Weekly Immigration News Recap (November 28-December 4)
Supreme Court Hears Arguments Over Biden Immigration Enforcement Policy
The Biden administration’s policy, which limits the arrest of undocumented immigrants to those who pose a threat to national security or public safety, was the subject of oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. A federal judge in Texas earlier this month sided with Republican officials in Louisiana and Texas who said the Biden administration lacked the jurisdiction to issue the directive, ruling that the policy restricting arrests was unlawful. The Biden administration decided to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court because the court judgment gives ICE officials no clear instructions on who they can and cannot deport.
Source: Bundless
After declining early in the COVID-19 outbreak, immigrant naturalizations in the U.S. are rising again
Immigrants in the United States are naturalizing at numbers not seen in more than ten years, following a steep decline in naturalizations during the early phases of the coronavirus pandemic.
A Pew Research Center estimate based on official statistics available for the first three quarters of the year indicates that more than 900,000 immigrants acquired citizenship of the United States during the 2022 fiscal year. That yearly total would rank third among all fiscal years since 2008, when more than a million people became naturalized citizens, and it would be the greatest annual total ever. Federal fiscal years run from October 1 to September 30.
Source: Pew Research Center
Asylum rates drop as immigration cases are fast-tracked, research finds
According to study, expedited immigration procedures appear to reduce the likelihood that refugees would be granted asylum. Asylum grant rates have decreased since July, and this “coincides with the extremely rapid increase in expedited cases,” according to a study published on Tuesday by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, one of the country’s top researchers on immigration court cases.
Source: AILA
Labor Secretary: U.S. immigration system is ‘a threat to our economy’
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh claims that immigration reform should be the top priority for Congress after Friday’s November jobs report revealed stronger-than-anticipated results but a persistent skills gap, even if it may be unlikely in a politically divided Washington. In spite of months of Federal Reserve interest rate rises that are projected to eventually drive up unemployment, Friday’s report showed growth in both overall job levels and average hourly earnings with an unemployment rate that stayed at a low 3.7%.
Source: Yahoo Finance
