Another major change to the legal immigration system; the Trump administration wants to eliminate "duration of status" visas for international students, exchange visitors, and international media.
Students would be limited to visas that last 2-4 years, with extensions allowed.
Under DHS's proposal, it seems that international journalists on assignment in the US would be effectively prohibited from remaining for long periods of time.
The proposal would limit their visas to at most 240 days, and require them to file for Extension of Statuses after that.
New restrictions on student visas would also be imposed by the rule, including limiting language training students to a maximum 24-month period of stay, requiring students to leave the U.S. more quickly after their visa expires, and setting a limit on changing educational levels.
Importantly, under the new rule international students would receive automatic six-month extensions of their status once they filed for an extension, which would in times when @USCIS was actually functional ensure that people would get an answer before their status expired.
Here's the full list of changes DHS says the rule would make for international media.
I don't know much about "I" visas, so I don't know how many foreign journalists use them to remain in the US for long periods of time. But these changes seem designed to make that impossible.
Here's another good thread going over some of the more fine details of the rule, from someone with significantly more experience in these types of visas than me.
Importantly, @doug_rand notes that the new proposed rule would effectively impose racist nationality-based limitations on some foreign students, declaring people security threats purely based on the place they were born and the nationality they posses.
Probably the biggest change in the rule would be a ban on student visas longer than 2 years for any person born in, or a citizen of, a country with a student visa overstay rate over 10%—meaning no bachelor/grad degrees.
Rep. Jayapal is correct -- it is not a crime to be undocumented. Here's the Supreme Court saying as much.
Plus, less than 10% of the undocumented population has a removal order, and would only be chargeable if they had willfully disobeyed it, and many don't know they have one.
As for 8 USC 1325, illegal entry applies only to the undocumented population that crossed illegally, meaning visa overstays or people who came via humanitarian parole commit no crime -- and the statute of limitations is 5 years, so most people couldn't even be criminally charged.
Two things can be true at once:
1. It is not a crime to be undocumented, as the Supreme Court itself has noted. 2. A subset of the undocumented population (far less than half) is theoretically criminally chargeable for specific immigration violations.
🧵Today a federal judge is looking into horrific conditions inside ICE holding cells in Chicago, which until January were for stays under 12 hours absent exceptional circumstances.
People are now held for days — and ICE uses the threat of longer stays to get deportation orders.
The excerpts I'm posting are taken from over a dozen sworn declarations submitted in a lawsuit seeking to force ICE to improve conditions. I'll link to the docket at the end of the thread.
One thing comes through clearly in these declarations: the cells are FILTHY.
Multiple immigrants detained at the facility say ICE officer demanded that they sign deportation paperwork, refused to let them talk to lawyers, and threatened them when they wouldn't sign documents in English that they couldn't read.
🚨HUGE moment. ICE leadership is being purged tonight. The old guard, which prioritized targeted enforcement operations aimed at people with criminal records, is being replaced with Border Patrol and Greg Bovino's "Midway Blitz" style.
The first to report on the purge tonight was @Anna_Giaritelli. ICE's leadership is going to be heavily replaced/augmented with Border Patrol leadership.
These are different agencies with different missions and different tactics. It will be chaotic.
@Anna_Giaritelli NBC news reports that the person making all these decisions is not Secretary Noem; it's Corey Lewandowski, who is still a "special government employee" (and by many reports sleeping with Noem and running the agency while she does mostly TV), as well as Gregory Bovino himself.
Hey @DHSGov: if you want me and other nonpartisan experts to trust your numbers, publish the data! The moment you took office you STOPPED publishing monthly data on immigration enforcement.
There hasn't been a single normal ICE arrest data release since inauguration!
I'll also add that if you'd bothered to even read the second post in my thread, I *explicitly acknowledged* that the Trump admin is likely to break records.
That said: do you deny that the 515,000 number includes CBP administrative returns at airports?
🚨This is FALSE. The characterization of this report is MADE UP. The Texas investigation found 2,274 “potential noncitizens” on the voter rolls out of over 18 million (0.01%).
AT NO POINT does the investigation say any of these “potential noncitizens” are “illegal immigrants.”
We know from MANY such audits in the past that people flagged in this situation as “potential noncitizens” usually ARE U.S. citizens, but got flagged b/c of a data error.
For example, last year Alabama claimed to have found 3,251 noncitizens on the voting roll — which was false!
This makes NO SENSE. A 13-year-old was arrested by local police for unknown reasons, and then turned over to ICE, which is detaining him far away from his mother — who is going through immigration court, has an asylum application on file, and is legally authorized to work.
Important context from @TriciaOhio that I'm posting in the interest of fairness. I do not automatically trust it given that she has made multiple inaccurate claims in the past (including even yesterday). IF true, it would at least provide an explanation.
@TriciaOhio To be clear, absolutely none of that information is included in public reporting on this story and the Everett Police Department did not give any statement to the Boston Globe about the initial arrest. Tricia is the the first person to ever give this info.