The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported that in the 100 days subsequent to the signing of President Donald Trump’s Executive Orders regarding immigration enforcement priorities, the ICE “has arrested more than 41,000 individuals who are known or suspected of being in the country illegally.” Between January 22, 2017, and April 29, 2017, the ICE reported that it administratively arrested 41,318 individuals on civil immigration charges. This represents a 37.6 percent increase from January 24, 2016 to April 30, 2016, when the ICE arrested 30,028 individuals on civil immigration charges.
On May 9, 2017, the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published new border apprehension statistics along the Southwest border for April of 2017. The CBP statistics indicate that there were fewer illegal border crossings in April 2017 than there have been in a single month for several decades. In this post, we will review the new statistics.
On May 8, 2017, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) announced that it swore in seven new immigration judges. The ceremony was held on May 5, 2017. The seven new immigration judges were the first appointed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
On May 8, 2017, Alan Gomez of USA Today reported that refugee admissions have “dropped sharply” in March and April. According to the report, the United States admitted 2,070 refugees in March, which represented the lowest total since 2013, and 3,316 refugees in April, which was the second lowest total since 2013.
On May 4, 2017, the United States Department of State (DOS) published a notice in the Federal Register (FR) titled “Notice of Information Collection Under OMB Emergency Review: Supplemental Questions for Visa Applicants.” In the Notice, the DOS submitted an information collection request for a limited subset of consular processing cases to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) seeking approval in accordance with the emergency review procedures of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. The FR Notice is open for public comment until May 18, 2017. If the OBM grants emergency approval by May 18, 2017, such emergency approval will only be valid for 180 days. In this post, we will examine the request and what it may mean if OMB grants emergency approval.
On May 5, 2017, President Donald Trump signed legislation to fund the federal government through September 30, 2017. The legislation extends key immigration programs.
On May 3, 2017, the Pew Research Center released a highly interesting report titled “Key findings about U.S. immigrants.” The study contains numerous statistics and charts, and is well worth reading in full. In this post, I will examine a small selection of the statistics that are generally not readily found in official government reports.
On May 2, 2017, Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly announced the appointment of Julie Kirchner as the CIS Ombudsman. The DHS press release explains that Kirchner until recently was an advisor to the Acting Commissioner of the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Kevin McAleenan. Kirchner is an attorney who had previously served as the executive director of the Federation for Immigration Reform.
On May 4, 2017, the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) announced that it will temporarily close its Las Vegas Immigration Court at noon on May 10, 2017, in order to prepare for relocating the Court. The Las Vegas Immigration Court will recommence hearings at its new location on May 16, 2017.
On May 2, 2017, the United States House of Representatives passed the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2017 on a mostly party-line vote of 229-19]. The legislation, if ultimately signed into law, would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to allow private-sector employers to give their employees the option to opt for compensatory time off in lieu of payments for working overtime where overtime compensation rules would otherwise apply. Please note that the proposed legislation is not immigration-related, and it makes no distinctions between similarly situated citizen and non-citizen employees. In this post, I will analyze the legislation and offer my thoughts on its prospects for becoming law.
