Amending The Special Juvenile Program To Include Childhood Arrivals

Trump, Dems can solve the DACA problem by redefining it | TheHill
http://thehill.com/opinion/immigrati...mpression=true

DREAM Acts have been pending since 2001. The Democrats could have passed one during Barack Obama's administration. From January 2009 to January 2011, they had a strong majority in the House, and until Scott Brown's special election in 2010, a filibuster-busting majority in the Senate. But they chose not to do it.

The aliens in both programs came to the United States as children and humanitarian relief is warranted in both situations to prevent them from having to return to their own countries. The SIJ aliens would be returning to abuse, neglect, or abandonment; and the DACA aliens spent their childhoods here and know no home other than
America.

The need for the new category would end when all of the DACA participants have been taken care of, but this should not be a problem. Section 1059 of the FY2006 National Defense Authorization Act established Special Immigrant status for Iraqi and Afghan nationals who had served as translators for the U.S. Armed Forces, and the need for that program will end when the translators are no longer needed.

Trump's Framework

The first pillar of Trump's framework is the legalization program.

Putting the DACA participants in the SIJ program would facilitate a compromise on Trump's pillar requiring an end to chain migration.

The SIJ provisions take away a participant's right to confer immigration benefits on his parents when he becomes an LPR. INA ?101(a)(27)(J)(iii)(II) states that, "no natural parent or prior adoptive parent of any alien provided special immigrant status under this subparagraph shall thereafter, by virtue of such parentage, be accorded any right, privilege, or status under this Act."

This restriction continues even if they naturalize.

It might be necessary to amend this provision to include the rest of the family-based classifications that Trump wants to eliminate, but that would be a much smaller concession than terminating chain migration for everyone.

The other two pillars are the wall and ending the Diversity Visa Program (DVP).

Trump has made it very clear that he will reject any deal that does not include funding for his wall.

Lastly, terminating the DVP should not be a problem. The Democrats have shown a willingness to end that program. Section 2303 of Senator Charles Schumer's (D-N.Y.) Gang of Eight bill would have repealed the DVP if it had been enacted.

In any case, the parties have nothing to lose from trying this approach.

Include all childhood arrivals who arrived before age 16 and qualified for Daca and Dream Act and this solves the problem of sponsorship

Doesn't matter, they want to limit legal immigration for EVERYONE, not just the recipients.

Heard that Trump wants to take some military money from the spending bill to fund his wall. Hopefully this doesn't happen as the wall money is a DACA leverage.

DOD already told him to eat a dick.

There's one problem with SIJ and that it's a subgroup of EB-4. EB-4 is no more than 7.1% of 140,000 employment based green cards, or 9940 per year further limited by the 7% per country limit, which limits it to 686 per country per year.

So assuming we'd have 1.5 million and Mexico accounting for about 80%, the backlog for Mexico would be up to 1,749 years and for the rest of the world (where no one country exceeds 7%) up to 32.5 years. Keep in mind that you're not eligible for jackshit if your priority date is not current, so you'd have the first few that apply and get adjusted, then years of backlog that have filed prior to retrogression and remain as AOS applicants , and then a whole lot more that basically won't live long enough.

I am not not even sure how priority date progression would even work for Mexico...

This is ignoring any other EB-4 category (also subject to the same 9940 per year cap) and any other SIJ applicant.

Only way around this would be to exempt SIJ from any numerical limitations.

Interesting. Very interesting.

It kinda sucks that even after becoming citizens through SIJ one cannot sponsor relatives. 2nd class citizens at its best. But who cares right...!?

Let's see if the smarts in the WH really want to solve the problem. Where there's a will there's a way.

Isn't that the whole point of the article? That's why they say "amending...", meaning adjusting the numbers so we can get shit r away? Or am I missing something? Am I not seeing the whole picture here? Is that something only congress can do? If so, we're pretty much in the same spot then, same bs bad idea then.

I don't get it. If Trump still has to approve this, then what's the point? They can just pass a better law that Trump can sign. Or he could you know, not cancel DACA.

You need to click the link to read the entire article. I only posted what seemed, to me anyway, the crucial points of this approach.

I thought Congress can amend the INA without presidential approval.

I'm betting this hasn't been challenged in the courts. I don't see how this isn't a blatant 14th amendment violation.

It is different because the person waives certain things by accepting the SIJ visa. People who come to the US under the VWP waive certain rights for their visa.