dreamers

'Doesn’t make sense': Business leaders poised for clash with Trump over immigration

President-elect Donald Trump's signature policy plank may end up angering a lot of American employers who depend on legal migrant labor, according to a new report.

In a Saturday article, the Wall Street Journal quoted several business leaders and experts who predicted a standoff between Trump and companies that routinely hire legal immigrants. If the incoming president follows through on his promise to reverse President Joe Biden's immigration policy, it would result in many migrants with legal status being removed from the United States.

The Journal reported that undoing the Biden administration's Temporary Protected Status (TPS) — a designation for roughly 1.1 million refugees from countries going through war or political upheaval like Afghanistan, Haiti, Lebanon, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela and others — could deplete many businesses of large portions of their workforce. Some advocates are urging Biden to use his lame duck period to take action to extend the work permits of TPS beneficiaries before Trump's inauguration.

Mike Arntson — the plant manager for Fargo, North Dakota-based Cardinal Glass — employs five TPS beneficiaries. He told the Journal that he's hoping Trump's administration will stop short of policy changes that would destabilize his workforce.

“My hope is that once we have secured the border that we revitalize our legal immigration process,” Arntson said. “To take a subsection of the workforce here in North Dakota and make them go back to the country where they were born, it just doesn’t make sense.”

If Trump repeals TPS, it could mean companies that are already struggling to fill open positions will have even more difficulty hiring workers. And it could financially destabilize the households of immigrant workers — many of whom have been in the workforce for years — as litigation over TPS repeal plays out in the federal judiciary.

"It will have an enormous impact across the U.S. in a wide range of industries, regardless of whether those people get deported or wind up leaving the U.S.,” American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick told the Journal.

Many foreign-born workers in the United States are also known as "Dreamers," which is the term used for beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Dreamers — who number roughly 535,000 — were brought to the United States as the children of undocumented immigrants, and many have been in the U.S. for the better part of their lives.

One DACA recipient is Alejandro Flores-Muñoz, who came to the U.S. at age seven. He's now 35 years old, and runs a catering business that recently won a $500,000 contract from the City of Denver to provide food for people in homeless shelters. His company, Combi Taco, is also regularly hired by corporate clients and hosts of private events.

“I know no other country but the U.S.A.," he said.

Additionally, the Biden administration's "humanitarian parole" could also end once Trump is sworn in as president. That program benefits approximately 1.7 million immigrants who have been granted temporary residence and work permits in the U.S. for two years. Humanitarian parole recipients come from countries "deemed dangerous because of wars or natural disasters," according to the Journal.

Click here to read the Journal's report in full (subscription required).

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Paul Ryan is Using Strategic Lies to Proactively Help Trump Deport Dreamers

Sixteen months ago during a nationally televised town hall, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan assured a concerned Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient that she had nothing to worry about. "I want you to know that DACA has helped me,” she told him last January. Her daughter, wide-eyed, stood next to her. “Do you think that I should be deported?"

And this is a crisis. NBC News reports the administration is urging a Texas judge to declare DACA illegal, which would conflict with other court orders that have partially resurrected it. The administration would then go to the Supreme Court “to put a hold on all the lower court rulings. And if the justices agreed, the Trump administration would be free to shut DACA down immediately, because nothing would be in effect to prevent the government from taking that action.” This is a crisis, and one aided and abetted by Ryan.

But there’s plenty of blame to go around. While every single damn House Democrat signed the petition, only 23 House Republicans joined, leaving it just two shy of success, which would have forced a vote on a series of bills, including Goodlatte and DREAM. Yes, Ryan, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Majority Whip Steve Scalise blocked the petition, but all that was needed was courage from two more Republicans to buck them. They failed.

“Once again,” said Tom Jawetz of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, “we see that the GOP is the party of Trump. After more than a year of inaction by congressional Republicans, today was the day that we were told the so-called moderates in their party would stand up in defiance of their leadership to demand a vote to protect Dreamers. Instead, they continue to sit on the sidelines, saying and doing nothing, all while holding out hope that the hardliners in the party who wanted to end DACA in the first place might come around to a deal.”

There’ll be plenty of anti-immigrant fearmongering if the House takes up Goodlatte on whatever shit Ryan puts up in the days to come, while DACA recipients continue to wait in limbo for a real solution. Ignore the false promises, the concerned tweets, or whatever assuages Republican leadership has to offer. Unless a real plan comes up, Ryan and his accomplices in the House are helping Donald Trump deport Dreamers. Remember this abdication of responsibility in November.

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Trump's Racist Statements May Destroy His Case As 9th Circuit Hears DACA Appeal

Donald Trump’s statements and tweets are dangerous for us all in terms of foreign policy, and they can also backfire in his own face, as may happen in the case of the three-judge 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel that is mulling the January injunction that partially resurrected the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program:

The 9th Circuit hearing comes as indicted Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has made good on his threat to sue the government over DACA (and there’s plenty of reason to believe Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III conspired with him on the threat). Additionally, another recent court decision could open up DACA to brand-new applicants—the current injunctions allow only current and former DACA recipients to renew their protections:

Wardlaw also noted that Texas and six other states recently filed a long-threatened lawsuit over DACA, seeking to block any new enrollments in the program. [San Francisco-based U.S. District Court Judge William] Alsup's injunction and the one issued by the Brooklyn judge don't require the government to allow new people into the program, but the Washington-based judge who ruled on a DACA suit said he would require the government to begin accepting new applications in July if officials don't come up with a better explanation for their rationale in ending it. (Only those who've been in the U.S. for more than a decade would be eligible, however.)

“Today the Trump administration yet again ignored the lives of approximately 700,000 immigrant youth by asking the 9th Circuit court to reinstate Trump’s termination of DACA,” tweeted the National Immigration Law Center. “The court can and should review the wrong legal conclusion that the Trump administration wrongfully relied on to end DACA and throw the lives of hundreds of thousands of Dreamers into chaos.”

This lawsuit was led by California attorney general Xavier Becerra, whose state is home to the largest population of DACA recipients in the country. “Dreamers who would have lost DACA status are our teachers, students, colleagues and neighbors,” he said. “DACA has made our nation a better place to live and work, and California was proud to secure a nationwide injunction earlier this year to protect Dreamers and the communities they enrich. We will do whatever it takes to help our Dreamers and ensure that the rescission of DACA does not stand.”

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Paul Ryan Is Lying to the Public About His Real Position on DREAMers - He's Actually Trying to Deport Them

In January 2017, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan assured a frightened Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient and her young daughter that they had nothing to worry about:

California Rep. Jeff Denham said backers of the petition remain confident they have "more than enough votes." They believe they can hit the required number of signatures this week.

Actions, not words, are what’s needed. Nearly 35 House Republicans signed a letterlate last year urging Ryan to act on permanent protections, more than enough to make up the missing votes from the discharge petition. Grow some backbone. Buck Ryan at least once, before he goes home for good.

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One Congressman Who Balked at Trump's Immigration Ruse

In the annals of cynicism, President Trump’s declaration in Tuesday night's State of the Union speech that "all Americans are Dreamers" ranks high. Invoking the hopes of the 800,000 undocumented Americans protected by President Obama’s Deferred Action for Children, after abolishing the program that allows them to stay in the country, Trump delivered a threat with a smile.

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