-Mexico border to hand […]

The post Texas Attorney General Paxton Continues Fight Against NGOs That Serve Migrants appeared first on Immigration Impact.

By: Devashish Basnet Since their unforgettable debut at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympic Games, the Refugee Olympic team, which represents millions of refugees and forcibly displaced people worldwide, keeps making history. This summer at the 2024 Paris Olympics, the team won its first-ever medal. Cindy Ngamba, a Cameroonian refugee who now lives in the UK, […]

The post The Refugee Olympic Team: Resilience and Hope at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics appeared first on Immigration Impact.

The Biden-Harris administration has taken hundreds of immigration actions since entering office. But one of the administration’s most overlooked reforms is a process to protect immigrant workers while bolstering labor agencies’ ability to hold unscrupulous employers accountable for violations. In January 2023, the administration announced a streamlined process—known colloquially as “DALE” (Deferred Action for Labor […]

The post DHS Strengthens Protections for Immigrant Workers appeared first on Immigration Impact.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) appears to be severely undercounting the number of people it has in immigration detention. A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO)—a congressional oversight agency—published last week found that ICE’s data contained glaring mistakes, leading to a significant undercount of people in immigration detention. The GAO’s report also […]

The post ICE’s Faulty Detention Data Undercounts the Number of People in Its Custody appeared first on Immigration Impact.

Over the last decade, many politicians have called for overhauling the United States’ election systems by mandating strict voter ID for both registering to vote and actual voting. Many have justified this stance by either claiming the U.S. election system is vulnerable to fraud, or that fraud is already a common occurrence. In May, House […]

The post Unpacking Myths About Noncitizen Voting — How Heritage Foundation’s Own Data Proves It’s Not a Problem appeared first on Immigration Impact.

The United States faces a critical imperative: keeping some of the brightest minds in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in the country to secure our workforce advantage in these fields and fuel economic growth and global competitiveness.   The American Immigration Council, along with five other prominent organizations, recently sent a letter to the Student […]

The post Strengthening America’s Workforce of Immigrant STEM Workers by Expanding the DHS STEM Designated Degree Program appeared first on Immigration Impact.

Naturalization is viewed by many as the end point of an immigrant’s journey—the finish line—and for good reason. The path to naturalization can take many years and requires immigrants to navigate a complicated, costly process and overcome multiple hurdles. But becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen brings significant benefits to individuals and families by eliminating the […]

The post Houston Celebrates Over 2,200 New Citizens in Historic Naturalization Ceremony appeared first on Immigration Impact.

Written by Andrea Solis Canto, 2024 Legal Intern Allegations of mistreatment of high-skilled Mexican workers have sparked several important class action lawsuits against large automotive and logistics companies located in the United States. These companies are facing legal challenges for labor abuse, fraud, and exploitation through the TN visa program—a program that lacks oversight and […]

The post Lawsuits Reveal Labor Abuses Faced by Some Migrant Workers on TN Visas appeared first on Immigration Impact.

As the country continues to dissect the ramifications from President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race, the attention has quickly shifted toward Vice President Kamala Harris. While she has not been confirmed as the nominee for the Democratic ticket, she has obtained commitments from most of the required delegates, received key […]

The post Kamala Harris Has an Opportunity to Reframe the Immigration Conversation as the Democratic Nominee for President appeared first on Immigration Impact.

Border crossings are at their lowest in four years. Is the Biden administration’s executive action working as intended—or is there another factor at play? Apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border spiked to a record 250,000 in December 2023, but they’ve been falling since then. Beginning in January 2024, a crackdown by Mexico with the goal of […]

The post Why Are Border Crossings at Their Lowest Level in Four Years? appeared first on Immigration Impact.

Some immigrants who have graduated from college in the United States and have a pending job offer will have an easier time receiving a temporary employment-based visa, thanks to recent changes from the Biden administration. This will include Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) beneficiaries and other college-educated noncitizens. The Department of State (DOS) updated […]

The post State Department Streamlines Temporary Visas for College-Educated Noncitizen Workers—But Questions Remain About Its Impact appeared first on Immigration Impact.

Written by Juan Avilez, Policy Associate for State and Local Initiatives and Raul Pinto, Deputy Legal Director  Texas’ SB4 set the tone for the national discourse around immigration enforcement. Since then, certain states have felt emboldened to create their own immigration enforcement regimes, like Iowa and Oklahoma, which enacted equally strict copycat bills. Other states […]

The post Do 287(g) Agreements with ICE Make Communities Safer? appeared first on Immigration Impact.

The Supreme Court handed a momentous victory to supporters of deregulation on June 28 in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, discarding the long-standing doctrine known as Chevron deference. The decision will almost certainly lead to a sea-change in how federal agencies are able to do their work, with huge and likely devastating impacts on the […]

The post Immigrants May Benefit While Others Lose Out From the Supreme Court’s Decision Overruling Chevron appeared first on Immigration Impact.