In a welcome bipartisan moment, Democratic Senator Richard Durbin and his Republican colleague Lindsey Graham introduced a revamped version of the Dream Act, a long-stalled proposal to grant legal status to young immigrants brought here as children. Like earlier versions, the Dream Act’s latest iteration would not help youth who have committed a variety of crimes. Though a White House official said that the president is unlikely to support it, immigrants’ rights groups applauded Durbin and Graham and launched campaigns to pressure more legislators to follow suit. A day later, news broke that [...]
Dream Act of 2017 crime bars
With much fanfare, Senators Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) and Linsey Graham (R-South Carolina) introduced a revamped version of the Dream Act yesterday. White House officials have already said that the president is unlikely to support it. But with a president who shifts positions constantly, it’s worth taking seriously the prospect that the Dream Act of 2017, S. 1615, moves forward. As with the earlier version of the Dream Act that came a handful of votes away from landing on President Obama’s desk and with DACA, the Dream Act of 2017 would exclude people who have encountered the criminal [...]
The Demonization of “Criminal Aliens”
By Beth Caldwell In the context of the current presidential debate, the hate that invoking the term “criminal alien” evokes for a large segment of the U.S. population is tangible. In his immigration speech in Arizona, Donald Trump repeated the term “criminal alien” over and over again. Mike Pence followed suit in the October 4 vice presidential debate, using the term three times in a relatively brief response to a question about immigration policy. But the Trump campaign is not alone in invoking the “criminal alien” term. President Obama too has framed his immigration policies using this [...]
ACHIEVE Act would bar most youth with criminal history
It’s unlikely that the ACHIEVE Act, the immigration reform proposal introduced by a handful of Republican senators this week, will become more than a blip in the long history of immigration law reform debates, but it’s clear that it reflects a well-trodden tradition of excluding people who have encountered the criminal justice system from receiving immigration benefits. The proposal’s drafters seem to have gone out of their way to exclude almost anyone convicted of a crime from receiving one of the W-1 non-immigrant visas the act would create. Despite this obvious intention, a close reading of [...]
Update on deferred action crime bars
In June I wrote about the crime-based bars to deferred action under the Obama Administration’s much-discussed policy initiative for young people lacking authorization to be in the United States. Since then the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, the Department of Homeland Security unit charged with administering the policy initiative, has released more specific guidance on the vaguely defined bars. Otherwise eligible applicants will ordinarily be denied if they have been convicted of a felony, “significant misdemeanor,” or three or more non-significant misdemeanors. According to [...]
Crime provisions of deferred action policy bar most people convicted of a crime
Last week’s momentous announcement by President Obama that his administration would grant deferred action to some undocumented individuals who might otherwise be eligible for DREAM Act relief if ever it passes came with the unsurprising caveat that most people who have a criminal history are not eligible. Of the 1.4 million people that the Pew Hispanic Center estimates may benefit from last week's policy initiative, some will undoubtedly be ineligible because of a past criminal altercation. Initial media reports painted the crime-based bar in broad strokes, however, which it makes it [...]