- On Wednesday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, allowed the Trump Administration to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for those from Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua. TPS for Nepal was already set to expire earlier this month, meaning that the estimated 7,000 Nepalese previously on TPS have already had their status taken away and are eligible for deportation. The estimated 54,000 individuals on TPS from Honduras and Nicaragua will maintain status until the TPS expires in a few weeks on September 8, at which point they will lose status and be subject to detention and deportation. MIRA strongly recommends that anyone with TPS from these countries consult an attorney as soon as possible to determine if they have any pathways to relief.
- Last week, US Attorney General Pam Bondi sent letters to 31 jurisdictions, including Boston, that the Department of Justice considers to be “Sanctuary Jurisdictions”. These letters threatened cities, counties, and states across the country with illegally withholding federal grants and contracts unless these jurisdictions cooperate with the administration’s inhumane civil enforcement crusade against our communities. Tuesday morning, Mayor Michelle Wu – joined by Senator Ed Markey, members of the Boston City Council, and officials from other municipalities from the Greater Boston area – held a press conference to speak out forcefully against the administration’s attacks on our city and our communities. In her remarks, which she delivered in both English and Spanish, Mayor Wu stated that, “Boston will not back down from who we are and what we stand for. We will not back away from the community that has made us the safest major city in the country.” You can find video of the full press conference, Mayor Wu’s remarks (in multiple languages), and her written response to DOJ (also in multiple languages) here.
- On Friday, USCIS issued a new policy memo seeking to change how they evaluate the Good Moral Character (GMC) requirement for naturalization applications. The agency now seeks to take a more “holistic” approach determining GMC, placing more of a burden on applicants to show that they meet the requirement including that applicants act in a way that is not only lawful but also are not “contrary to the average behavior of citizens in the jurisdiction where aliens reside.” This standard is so vague as to be meaningless, and MIRA is working with our partners around the country to understand how this new policy works in practice. We provide more guidance once we know more.
- The administration announced similarly vague new rules against any applying for other immigration benefits, such as a green card or humanitarian relief. The new policy calls for immigration officers to use their discretionary powers to deny applications based on promoting anti-American or antisemitic ideologies without providing any definition of what would actually constitute anti-American or antisemitic ideologies. MIRA expects this policy to be challenged on the basis that it chills the 1st Amendment right to free speech, a move one might consider to be Anti-American.
- On Friday, the Washington Post revealed that, following the massive resources that Congress gave to immigration enforcement in the “One Big Beautiful Big Act”, DHS plans to increase detention bed capacity from 50,000 beds at the beginning of the year to more than 107,000 beds by January. This will include expanding existing facilities, signing new contracts with private prison companies, and repurposing sections of military bases.