Can someone explain Biden’s migrant policy to me?

[Katy]

I don’t want political bickering over this. I’m under the impression that in both the past and current administration we’ve been blatantly in violation of international laws regarding refugees. We desperately need more workers here. Why don’t we give people asylum and the right to work? Is it just money? Do we not have enough employees working for immigration to let them in? 

I’m generally busy with kids and activities. Does anyone have any concise, accurate, and politically neutral sources of information on this? 

[Farrar]

Reporting in the Washington Post and NYT have both been pretty even handed about it. 

My understanding is that the plan is to ease legal restrictions and let more people in, but also crack down on illegal entry. Some elements of the previous administration's migration policy have been left in place.

Many progressives don't agree so this is one area where Democrats are utterly divided. I have my opinions... It's an area of massive frustration to me.

[AnotherNewName]

2 hours ago, Katy said:

Why don’t we give people asylum and the right to work? Is it just money?

The biggest reason is most wishing to enter the country do not meet all the requirements for asylum.  Asylum was never intended as a bypass for those seeking immigration for economic reasons.

Obtaining Asylum in the United States | USCIS

[prairiewindmomma]

Phew. Migration policy is really complex. 

There are a few ways to live or migrate into the US legally:

1. Green card through family sponsorship, employer sponsorship (H1B/highly skilled workers visas)

2. Qualify for a non-immigrant short term visa, like the H2A/agricultural worker visas for 3 years or the H2B (non-ag) and then convert to a green card through sponsorship

3. Apply as a refugee (get referred, get interviewed while living abroad, meet the criteria, fit in under the cap per year of refugees allowed in: https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-and-asylum/refugees. The cap is one that can be determined by the president ("in consultation with Congress"), and one of the things Biden did this year was raise the cap through a presidential determination: https://www.state.gov/the-presidential-determination-on-refugee-admissions-for-fiscal-year-2023/

4. Apply for asylum.  This is where 90% of kerfuffles occur. Poverty/lack of economic opportunities, a desire to reunite with family, seeking a safe place to live after a natural disaster....none of those things qualify you for asylum. You can read more on what does qualify you here: https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-and-asylum/asylum

Then there are some odds and ends which also might get you in/keep you in:

5. Statelessness (the UN has declared that everybody has a right to be from somewhere)----this is a very limited and niche way to get a determination as to whether or not you are a US citizen

6. a designation of temporary protected status (ie--it's not safe for you to go back--like Yemen right now). These are listed by country and timeframe. One of the things the Biden administration has done is rescind (take back) some of the previous decisions the Trump administration made ending temporary protected status for some countries. There's no way to really TLDR this, but you can start reading here: https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/temporary-protected-status   I think I kind of lump T visas and U visas here in my mind also--these visas are for people who are victims of certain crimes such as trafficking, domestic violence, etc.    DACA also kind of fits in here in my mind also.  DACA is fundamentally a suspension of removal action (ie--we're not going to jail and deport you) but it doesn't really grant an immigrant status either. 

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I'm afraid of losing this post because the internet has gotten glitchy here, so I'm going to post this and come back for a round 2.

 

 

[prairiewindmomma]

Ok, round 2 (and again, this is summarizing a lot of really technical stuff that really doesn't easily niche into a TLDR):

When covid hit, Title 42 was enacted, which among many other things changed the way expulsions were handled. If you were deported during title 42, no administrative or criminal consequences happened to you. You weren't penalized. But, the reason you weren't penalized was because they did not allow you to apply for asylum. They would summarily process you and then expel you. (Most of this happened at the border with Mexico.)  One of the complaints about Title 42 was this whole violation of the international right to claim asylum.  You used the word "refugee" up above, but I think you technically meant asylum. Those are different things entirely, legally.

When Title 42 ended, we went back to Title 8 provisions. Title 8 deportations ban you from legally entering the US for five years. The expiration of Title 42 also meant that you must once again be on US soil to be processed under title 8, instead of being able to apply from abroad. 

With the expiration of 42, you can once again claim under Title 8 a right for asylum. You are granted a quick "credible fear" interview.  (Most people do not pass this interview, and are immediately turned away.)  The Biden twist on this is a new policy which states that you must claim asylum in the first country you pass into. You can not pass through multiple countries and then show up on the US's door and claim asylum. If you show up on our doorstep and don't meet the criteria, then you get deported and you get hit with a five year ban. Exceptions to this general policy: unaccompanied minors, people who are from certain countries, some applications through the CPB One app, some sponsorships....  This is covered generally here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/01/05/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-new-border-enforcement-actions/  With re: to the people who are from certain countries, Biden has opened some processing centers in Colombia and Guatemala, and has a family unification plan in conjunction with Spain and Mexico and Canada under the Los Angeles declaration. You can read about it here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/06/10/fact-sheet-the-los-angeles-declaration-on-migration-and-protection-u-s-government-and-foreign-partner-deliverables/

There is also an increased focus this year (funding dollar = manpower wise) on trying to shut down trafficking. This has meant that to some degree they have taken manpower away from enforcement actions on people already here, but I haven't seen enough on this point to really be able to comment on it. There have been some cases on this, notably this one: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-58_i425.pdf where the US SC granted cert to hear the issue, but found that TX and LA didn't have standing to challenge the guidelines.

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I'm going to go on to a part 3, which will just be my opinion on why we do or don't do some things.

 

 

[prairiewindmomma]

If you look back at the structures of immigration, you kind of see some of the inherent limitations that are there:

1. family sponsorship---you have to have family here

2. H1B visas--capped in number each year, currently at 65K people a year, is granted for 3 years, can be extended to 6, and then you have to convert status

3. non-immigrant short term visas: don't convert to immigration status

4. refugees: criteria must be met, plus a cap

5. asylum: criteria must be met, bureaucratic backlog currently

6. statelessness: rare circumstance

7. non-enforcement status: doesn't lead to citizenship

So, the system as it is currently designed is never going to let in the number of people that we really kind of need in some areas. And, there are major flaws to that system, right. If people bypass legal migration, then we are missing out on all of their tax revenue.  And, the workers are often underpaid and don't have access to safe working conditions.

I agree with you, Katy, that demographically we need a lot of young capable workers, especially in labor intensive jobs. 

IMO, what we should do is drastically increase the number of work permits under the H-2B system. Currently it's capped at 66,000 people/year, and it has some clunky provisions. https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/h-2b-temporary-non-agricultural-workers I think there should also be some provision to allow H2B worker families (on H4 status) to be able to get legal jobs if they choose to work. They should pay taxes, be able to access medical insurance, and have some sort of reassurance that they can live here, buy a house here, be educated here and generally just settle in by streamlining the Green Card process and making it less expensive and less time consuming to get one.  Currently, green cards are limited to 140,000 applications a year, and those applications are tiered.  

Heck, even just clearing the backlogs of applications and recapturing unused visas to open up those slots to others would really help. They are trying to improve the bureaucratic aspect of things, including green card to naturalization application processing, but it's just a mess.

 

[Amira]

Immigration is different from asylum, and both are different from refugee arrivals.  They each have different laws governing them, and each applies to different people. International law has a greater effect on refugee and asylum law, and the US violates asylum law most egregiously.  

A lot of attention is focused on asylum seekers, but they make up a rather small number of non-US citizens who are granted the right to live permanently in the US. “Between FY 2012 and 2021, nearly 280,100 people were granted asylum. Chinese were by far the largest group, accounting for 23 percent of all asylum grants during the decade.” As a comparison, just under 500,000 immigrant visas of all types were issued in 2022 alone. Again, to be clear, immigrant visas and asylum seeking are completely different from each other, but this comparison shows how few people are granted asylum each year - only about 30,000 on average compared to 500,000 who receive immigrant visas. There are also well over a million asylum applications pending, though, because the asylum system is understaffed.  People can wait for years for their case to be decided, and they are very often denied asylum.

According to international and US law, asylum seeking is very narrowly defined and can’t (and I would say shouldn’t, because it’s not an immigration route, but a method to protect people who face serious discrimination at home) be used to solve the serious deficiencies in US immigration law.  But as long as the US views any foreign national as a potential immigrant, and as long as many Americans see the US as a place of scarce resources that must be protected rather than shared, it’ll be very difficult to make significant changes in our immigration law.