WHERE WE ARE ON DACA, REFUGEES AND IMMIGRATION REFORM

Back in September, President Trump announced that the program called "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)" would end on March 5, 2018.  Subsequently, two district court judges issued injunctions blocking that plan and ordered administration officials to continue to process DACA renewals.  On February 26, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a direct appeal of the issue and so currently DACA participants can remain in the U.S. as long as they apply for renewals when their two-year permits expire.  While President Trump had called on Congress to replace DACA with permanent Congressional protections, he also demanded a range of immigration policy changes including building the "wall," reducing family-based immigration, and eliminating the visa lottery.  DACA was created by the Obama Administration in 2012 and covers those who arrived in the U.S. under the age of 16.  Some 700,000 or more young people are currently enrolled in the program.  Attorney General Sessions considers the program an unconstitutional exercise of executive power, since it was based on the concept of prosecutional discretion or forgiving of law violations which normally only exists in individual cases rather than portions of an entire statute.

Although those current and former DACA participants will be able to request renewals of their DACA permits, applications from those who never participated in the program will not be considered under the current status of the rulings.

Congress has been unable to agree on legislative compromises and the existence of the court injunctions allowing continuation of DACA renewals has taken some of the pressure off immediate congressional relief.  Further, Democrats may prefer deferring immigration issues until after the November elections.

Meanwhile, the number of immigrants in this country is scheduled to be significantly reduced over the next year or so.  The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced it is terminating the Temporary Protected Status Program (TPS) for foreign nationals in the U.S. from Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti and, most recently, El Salvador.  TPS status provides foreign nationals a temporary opportunity to live and work in the U.S. because of catastrophic conditions in their home country, such as civil war, natural disasters or disease epidemics.  Ten countries are currently designated for TPS, but the four countries named above receiving TPS terminate no later than September 9, 2019.  The total of TPS recipients in the U.S. is in excess of 320,000, with the largest group being the 200,000 Salvadorians, which must leave the U.S. by September 9, 2019. 

Regarding enforcement, in October 2017, Tom Homan, acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced an increase of I-9 inspections/audits "by four-to-five times."  This is supposed to begin in the coming fiscal year which begins October 1, 2018.  While many refer to "raids" from ICE to begin in the coming fiscal year, these raids are more likely to be an expanded version of the "silent raids" in which ICE does audits at numerous facilities.  The latter type raids are more cost-effective to ICE and result in more facilities being inspected.  Some would argue that a "raid" occurs where the employer is not notified of the activity in advance and ICE presents a search warrant for an immediate inspection.  This type raid is much more serious than a typical audit and employers need immediate counsel on how to respond.