The Uniform Regulatory Agenda is out and we now have our first OFFICIAL confirmation that the Biden administration is planning to issue its first big asylum rule through an "interim final rule," without going through notice and comment.
I'm going to do a thread on all of the immigration-related new regulations and proposals included in the Spring 2021 Uniform Regulatory Agenda, which previews an administration's plans to create new regulations.
Continuing on the theme of asylum, here is the Biden administration's preview of a *separate* asylum rule, that would go through notice and comment rulemaking, to follow the February 2 executive order that called on DHS and DOJ to strengthen asylum protections by regulation.
The Biden administration will also formally "rescind or substantively revise" two Trump regulations aimed at restricting eligibility for work permits to asylum seekers.
One is already blocked in full and the other has been partially blocked in court.
The Biden administration will also formally rescind three Trump regulations—all currently blocked in court—that would have made it almost impossible for people to seek asylum. This includes the infamous "death to asylum" regulation.
Moving way from asylum, the Biden administration previewed a new "public charge" rule that will likely put the more favorable old standards into regulations. This will be an "Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking," meaning they'll ask for early comment. reginfo.gov/public/do/eAge…
The regulatory agenda shows that the Biden administration is currently targeting August for their new regulation that would "preserve and fortify" DACA, as promised in a day one EO.
There will be a notice and comment period after the rule is proposed.
Confirming comments that Secretary Mayorkas made at yesterday's conversation at the AILA conference, USCIS will be proposing a new fee rule this fall that rescinds the block-in-court Trump fees and proposes new fees.
The Biden administration is also going to propose its own "specialty occupation" H-1B rule, which will also address "F-1 students who are the beneficiaries of timely filed H-1B cap-subject petitions." More details in the abstract.
The Biden administration will also publish a rule to implement the 2020 Emergency Stopgap USCIS Stabilization Act which expanded "premium processing" for USCIS benefits. The rule, which will be a final rule, will set the new fees.
There is also a series of actions that the Biden administration will take to rescind or modify a number of Trump immigration regulations, such as:
- The DOL discretionary review rule
- The Asylum Ban 1.0 regulation
- The Asylum Ban 2.0 regulation
- The COVID Asylum Ban
The Biden administration says that it will formally withdraw the terrible proposed rule that would have ended "duration of status" admissions for student visas and that would have targeted students from many African countries with harsher visa rules.
The Biden administration also seeks to move ICE into the 21st century by "allow[ing] delivery bond notifications requiring obligors to present noncitizens at ICE Offices or Immigration Courts to be issued electronically."
Moving to the State Department, looks like there will be a State Department process similar to what USCIS did that asks for comments that "identify[] barriers that impede access to immigration benefits and fair, efficient adjudication of these benefits."
Here's one of the more technical changes I've seen yet; the Biden administration proposes to make a technical amendment to an old State Department regulation that falsely suggests consular officers could grant Special Immigrant Juvenile Status.
The Biden administration says that it will formally rescind the 2019 State Department "public charge" rule, given that "the 2019 [interim final rule] is based on a rule that is no longer the policy of the Department of Homeland Security."
Here's a great new rule; the Biden administration will formally publish a "temporary final rule" that allows consulates to waive in-person appearances and oath requirements for "certain repeat immigrant visa applicants." That should help clear backlogs!
On top of that temporary final rule on the waiver of in-person appearance at consulates, the Biden administration will also add a more permanent "limited exception to the general requirement that an immigrant visa applicant appear in person."
On to the immigration courts! There are multiple proposals to modify or rescind Trump-era rules, such as:
- The 15-day filing rule
- The rule expanding the EOIR Director's authority
- The "no admin closure" rule
- The EOIR fee rule
3 of 4 of these are blocked in court already.
The Biden administration will also reopen the comment period on two terrible midnight rules on motions to reopen and continuances that the Trump administration failed to get over the finish line. The goal will likely be to formally withdraw the rules after that.
The Biden administration will also "rescind or modify" the 2019 rule on safe third country agreements that the Trump administration used to send nearly 1,000 people to Guatemala before the pandemic led to the asylum cooperative agreement being suspended.
The Biden administration will issue an interim final rule rearranging the organizational structure of the Office of Legal Access Programs inside EOIR "to better facilitate the agency's mission." OLAP oversees legal orientation programs. reginfo.gov/public/do/eAge…
And that's it for new rules! There are a few parallel EOIR asylum rules that I didn't include here because they are effectively repeats of the DHS rules.
There are some lingering Trump-era rules still in the pipeline, too. I expect those to eventually be quietly withdrawn.
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🚨The Supreme Court today gives Trump a license to engage in racial profiling, with Justice Kavanaugh writing in concurrence to expressly endorse ICE and Border Patrol targeting any Latinos they observe in Los Angeles speaking Spanish and then demanding their papers.
Justice Sotomayor is utterly scathing: "We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent."
Sotomayor: "The [Gov't], and now the concurrence, has all but declared that all Latinos, US citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction."
🚨NEW: Reversing *generations* of practice, the Board of Immigration Appeals gives ICE exactly what it demanded, ruling that any undocumented immigrant who entered illegally is categorically ineligible to ask a judge for bond — expanding mandatory detention by millions of people.
The new decision comes after the Trump admin announced in July that it would take the legal position that a 1996 law barred release on bond anyone who crossed illegally — despite no admin having EVER made that claim before. Now the BIA greenlights that completely novel argument.
The Board of Immigration Appeals has upheld grants of bond to people in this situation THOUSANDS of times in the past. NO ONE previously put forward the argument that they greenlit today — one that they claim is just a straightforward application of the law, not even ambiguous.
Trump is now moving to strip protections and deport the same people that he himself granted deportation protections to in his last week in office in 2021.
Trump’s order said protecting noncriminal Venezuelans from being sent back to Maduro was a matter of U.S. national interest.
Trump's DED order for Venezuela applied to anyone here before January 20, 2021. Only weeks later, Secretary Mayorkas granted Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans here before March 9, 2021. So effectively speaking, this is the same group of people that Trump protected.
🚨NEW: Declarations filed in the lawsuit against the rushed attempt to deport 600 Guatemalan children reveals the chaotic way the Trump admin carried out the operation.
Children were taken out of bed after midnight to be rushed onto planes. One girl "was so scared she vomited."
Other declarations directly refute the Trump admin's claims that the children's parents requested their return to Guatemala.
One dad in Guatemala says he got "a strange call" two weeks ago saying that his daughter was about to be deported — despite never having asked for that.
One 17-year-old describes what happened to him on Sunday night. He says he was woken up at 2:00 in the morning and told to get his things. He was scared, so he prayed to God and hoped he'd be protected.
Throughout the fateful morning, no one told him what was happening.
NEW: The Trump admin plans to double the number of immigration judges, ordering hundreds of military lawyers to serve as immigration judges, despite flimsy legal authority to do so.
Notably, immigration law is infamously complex, and judges normally require months of training.
Many former JAGs serve as immigration judges today, having gone through a competitive hiring process. JAGs are often good lawyers, so I am not of the belief that they will all become rubber stampers. But the command pressure to deny will undoubtedly be *enormous.*
Indeed; the Trump admin has actually fired dozens of judges already and moved to purge many of the Biden appointees.
While I don’t believe military judges will be ordered to deny, they will undoubtedly be pressured to do so. And their inexperience will cause serious issues.
NEW: McCarthyism returns to immigration law, as @USCIS announces that it will begin screening applicants for immigration benefits for "Anti-America ideologies or activities." The term has no prior precedent in immigration law and its definition is entirely up to the Trump admin.
The full policy memo is here. The Trump administration says that it will use its discretion to deny immigration benefits to anyone it deems to have supported a group with "anti-American ideologies" or engaged in "ant-American activities." uscis.gov/sites/default/…
The new policy on "anti-Americanism" and discretionary benefits comes just days after the Trump admin tightened standards for naturalization, ordering a more searching analysis of whether applicants for citizenship have met the required "good moral character" standard.