Home ⁄ Blog ⁄ This Week in U.S. Immigration News: June 9, 2017

This Week in U.S. Immigration News: June 9, 2017

Each week we collect stories related to U.S. immigration, and we provide a brief summary of each story in our weekly blog edition. Below you will find snapshots of stories that range from Trump’s administration to changes in U.S. immigration laws. We then give you fresh links at the bottom that relate to each story within our summary. Let’s dive in!

Stories from the Border

San Antonio and Austin, Texas, continue to ba ttle Senate Bill 4 before it affects thousands of immigrants across the state of Texas in September. Both cities agree that the new law will have a detrimental effect on the communities in Texas by instilling fear amongst the wealth of immigrants who live in the state. They both hope that more entities will join their lawsuit in an attempt to combat this controversial, new law. San Jose, California, introduced an ordinance titled, “Shield Our City,” in order to protect their immigrants from raids in public spaces such as schools and hospitals. The ordinance is also meant to prevent San Jose law enforcement from making an agreement with federal immigration officials. Moreover, the state of Kansas is kickstarting a program that will offer immigrants in Garden City translators who will assist them during their driving examinations. Translators will volunteer their time by assisting immigrants who speak Arabic, Sudanese, and Somali, to name a few.

The Daily Texan

President Trump’s online disposition through Twitter could affect his Supreme Court case regarding the administration’s travel ban. Instead of aiding his case, President Trump’s rhetoric may negatively impact the validity of it as the case goes through the highest court in the United States. In the past, the Trump administration has argued against calling their action a “travel ban,” but President Trump’s tweets on Monday contradicted his own administration’s position. On June 5th, President Donald Trump tweeted “That’s right, we need a TRAVEL BAN for certain DANGEROUS countries, not some politically correct term that won’t help us protect our people!”. In many press conferences, the Press Secretary Sean Spicer has stated that the Administration has not called the Executive Order Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States ever a “Travel Ban” but a few days ago the President of the United States did. This could affect his current Supreme Court case regarding the said ban.

Washington Examiner

This week U.S. authorities have announced that they will be reducing the amount of time they will delay deporting illegal immigrants in the US who awaiting “congressional decisions to legalize their immigration status”. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director, Thomas Homan, said that they will be holding off deporting immigrants with legislations pending against them for up to six months with the possibility of a 90-day extension. The change only will affect a few people but many senators are criticizing the decision to change these longstanding laws. “To threaten to deport a handful of immigrants before Congress can act to protect them shows just how far this Administration will go,” said Senators Dick Durbin and Dianne Feinstein. Gregory Chen, the director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association said the agency “is really tightening down on all aspects, including an area where Congress might be able to engage in extraordinary cases, it wants greater latitude to deport more people.”