Also, @doug_rand says USCIS needs to use its authority to extend premium processing to other forms, raising revenue to hire adjudicators and reduce the backlog for everyone.
Here's one of my new suggestions that I submitted as part of our comments. @gsiskind helped me with the implications for doctors. I published it as a blog post today. cato.org/blog/uscis-dol…
@angelopaparelli and co's comments include surveys of its clients on many issues. Very interesting! I love: "The inability for USCIS to authorize auto-extensions of Employment Authorization Documents (EAD) where agency processing delays result in work authorization gaps "
There are so many good ideas here! Masterful!
I plan on writing about many of these ideas on the coming days.
@BrentRenison suggests USCIS retain the priority date for a derivative child who has aged out of EB eligibility but then enters the FB line. He notes SCOTUS has already affirmed USCIS's authority to go through with this change in 2014. Why did USCIS fail to do it under Obama?
@BrentRenison elaborates on the need for automatic EAD extensions
@BrentRenison with another great suggestion! Why are EADs valid for such a short period? It makes no sense!
More from @BrentRenison. How does a rule like this persist for so long? It's like the only lights in the USCIS building are at the adjudicators' desks, and so no one can see even a tiny big of the big picture
More from @BrentRenison. I'm getting enraged reading this. This agency is supposed to be the "pro-immigrant" immigration agency but it's actually an awful Kafka-esque bureaucratic disaster
More from @BrentRenison. If it takes more than 6 months to adjudicate something, shouldn't the timeline for filing *automatically adjust* to a period much earlier than that?
Moving onto @AILANational's comment. You really get the sense that USCIS *desperately* needed to this feedback. Its new leadership was never going to discover most of this on their own when so much has gone into making this dysfunctional system
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat... YOU ARE AN IMMIGRATION AGENCY!
So much basic, basic, basic, mind-numbingly basic stuff here
USCIS: "We're going to make things easier for you! Oh but we aren't going to talk to anyone before we make things easier... We're just going to wing it! Don't you love us?"
When was the last time anyone really cared about a functioning legal immigration system? Abraham Lincoln?
I just realized that AILA's comment is 20 pages. I'm only 4 pages in. Of course, Cato's comment is 40 pages, but AILA's has probably 5 times as many suggestions. Ah! This one cuts me deep. Unreliable and unhelpful data are the worst!
Last in, first out is turning the entire asylum application process into a sham. USCIS needs to fix this! 15 year wait for processing! Insanity!
It's crazy to me that USCIS has adjudications to get to its adjudications which are only caused by failure to adjudicate still other forms!
Here's another no-one-really-cares-about-you note from USCIS
Apparently this isn't happening. My brain hurts. Who has run this agency for the last 2 decades? Not to repeat, but obviously no one has really looked at why this agency is so messed up before.
There are so many Trump policies still around. How is this possible? These are the EASY things to identify?
It certainly seems that at least some people at USCIS do not want people to easily know what the law is.
Every one of these things are enough to impeach the agency for high crimes
More Trump changes that inexplicably persist. USCIS should put into regulations that none of this is discretionary at the officer level so they can't keep easily undoing this.
CBP shouldn't get to make these decisions at all. Who cares if someone's passport is going to expire before the end of their stay? That's their problem, not CBP's. CBP should always approve for whatever the I-797 says.
An intriguing proposal. I wasn't aware that Es weren't already considered "dual intent" by virtue of the fact that they don't have to have a residence abroad that they have "no intention of abandoning" like Hs.
You would really think that Trump would've wanted more competition for @AlexNowrasteh and friends! Why is Biden keeping this?
Here's another one of my new suggestions that I submitted: "U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) should increase the three‐year limit on H-2B and H-2A extensions of status to six years." cato.org/blog/uscis-sho…
I'm hopeful that USCIS will actually do this one (unlike some of my other H-2 suggestions) because it increases the bargaining power of H-2 workers relative to their employers. If employers know that you can't extend, that's a real problem for you! cato.org/blog/uscis-sho…
Wow. Three "comply withs" in a row. USCIS is as lawless as the rest of them.
Interesting. I'd love to hear what the legal arguments are here, but let's recapture as many unused numbers as possible!
Several commenters just submitted our list of ideas to which I added three more for the comments we submitted. cato.org/publications/s…
I was always very confused by how this case turned out, but it's a great suggestion from @the_ILRC. We currently are violating the text of the law to obtain an "equal" result that harms people who are being "equalized". It doesn't make sense to me.
Ugh... there's so many problems. It's one reason why @angelopaparelli and I urged the president and the agency to require leniency in favor of the applicants in the interpretation of all laws and rules. Anything ambiguous should go to the applicant.
@NFAPResearch nails this. DHS should stop inaccurately describing its overstay report as a report on "overstays." Obama started this thing, and then Trump predictably misused it to cancel visas for certain nationalities. USCIS should clearly state that it can't count overstays
Back to @the_ILRC's awesome comments. Trying to banish people for using legal marijuana is an example of how the immigration agencies take part in some of the worst abuses of government power
Please leftists never nationalize all businesses. This is horrific.
How America treats noncitizen crime victims is illustrative of how much it values noncitizens generally.
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The immigration dictatorship just announced a ban on immigration for 12 nationalities with 7 more facing draconian discrimination as well. Horrible policies with no justification
Here are the 19 disfavored nationalities, which have produced many Americans of great character who have benefited our country enormously. In 1965, Congress attempted to rid American immigration law of this rank nonsensically national origins discrimination. It should again.
Trump uses a slight-of-hand saying he's restricting immigration "from" these places, but the proclamation does not restrict immigration "from" these PLACES but by persons who happen to be nationals of these countries. It's important for him to maintain this fiction...
Cato published my review of the ~240 Venezuelans the US government renditioned 2 months ago to Salvador’s notorious prison. We identified FIFTY who came legally, never violated any immigration law, but are imprisoned at the US government’s request and at US taxpayer expense.
When I started researching their methods of an entry, I thought finding 4 such cases would be an unbelievable crime and scandal. In the end, it’s apparent that at least four DOZEN were legal immigrants who came with advanced permission. cato.org/blog/50-venezu…
We identified 2 dozen parolees who entered at ports of entry, another 21 came legally with a CBP One appointment and were immediately detained, 4 refugees who the government determined faced persecution abroad, and one person who entered with a tourist visa.
🚨Your US government has kidnapped this child. Not family separation. Kidnapping. It took a 2-year-old child from her parents, deported the mom to Venezuela, and have imprisoned the dad in a Salvadoran torture prison without charge or trial. Every day, new evil level reached
THEY ARE INVENTING CONVICTIONS. The White House says the father was convicted of prostitution offenses but it's impossible: he was never even inside the US. Criminal checks reveal no such crimes in both the US and Venezuela. The mom isn't even alleged to have convictions
What explains Trump's immigration agenda? It's not about legal immigration. He is the most anti-legal immigrant president ever. He is stripping legal immigrants of their status, arresting them, detaining them and deporting them.... It's also not about...
citizenship or nationality. He wants to strip citizenship and nationality from Americans, and he wants to foreclose citizens' rights to associate with immigrants. He wants to be able to intentionally arrest and deport citizens....
So what's it about? It's about limiting the rights of people in the US to as small a group of people as possible. Why? Because fewer rights mean more power for him to control the economy and society and manipulate people into following his commands.
Recall that Kristi Noem deliberately deported eight WOMEN to a MALE prison in El Salvador. It was only the conscience of Salvadoran officials (reporting to THE DICTATOR) who corrected this monstrous evil. Noem should be immediately impeached and removed from office.
Recall further that Kristi Noem "accidentally" deported a Nicaraguan woman to El Salvador, despite the Salvadorans only agreeing to accept Venezuelans. Again, it was only corrected by "THE DICTATOR." No one cared. No one still cares. They'd do it again in a minute.
39% of the detainees disappeared to the Guantanamo offshore prison were deemed "low threat" by the Trump administration. Some of the individuals being detained at Guantanamo did not cross illegally, legally requesting asylum at a port of entry.
For over 2 weeks, people were being detained with no way to reach a lawyer. It was only yesterday in response to this lawsuit any effort was made to protect their rights. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Again, this is according to the Trump administration's own declarations! They are detaining low-risk offenders at an offshore prison, including people who have never violated any law.