Obama’s promised to act on his own on immigration. Here’s his plan.

With the 2014 midterm elections over, the Obama administration is turning to its big post-election agenda item: immigration relief.

President Obama has promised that he's going to take executive action on immigrationbefore the end of 2014. On November 4, when press secretary Josh Earnest was asked about the president's agenda, immigration action was the first (and only) priority he mentioned. Rumor has it that the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice are submitting their recommendations for what exactly the president should do in early November.

(Read More: 9 takeaways from the 2014 election)

Obama's anticipated plan is expected to include relief from deportation for millions of immigrants. The new program might build on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program from 2012, which allowed young immigrants who would have benefited from the DREAM Act to apply for two years of protection from deportation, and for work permits. Or it might take a slightly different form, but one that would still allow some unauthorized immigrants to be protected from deportation, and be allowed to work, without officially giving them legal status.

Now that Republicans have won the Senate,some are skepticalthat Obama's really going to follow through on major unilateral action. But the administration has promised, explicitly, to do just that. In the meantime, here's what we know the White House is considering, and what looks likely to make it into the final package.

(Erkan Avci/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

How many people could be covered?

Estimates tend to be in the mid to low millions.

Legally speaking,the president could extend deferred action to all 11 million unauthorized immigrants. That would be unprecedented. If he wanted to follow precedent slightly more closely, he could protect all of the 8 million or so unauthorized immigrants who would qualify for legal status under the immigration reform bill the Senate passed last year — just like he used DACA to protect would-be DREAM Act beneficiaries after the DREAM Act failed.

But most policymakers are expecting the plan to help a smaller subset of immigrants. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), the biggest Congressional advocate for executive action on immigration, has said that "three, four, maybe even five million" immigrants could be protected if and when President Obama acts.

Immigration activists say that the Department of Homeland Security's recommendations to the White House might protect fewer people than that — one advocate told Buzzfeed that the number included would be in the "low seven figures," while another said "three million."

It all depends on who exactly is included in the new program, which no one knows for sure at this point.

Immigration protesters. (John Moore/Getty Images)

Which types of immigrants could be covered?

The president's ability to protect unauthorized immigrants from deportation is supposed to be limited to particularly worthy cases. When the Obama administration instituted the DACA program in 2012, they justified it by saying that they were limiting the program to a particular group of immigrants — and then using the application process to evaluate individual cases.

Similarly, for this round of immigration relief, the administration will probably carve out one or more groups of unauthorized immigrants who will be eligible to apply, and then set an additional set of criteria that individuals in those groups will have to meet to get their applications approved. Here are some possible groups that could be eligible under a new program:

Unauthorized immigrants who are married to US citizens or green-card holders. There are 1.5 million unauthorized immigrants in the US whose spouses have US citizenship, or at least a green card. These immigrants should be eligible for legal status themselves, but are blocked by rules that make it extremely difficult to get legal status in the US if you've ever been unauthorized — especially if you're not willing to risk leaving the US in the hopes that you might get to come back.

Unauthorized immigrants whose children are US citizens. There are 3.8 million unauthorized immigrants with US-citizen children (in most cases because their kids were born in the US). These immigrants can't get legal status until their children turn 21 — and would then have to deal with the same rules that make it so tough for unauthorized immigrants in the US to get legal status.

Other unauthorized immigrants with children. The Obama administration has said that immigration enforcement shouldn't split up families, and advocates believe that the only way to guarantee that is to protect parents from deportation. There are 900,000 unauthorized immigrants whose children are not citizens, but are under 18. The administration could also protect the parents of DACA recipients, which could cover several hundred thousand more unauthorized immigrants. According to Buzzfeed, advocates aren't sure whether the Department of Homeland Security is including parents of DACA recipients in its recommendations for relief.

Farmworkers. Historically, legalizing unauthorized farmworkers has been more popular with Congress than legalizing other unauthorized workers — a bill called "AgJOBS," to grant legal status to farmworkers, has been floating around Congress as long as the DREAM Act. In an op-ed published in Univision, Democratic members of Congress, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, argued that Obama "could recognize that it is 'essential for agriculture' that farmworkers who toil in our fields do so without fear" as part of his executive action.

People attend an orientation class in filing up their application for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

What other requirements would an immigrant have to meet?

Immigrants won't automatically qualify for legal status if they fit one of these categories. There are other criteria to consider as well. To qualify for DACA, for example, an immigrant has to meet a set of criteria regarding age, education, criminal record, and time in the United States. Not all of those will matter for other groups of immigrants (age requirements will likely be dropped) but others will.

In particular, the administration is expected to require applicants to have been in the US for a certain number of years before they're eligible for relief. The DACA program required immigrants to have been in the US since at least 2007 — five years before the program went into effect. The new policy similarly could say that immigrants have to have lived in the US for at least five years — or it could say they have to have lived in the US for at least ten years, or some other number.

Advocates are very worried that if the administration limits the program to immigrants who have lived in the US since 2004, will disqualify millions of people, enough to seriously blunt the impact of the program. While most unauthorized immigrants have lived in the US for over a decade, some are newer arrivals — or have left the US and returned at some point in the last ten years. Furthermore, it's going to be extremely hard for immigrants to prove when they entered the country without papers.

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Obama Delays Immigration Action Until After Election

Obama Delays Immigration Action Until After Election

WASHINGTON (AP) — Abandoning his pledge to act by the end of summer, President Barack Obama has decided to delay any executive action on immigration until after the November congressional elections, White House officials said.

The move is certain to infuriate immigration advocates while offering relief to some vulnerable Democrats in tough Senate re-election contests.

Two White House officials said Obama concluded that circumventing Congress through executive actions on immigration during the campaign would politicize the issue and hurt future efforts to pass a broad overhaul.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the president's decision before it was announced, said Obama made his decision Friday as he returned to Washington from a NATO summit in Wales.

They said Obama called a few allies from Air Force One and informed them of his decision, and that the president made more calls from the White House on Saturday.

The officials said Obama had no specific timeline to act, but that he still would take his executive steps before the end of the year.

In a Rose Garden speech on June 30, Obama said he had directed Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder to give him recommendations for executive action by the end of summer. Obama also pledged to "adopt those recommendations without further delay."

Obama faced competing pressures from immigration advocacy groups that wanted prompt action and from Democrats worried that acting now would energize Republican opposition against vulnerable Senate Democrats. Among those considered most at risk were Democratic Sens. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Kay Hagan of North Carolina.

Obama advisers were not convinced that any presidential action would affect the elections. But the officials said the discussions around the timing grew more pronounced within the past few weeks.

Ultimately, the advisers drew a lesson from 1994 when Democratic losses were blamed on votes for gun control legislation, undermining any interest in passing future gun measures.

White House officials said aides realized that if Obama's immigration action was deemed responsible for Democratic losses this year, it could hurt any attempt to pass a broad overhaul later on.

Partisan fighting erupted recently over how to address the increased flow of unaccompanied minors from Central America at the U.S. border with Mexico. The officials said the White House had not envisioned such a battle when Obama made his pledge June 30.

Obama asked for $3.7 billion to address the border crisis. The Republican-controlled House, however, passed a measure that only gave Obama a fraction of what he sought and made it easier to deport the young migrants arriving at the border, a provision opposed by Democrats and immigration advocates. In the end, Congress adjourned without a final bill.

The number of minors caught alone illegally crossing the Mexican border into the United States has been declining since June. That decrease and Congress' absence from Washington during August has taken attention away from the border for now.

Still, the dispute over how to deal with the surge of Central American border crossers threatened to spill over into the larger debate over immigration and the fate of 11 million immigrants in the United States who either entered illegally or overstayed their visas and have been in the U.S. for some time.

The Democratic-led Senate last year passed a broad overhaul of immigration that boosted border security, increased visas for legal immigrants and a provided a path to citizenship for immigrants illegally in the country.

But the Republican-controlled House balked at acting on any broad measure and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, informed Obama earlier this year that the House would not act in 2014. That led Obama to declare he would act on his own.

During a news conference Friday in Wales, Obama reiterated his determination to act on his own even as he avoided making a commitment on timing. He also spelled out ambitious objectives for his executive actions.

Obama said that without legislation from Congress, he would take steps to increase border security, upgrade the processing of border crossers and encourage legal immigration. He also said he would offer immigrants who have been illegally in the United States for some time a way to become legal residents, pay taxes, pay a fine and learn English.

"I want to be very clear: My intention is, in the absence of ... action by Congress, I'm going to do what I can do within the legal constraints of my office, because it's the right thing to do for the country," he said.

The extent of Obama's authority is a matter of debate among legal experts and in Congress. Some Democrats say it would be best for Obama to let Congress act.

But pro-immigrant groups called on Obama to stick to his end-of-summer deadline, and weighed in with a strongly worded appeal to him on Friday.

"Being a leader requires making difficult and courageous decisions," said the letter, whose signers included the National Council of La Raza and the League of United Latin American Citizens. "It is your time to lead, Mr. President."

Obama may increase Green Cards, H-1B visas by as much as 800,000 annually

August 21, 2014  

Obama may increase Green Cards, H-1B visas by as much as 800,000 annually

President likely to take executive action on legal immigration next month.

NEW YORK: President Barack Obama is considering taking executive action on a broad swath of legal immigration next month, including freeing up more Green Cards for workers waiting in line for permanent residency, those sponsored by relatives and increasing the number of skilled immigrant workers, with the numbers being as high as 800,000 visas the first year.

An Associated Press report said Obama is considering the action after the requests made by tech, industry and powerful interest groups, which has been heard by administration officials at the White House through the summer. Some 20 such meetings were held. Coordinating these “listening sessions,” as the White House calls them, is its Office of Public Engagement, led by top Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett.

“The president has not made a decision regarding next steps, but he believes it’s important to understand and consider the full range of perspectives on potential solutions,” said White House spokesman Shawn Turner.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Obama could announce the measures soon after Labor Day.

According to the AP report, one of the more popular requests among business and family groups is a change in the way green cards are counted that would essentially free up some 800,000 additional visas the first year, advocates say.

Those who support changing the green card count say each year half of the 140,000 employment-based green cards issued go to spouses and children, unnecessarily reducing the numbers available to workers. If new rules go into effect, then the spouses and children would not count towards that cap.

Another proposal would “recapture” unused employment green cards from previous years, which could produce more than 200,000 new green cards, according to high-tech lobbyists and a document outlining proposals from Compete America, a coalition of high-tech companies.

“We have thousands of employees waiting for green cards. It is a hardship for them,” said Peter Muller, director for immigration policy for Intel Corp., who participated in one of the White House meetings, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Other requests have included removing the requirement that some spouses of U.S. citizens return to their native country for at least three years before they can apply for U.S. residency, as well as extending work permits to the spouses of all temporary H1-B skilled workers, who are on H-4 visas. Once that rule takes effect, almost 100,000 work permits would be issued to qualified dependents, said AP.

The Journal also reported that Alberto P. Cardenas Jr., a Houston attorney who attended this month’s meeting at the White House, said construction clients of his pressed administration officials to make sure any undocumented immigrants who are given new work permits are required to work for legitimate companies that follow the law and pay taxes.

According to Breitbart, the move by Obama could be going against what Americans want, at least going by polls.

A Reuters poll “found that 70% of Americans feel illegal immigrants threaten U.S. beliefs and customs, 63% believe more immigration at this time threatens the country’s economy, and 45% want fewer immigrants. A recent poll from The Polling Company found that 90% of likely voters feel that “U.S.-born workers and legal immigrants already here should get first preference for jobs.” Strong majorities of those who favor a pathway to legalization and citizenship for illegal immigrants even believe that “jobs now held by illegal immigrants should go to American workers.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a bin opponent of increasing immigration, accused the Obama administration of “actively working against the interests of the American worker.”

“We have communities throughout America that are barely scraping by. Tens of millions of Americans are on welfare, unemployment, and public assistance,” Sessions said in a statement this week. “Yet the White House and their Senate Majority seem more concerned about the economic demands of large corporations, or the citizens of other countries, than about getting our own citizens back to work into stable jobs that can support a family and uplift a community.”

New White House Proposals Would Bypass Congress On Immigration Reform -

New White House Proposals Would Bypass Congress On Immigration Reform -

U.S. Proposes Immigration Rules To Help High-Skilled Workers

WASHINGTON, May 6 (Reuters) - Newly proposed rules for highly skilled immigrants to the United States, including a provision to allow their spouses to work, are aimed at making it easier to keep those talented science, technology and engineering workers in the country, officials said on Tuesday.

"These individuals are American families in waiting," U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker said. "Many tire of waiting for green cards and leave the country to work for our competition. The fact is we have to do more to retain and attract world-class talent to the United States and these regulations put us on a path to do that."

One of the two proposed regulation changes would allow the spouses of holders of H-1B visas, which are given to workers in fields such as science, technology and engineering, to have jobs in the United States while their spouses' green card applications are being considered. Spouses of U.S. visaholders currently are not given permission to work.

Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who announced the new regulations with Pritzker, said that change could affect as many as 97,000 people in the first year and some 30,000 annually after that.

The other proposed regulation change would give employers a wider range of methods to document that immigrant researchers and professors are among the best in their fields. The regulations would go into effect after a 60-day public comment period.

Pritzker said approximately 28 percent of new businesses in the United States are started by immigrants and that about 40 percent of the Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants or their children.

She cited Hungarian-born Andy Grove, the former Intel Corp chief executive; Sergey Brin, the Soviet immigrant who co-founded Google ; and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, who came from Taiwan as a boy, as immigrants who have made a profound impact on the U.S. economy.

Pritzker also supported President Barack Obama's push to overhaul the U.S. immigration system so that it would allow the United States "to staple a green card to the degrees of graduate students instead of forcing potential innovators and job creators to leave after being trained at our universities."

Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama and opponent of immigration reform, denounced the proposed changes. "Yet again, the administration is acting unilaterally to change immigration law in a way that hurts American workers," he said.

"This will help corporations by further flooding a slack labor market, pulling down wages. It is good news for citizens in other countries who will be hired. But for struggling Americans, it will only reduce wages, lower job opportunities, and make it harder to scrape by."

The U.S. Senate passed a sweeping immigration bill last year, but the Republican-led House of Representatives has shunned it because many view it as a grant of amnesty for undocumented immigrants with potential negative impact on the U.S. economy. (Reporting by Bill Trott; Editing by Doina Chiacu and G Crosse)

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Mitch McConnell: Immigration Reform Not Happening In 2014

Elise Foley, Jennifer Bendery02/04/14 04:15 PM ET

WASHINGTON -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday threw cold water on the idea that immigration reform could be revived this year, due to "irresolvable" differences between the House and Senate.

"I think we have sort of an irresolvable conflict here," McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill. "The Senate insists on comprehensive [legislation], the House says it won't go to conference with the Senate on comprehensive and wants to look at it step by step."

He added, "I don't see how you get to an outcome this year with the two bodies in such a different place."

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced a set of principles on immigration reform on Thursday and Democrats mostly expressed cautious optimism about the plan, though it calls for separate bills rather than the comprehensive approach taken in the Senate legislation passed last June. President Barack Obama has said that he is open to the GOP's plan to release separate bills rather than a comprehensive one, so long as they address the key issues of reform: border security, enforcement, legal status for undocumented immigrants and changing the legal immigration system.

The House Republican principles span those topics, but lack details, so it's unclear how much they will align with the bill that passed the Senate. There's one notable difference: the House principles would not allow for a "special path to citizenship," although they would allow undocumented immigrants to obtain a legal status and do not mention banning them from ever becoming citizens.

Boehner told reporters earlier Tuesday that members "seemed to be rather supportive of" the principles laid out last week, but emphasized they are still far from decided on what they will do.

"There was a lot of discussion about whether we should proceed and if we proceeded how we would proceed," Boehner said after a meeting with the GOP conference. "It's also clear from our members that we believe that securing our borders has to be the first step in this process. But we're continuing to take comments from members about the draft principles, continuing the conversation that we we started last Thursday. No decisions have been made."

UPDATE: 4:45 p.m. -- A senate Democratic aide, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, pushed back on McConnell's statement on Tuesday, noting that the senator opposed reform when it went for a vote last year.

"Senator McConnell wasn't supportive of the Senate process, and contrary to his view, thus far the House principles leave open a real chance we'll get immigration reform done this year," the aide said.

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Immigrant Investors Could Finance Green Trucks For Green Cards

The U.S. immigration agency has approved an unusual way for prospective immigrants earn a U.S. green card and permanent residency. They can loan money to independent Northwest truckers who want to upgrade to less-polluting rigs.

The idea was the brainchild of Bellingham immigration attorney David Andersson and a cross-border association of state Legislatures and parliaments called the Pacific Northwest Economic Region.

It takes advantage of a fast-track path to U.S. residency for wealthy foreigners. Immigrants can get a green card for themselves and immediate family by investing $500,000 in an enterprise that creates at least 10 jobs here. 

Andersson formed a new business to funnel such investments into loans to truckers who need to upgrade to newer rigs that meet toughened emissions standards.

"Credit is still very tight for the owner-operator. So there is really a perfect storm of opportunity in terms of demand for compliant trucks and the need for owner-operators to be able to access flexible financing," Andersson said.

A few national critics of this immigrant visa category, including the Center for Immigration Studies, have questioned the job creation claims of participating businesses. This new Bellingham-based effort relies on an economic model that takes credit for indirect job creation from ongoing trucking activity.

The latest phase-in of stricter truck emissions standards took effect in California at the start of this year. Alfred Portillo, vice president of operations for Green Truck LP, says those rules affect the majority of truckers in the Northwest.

"A very large number drive to California," said Portillo. "If you consider where most of our produce comes from, it'll be coming directly from the southern California market." 

Portillo and Andersson said older semi-trucks must be retrofitted or replaced with ones that have cleaner-running, late-model diesel engines. Their new immigration business, the Pacific Northwest EB-5 Regional Center, recently analyzed truck registrations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

Their survey found of the 43,000 registered heavy-duty trucks in the four-state Northwest region, 27,000 are "now non-complaint" and could be barred from driving into California, Andersson said.

Andersson said he has already pitched the "green truck" investment path in China and plans to present the concept to another audience in Vancouver, B.C. this weekend .

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Immigration reform is dead for the year, top GOP reformer says

WashingtonPost Nov 11, 2013 .

 

John Boehner (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

In what will be seen as another blow to immigration reform’s chances, a top pro-reform Republican in the House concedes House Republicans are not going to act on immigration reform this year, and he worries that the window for getting anything done next year is closing fast.

“We have very few days available on the floor in the House, so I don’t think we’re going to be able to do it this year,” GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida told me by phone today.

Diaz-Balart has been deeply involved in bipartisan negotiations over immigration for years now, and is thought to be in touch with House GOP leaders on the issue, so folks involved in the immigration debate pay close attention to what he says.

Worse, Diaz-Balart said that if something were not done early next year — by February or March, before GOP primaries heat up – reform is dead for the foreseeable future.

“I’m hopeful that we can get to it early next year,” he said. “But I am keenly aware that next year, you start running into the election cycle. If we cannot get it done by early next year, then it’s clearly dead. It flatlines.”

Reformers on both sides have been pushing for action this year. Three House Republicans have urged the leadership to allow a vote on something, and House Democrats have introduced their own proposal. GOP leaders have not scheduled a vote on reform this year, but they haven’t ruled one out.

Even some Republicans have ripped the GOP leadership’s foot dragging. GOP Rep. Joe Heck of Nevada recently said it would be “disappointing” if leaders were to “punt the issue until 2014 for political reasons”

Now Diaz-Balart says a vote this year isn’t going to happen. This matters because he is one of the key Republicans who is negotiating over a piecemeal proposal to do something about the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country. This proposal has yet to be released, but the Tea Leaves suggest it will include probation for the 11 million, enabling them to work legally, contingent on getting E-Verify running (if it isn’t after five years, those on probation would revert to illegal status). This idea, which was in the now-defunct House Gang of Seven plan, is seen as one of the few ways Republicans might be able to support reform that deals with the 11 million.

Diaz-Balart said those working on a proposal for the 11 million were making “great progress.” In a note of optimism, he predicted he might be able to get more than half the GOP caucus to support it, though he said it would have to be “bipartisan” to succeed, and allowed that getting both Republican and Democratic support for it would amount to “threading the needle.”

There are other ways reform might get done. For instance, GOP leaders could allow piecemeal votes on border security and the Kids Act — which is supported by Eric Cantor and would give citizenship only to the DREAMers. That could conceivably lead to negotiations between the House and Senate, but conservatives will resist that outcome, and it’s a long shot. Nor is there any sign GOP leaders will hold any such votes this year, either.

As for the proposal for the 11 million Diaz-Balart is working on, it now looks like it won’t be introduced until early next year. And Diaz-Balart cautioned that it — and/or reform in general — had to be acted on right away to have any chance. “That window is definitely closing,” he said.

Indeed, the Congressman’s comments read like a bit of a wake-up call: The House GOP is now at serious risk of killing immigration reform for the foreseeable future.  How many Republicans care, of course, is another question entirely.