- The administration’s assaults on residents with status continue as they delay employment authorization renewals for DACA recipients. Applicants, who have filed timely applications for renewal, are seeing processing times 5 times longer than last year. These processing delays mean that many are not receiving decisions in a timely manner, meaning they are being fired from their jobs and lose their driver’s licenses as their work authorization lapses. Their livelihoods and family stability are under attack, and one DACA recipient interviewed by the AP described how fear has become her “new baseline”. The administration is also attacking the ways in which DACA recipients are able to defend themselves in immigration court. A recent decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals, an administrative court within the Department of Justice whose decisions are controlling on lower immigration courts, held that DACA status alone is not a sufficient basis to defend against removal proceedings.
- Congress approved funding for most of DHS last week (excluding ICE & CBP). Congressional leadership is looking to the reconciliation process to add over $60 billion for immigration enforcement without agreeing to any reforms to either ICE or CBP. This would be in addition to the $170 billion that Congress gave to immigration enforcement in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Congress passed through reconciliation last summer. Trump has imposed a June 1st deadline to get the funding passed.
- Following the state sponsored violence in Minnesota earlier this year, many journalists, advocates, and politicians expressed deep concern with the lack of proper training that many new immigration agents are receiving. This concern was heightened because of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed over the summer, included billions of dollars to hire thousands of new immigration agents across the country. Recent media reports indicate that the administration may be reversing course to some degree and ditching its accelerated training program for new recruits. Some within the agency believe this to be a serious effort at reform, with one ICE official saying that, “[w]e’re actually doing something good here….this is not just lip service.” However, this may also just be a bargaining tactic to placate Democrats in Congress who are calling for substantive reforms to immigration enforcement before authorizing any funding for either ICE or CBP.
- Meanwhile, the negative impacts of the administration’s enforcement efforts continue to be felt among Americans across the country. A recent poll by the Associated Press and NORC shows that fully one third of Americans know someone who has been impacted by immigration enforcement in the last year, a figure that jumps to over 50% for Hispanic Americans. Just over 60% of Americans believe that the US was once a great place for immigrants, but not anymore. As we await the Supreme Court’s decision on birthright citizenship, the poll also found general support for the protections offered by the 14th Amendment, but that there was also a variety of views on the subject.