Tag Archives: imigrants

What is at stake as the Supreme Court weighs the future of immigrant ‘Dreamers’

By Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide the legality of President Donald Trump’s decision to end a program offering work permits and deportation relief to immigrant “Dreamers” who came to the United States illegally as children.

Trump, a Republican, moved in 2017 to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. His administration argued the initiative of his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama was unconstitutional and would not withstand legal challenges.

Several federal courts blocked Trump’s attempt to terminate the DACA program. The case went to the Supreme Court, which heard arguments in November.

The decision will be one of the most-watched of Trump’s presidency. Here is what you need to know about it.

WHAT IS THE DACA PROGRAM?

Obama announced DACA in 2012 after more than a decade of failed efforts to pass legislation in the U.S. Congress that would have provided a path to citizenship for so-called Dreamers.

The program offered unauthorized immigrants who came to the United States before age 16 the chance to obtain a work permit and a reprieve from imminent deportation.

Applicants were required to pass a criminal background check to ensure they had not been convicted of a felony or significant misdemeanor. They needed to have completed high school, still be in school or have served in the U.S. military.

The Obama administration said the program would allow immigration officers to focus on higher-priority offenders. Critics called it an abuse of executive power.

WHO IS ENROLLED IN DACA?

About 649,000 people are enrolled, according to the most recent government data. Nine of 10 are immigrants born in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. More than half live in California, Texas, Illinois, New York and Florida.

The average age of DACA enrollees is 26, slightly more women than men, according to the latest statistics.

A 2017 analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the Migration Policy Institute found the top occupations for immigrants in the program were food preparation and serving, sales, office and administrative support, and construction.

WHERE DO EMPLOYERS STAND?

Major U.S. companies support DACA and have hired work-eligible beneficiaries.

In an October brief in the Supreme Court case, 125 companies – including Amazon, Facebook, Google and Starbucks – said ending the program would “inflict serious harm” on employers, workers and the U.S. economy. They were joined by 18 major business associations.

DACA enrollees hold thousands of jobs in the medical field, a point backers have raised during the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

Plaintiffs defending the program noted in a Supreme Court brief this month that 27,000 DACA recipients are healthcare workers including nurses, pharmacists and home care aides. Nearly 200 are medical students, residents and physicians, the brief said.

HOW WILL THE SUPREME COURT RULE?

The Supreme Court is expected to rule by the end of June, but could act sooner.

With five conservative justices and four liberals, the court appeared split along ideological lines during oral arguments in November. The conservative majority signaled support for Trump’s termination of the program while liberals said the move would destroy lives of DACA beneficiaries. [L2N27SOC7]

WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF TRUMP IS ALLOWED TO END DACA?

The Trump administration has not said how it will proceed if the Supreme Court allows it to terminate the program.

However, a top U.S. immigration official told Reuters in December that DACA recipients ordered removed by an immigration judge would be subject to deportation. [L4N28L3OZ]

(Reporting by Ted Hesson, editing by Ross Colvin and David Gregorio)

U.S. Supreme Court gives states latitude to prosecute illegal immigrants

By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday widened the ability of states to use criminal laws against illegal immigrants and other people who do not have work authorization in the United States in a ruling involving identity theft prosecutions in Kansas.

The 5-4 ruling, with the court’s conservative justices in the majority, overturned a 2017 Kansas Supreme Court decision that had voided the convictions of three restaurant workers for fraudulently using other people’s Social Security numbers.

In the opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, the high court found that Kansas did not unlawfully encroach on federal authority over immigration policy.

The court’s four liberal justices disagreed. While a 1986 federal law called the Immigration Reform and Control Act did not explicitly prevent states from pursuing such prosecutions, they said in a dissent written by Justice Stephen Breyer, the law’s overall purpose hands the policing of work authorization fraud “to the federal government alone.”

President Donald Trump’s administration backed Kansas in the case. Trump has made his hardline policies toward immigration a centerpiece of his presidency and 2020 re-election campaign. Kansas is one of several conservative states that have sought to crack down on illegal immigrants.

In the dissent, Breyer said allowing prosecutions like those pursued by Kansas “opens a colossal loophole” in allowing states to police federal work authorization.

Though immigration-related employment fraud is a federal matter, Kansas contended that its prosecutions were not immigration-related and did not conflict with federal immigration law. Kansas had argued that a ruling in favor of the immigrants would undermine its ability to combat the growing problem of identity theft.

Immigrant rights groups have said that giving states power to prosecute employment fraud would let them take immigration policy into their own hands.

The three men – Ramiro Garcia, Donaldo Morales and Guadalupe Ochoa-Lara – were not authorized to work in the United States and provided their employers Social Security numbers that were not their own.

A Social Security number is used to identify people for employment and tax purposes. People who enter the country illegally do not get assigned Social Security numbers, which are given by the U.S. government to all legal residents.

The case focused on the employment verification process under federal immigration law requiring employers, on a form known as the I-9, to attest that an employee is authorized to work. The law also states that the form “may not be used for purposes other than for enforcement of this act.”

While the federal government has the sole authority to prosecute individuals for providing fraudulent information during the I-9 employment verification process, the state prosecuted the three men for using the same false information on different forms used to withhold wages for tax purposes.

In Tuesday’s ruling, Alito wrote, “The submission of tax-withholding forms is fundamentally unrelated to the federal employment verification system.”

The ruling, by giving states some latitude in law enforcement affecting illegal immigrants, could provide ammunition to California in its defense of its so-called sanctuary policies. These policies limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities to protect certain illegal immigrants from deportation.

Trump’s administration sued California and is appealing to the Supreme Court after losing in a lower court. The justices could act in that case as early as next week. The administration also has sued other states and localities over sanctuary policies.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Additional reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)