Mayor Adams’ administration finally submitted a request for federal migrant aid late last month just days ahead of an application deadline for the emergency funding. The application, filed on March 29 by Adams budget director Jacques Jiha, asks the Federal Emergency Management Agency for $650 million to reimburse the city for costs incurred from sheltering […]
Over the next 30 years, immigrants will pay more in taxes than they will consume in benefits, a new study from the Cato Institute found. This net positive flow in tax contributions shows that immigrants will continue to play an outsized role in supporting public services like schools and safety net programs such as nutrition assistance programs […]
The Biden administration is yet again turning to the Trump playbook as it tries to slap together a border crackdown to succeed the end of the Title 42 “public health” order next month. The latest revived Trump-era idea: keeping asylum seekers in Border Patrol custody for longer, and conducting asylum screening interviews in phone booths, […]
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published the Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) implementation of Alternative to Detention Programs (ATD) on March 17. ATD programs provide noncitizens in removal proceedings the ability to remain in their communities as their cases progress through the immigration court system instead of being detained. The PIA—a […]
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is opening a new service center to try to fix some of its most egregious backlogs. The agency reportedly has already reassigned 150 employees – and plans to have over 300 – to staff a virtual service center, which will eventually operate fully remotely (though it will accept paper as well […]
The public has spoken: an asylum transit ban was bad policy during the Trump era, and it’s bad policy now. On February 21, the Biden administration released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking laying out the details of a planned asylum transit ban. The proposed rule, a new version of a Trump-era policy, would all but bar […]
A conservative group is calling for the deportation of Prince Harry over his admissions of past drug use, including cocaine, cannabis and ayahuasca in his autobiography, “Spare.” The Heritage Foundation is demanding that the U.S. government deny Harry’s visa and deport him. Though applicants for U.S. visas are typically asked about previous drug use, visa […]
The first military challenge coins, one story goes, were handed out in 1969 by a US Army colonel to build camaraderie in his Special Forces unit. He took the idea from a National Guardsman who had required his troops to always keep a sixpence coin on them in order to buy drinks for their buddies. (Soldiers […]
The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) published a decision last week seeking to address a seemingly basic question: what law should an immigration judge apply when deciding the case of a noncitizen facing removal? In a time of remote hearings, when the immigration judge, the government attorney, and the noncitizen may all be in different places, figuring […]
Immigration agencies have a problem with transparency. With an immigration system as complex as ours and Freedom of Information Act offices that are chronically underfunded, it’s no surprise that immigration agencies violate FOIA—a statute created to strengthen our democracy by helping regular citizens understand what the government is up to—by failing to timely provide details […]