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Utahn Ciriac Alvarez was brought from Mexico at age 5 by her parents without papers. She was among dreamers who warned Friday that Trump administration efforts to deport them and others could deprive the nation of many of its front-lines fighters against the coronavirus.

People will start losing their workers permits later this year affecting dreamers who are doctors, nurses, pharmacists, technicians, farm workers, grocery workers and others, Alvarez said in a call for national reporters set up by Americas Voice, an immigration reform group.

Alvarez and others said dreamers are at risk for two reasons. Immigration offices have been closed and have not allowed dreamers to file papers needed to keep work permits current. And the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on a Trump request to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, and seemed to side with the administration in oral arguments.

An unusual filing with the Supreme Court on Friday by Yale Law School like the national press call urged the court to take a new look at the case because of the coronavirus outbreak. Termination of DACA during this national emergency would be catastrophic, it said.

Alvarez, a policy analyst for Voices for Utahs Children, added, DACA recipients are facing so much uncertainty right now with the [virus] crisis and with the decision of the Supreme Court ruling looming over us including that many fear taking advantage of food or other aid because it may hurt their immigration status by considering them a public charge.

Denisse Rojas, co-founder of Pre-Health Dreamers, a group for DACA students studying to work in the health industry, said the Center for American Progress estimates the county has 27,000 undocumented health care workers who are working with permission through DACA.

These individuals are on the frontlines of providing care to people, she said. Its so disheartening that their ability to work and my own ability to practice as a physician is in jeopardy and will be ripped away if the Supreme Court decides to end the DACA program.

Besides the health industry workers, Ur Jaddou, director of DHS Watch, said many more DACA recipients work in other jobs needed during the pandemic from farm workers to truckers, meat processors and grocery store workers.

They also need immigration protection so they can go on working for all of us without the fear of falling out of status, threat of deportation or financial ruin, she said.

Some groups on the national call for reporters also criticized rhetoric by President Donald Trump including referring to COVID-19 as the Chinese flu saying that is making life unfairly difficult for many Asian immigrants.

Chinese Americans and Asian Americans are being blamed for the virus or presumed to be carriers. We know that this sort of stereotyping and scapegoating it wrong, said Marita Etcubaez, director of strategic initiatives for Asian Americans Advancing Justice. Its also dangerous.

She said Asian immigrants have been assaulted, attacked, spit on and verbally abused.

So her group proclaimed that calling COVID-19 the Chinese virus, particularly as we hear it coming from our elected officials including the president is racist and its fueling hate against our communities.

See the article here:
Undocumented 'dreamers' say they are needed as front-line fighters against coronavirus - Salt Lake Tribune

A little-noticed immigration decision at the Supreme Court Monday could give a boost to foreign nationals challenging deportation orders long after their removal from the United States.

The case involves an immigrant, Pedro Pablo Guerrero-Lasprilla, who was deported in 1998 in connection with the seizure of 50 kilograms of cocaine. The Supreme Court ruled seven to two on Monday that Guerrero-Lasprillacan fight his deportation in federal court, giving him a chance at returning to the United States.

"Practically speaking, the Supreme Court may have opened the door for thousands of aliens, many removed from the U.S. years ago, to request review of their deportation orders. If that happens, the operations of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, already struggling under a backlog of a million cases, may collapse and come to a screeching halt," Matt O'Brien, director of research at the Federation for American Immigration Reform and a former assistant chief counsel with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told theWashington Free Beacon.

The ruling was a rare setback for the Trump administration, which has generally fared well before the Supreme Court on criminal immigration issues. It may take years to appreciate the scope of the decision, as it's not clear how many migrants might benefit. Two other cases the Supreme Court is considering this term similarly explore when federal courts have power to consider immigration issues. In ruling for Guerrero-Lasprilla on Monday, the justices may be signaling more defeats to come for the Trump administration, and an expanded role for judges in deportations.

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) is at the center of Monday's case. Congress wanted to make the deportation of immigrants who commit crimes easy and straightforward. To that end, the INA dictates that immigrants convicted of violent crimes or drug offenses cannot challenge their deportation in federal court.

Congress adopted that rule, called the "criminal-alien bar," because it wanted expert immigration authorities in the executive branch, not federal courts, to make final judgments about deportation, OBrien told theFree Beacon.

There are two exceptions to the criminal-alien bar. One provides that immigrants can fight a deportation order in court if their case involves a "question of law." The issue in Mondays case was a technical onewhether the application of law to undisputed facts counts as a "question of law."

A seven-justice majority led by Justice Stephen Breyer said the answer is yes, citing a background rule that "executive determinations generally are subject to judicial review." In doing so, the Court may have greatly expanded the number of immigrants who can fight their deportations before a judge.

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, warning that the Court's decision gives judges far more leeway to review deportation orders than Congress intended.

"The majority effectively nullifies a jurisdiction-stripping statute, expanding the scope of judicial review well past the boundaries set by Congress," Thomas wrote. Justice Samuel Alito joined Thomas's dissent.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh joined Breyers opinion for the Court.

More disconcerting, O'Brien said, is a second issue the ruling did not broach: when an immigrant's ability to challenge his deportation in federal court expires.

"Some deported aliens may retain the possibility of contesting their removal ordersdecadesinto the future," O'Brien told theFree Beacon. "And that possibility undermines the effectiveness of deportation as a method for preserving our national sovereignty and border security."

The case of another immigrantRuben Ovalleswas decided with Guerrero-Lasprilla's. In 2003, Ovalles pleaded guilty to attempted possession of heroin. Thereafter, immigration authorities deported him to the Dominican Republic in 2004, where he remains today.

Guerrero-Lasprilla is a native Colombian who became a lawful permanent resident in the United States in 1986. A jury convicted him of possession with intent to distribute more than 50 kilograms of cocaine base worth over $1 million in 1988.

Following a 10-year prison sentence, he was deported to Colombia in 1998, where he still lives as of this writing.

The case is No. 18-776Guerrero-Lasprillav.Barr.

Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr by Washington Free Beacon on Scribd

Kevin Daley covers the Supreme Court for the Washington Free Beacon. He has covered the Supreme Court since 2016. His email is daley@freebeacon.com.

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Supreme Court Will Allow Review of Decades-Old Deportations - Washington Free Beacon

An immigration reform activist and former immigration judge sees no need shut down immigration courts amid the coronavirus crisis.

While many daily activities have grinded to a halt in an effort to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, the Trump administration is resisting pleas from immigration judges and attorneys to stop in-person hearings and shutter all immigration courts. They say the most pressing hearings can be done by phone so immigrants are not stuck in detention indefinitely.

Immigration attorneys and judges have taken to wearing swim goggles or masks in court, and while immigration courts in places like New York, New Jersey, and Colorado have been temporarily shut down in the past week, most of the 68 U.S. immigration courts are still holding hearings.

"Keeping those courts open and having those cases proceed is important so we can get those decisions made as quickly as possible," submits Art Arthur, a resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies. "From a legal perspective and from a logistical perspective, it actually makes sense to have those courts open."

Arthur speaks on this from experience.

"I was a judge in a detain court, so I probably have more experience on this than most people. With due respect to my colleagues who are still on the bench, nobody really came that close to me or was allowed to come that close," he accounts. "With respect to concerns by government attorneys or private attorneys, there's not a lot of close contact in immigration courts, so those are logistical issues to be worked out but not a reason to close down the courts per se."

Arthur says he considers the immigration courts a critical activity that should remain open with appropriate safeguards, as it is a critical activity.

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Safeguards suggested to keep courts moving - OneNewsNow

Donald Trump has vanquished the Chinese Virus. No, not COVID-19the actual disease that continues to spread unchecked in the United States and around the worldjust the racist term he invented to cast blame on one of his favorite bogeymen: China. Apparently, the presidents change of heart comes because hes shocked shocked! to learn, It seems there could be a little nasty language toward the Asian Americans in our country. Or so he said at Mondays White House briefing on the virus. On Sunday, however, he had no hesitation to call COVID-19 the Chinese Virus; and on Friday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo used the ugly term standing from the same podium along with the president. Others in the administration have found even more colorful ways to describe the disease. Whats next, calling it the Yellow Peril?

Is this merely another example of Trump dog-whistling to white nationalists in an election year, or is there something even more insidious going on? Stephen Miller, the presidents immigration henchman, helped write his disastrous Oval Office address on the disease, describing the pandemic as a foreign virus. Miller wasnt being sloppy, he meant to plant the seed that this disease was alien. Associating a specific disease with a particular ethnic group has worked in the past to raise fears about immigrants and helped spur calls to cut off immigration from various countries, not just for a medically prudent short term in a pandemic, but permanently.

A virulent smallpox epidemic in San Francisco in 1875-76 led health authorities to order fumigation of all Chinese immigrants homes. It did little to stop the spread of smallpox, which infected 1,646 whites in the city and killed more than 400. The citys top health officer attributed the disease to the 30,000 Chinese laborers living in San Francisco at the time, whom he blamed, with no evidence, for concealing their cases of smallpox. The scare exacerbated calls to bar all Chinese laborers from entering the U.S., which culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The law barred Chinese from immigrating until 1943, but it was the 1965 Immigration Act that led to large-scale immigration from China. By 2013, China had replaced Mexico as the country sending the most immigrants to the U.S.

And Asians werent the only immigrant scapegoats for disease. In the early 20th century, during the huge influx of Southern and Eastern Europeans, New Yorkers dubbed tuberculosis the Jewish disease and accused Italians of bringing in cholera. The common stereotype associating infectious diseases with new immigrants led to much more aggressive inspections of newcomers, with the federal government taking over responsibility from the individual states in 1890.

In 1892, the federal government opened Ellis Island, the largest immigrant inspection station, and others followed at Angel Island near San Francisco, at the port of Galveston, Texas, and elsewhere. Between 1902 and its closure in 1951, the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital cared for more than a quarter million patients. Those who had infectious diseases like tuberculosis were sent back to their countries of origin at shipping lines expense, which prompted shipping companies to begin assessing travelers before they boarded ships to avoid the potential financial as well as medical risk.

With the outbreak of the misnamed Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918 (it probably started in Kansas), Americans were primed to see immigration restriction as a way to fight disease. Much of the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the era described new immigrants as dirty, disease-ridden, and a threat to the native stock. Unsurprisingly, Congress acceded to popular sentiment, largely shutting off immigration in 1924 by limiting immigration from most countries to 2 percent of their U.S. population in 1890. Consequently, few Spaniards, Italians, Greeks, Poles, Russians (many of whom were Jews) or others from Southern and Eastern Europe, who had come in large numbers between 1900 and 1924, could immigrate until Congress rescinded the quotas in 1965.

It is one thing for nations to impose temporary travel bans to stem the spread of a highly contagious disease, but another to exploit a national emergency to further policy goals that would be difficult to achieve in normal circumstances. Trump has made no secret that he wants to reduce immigrationnot just illegal immigration but legal immigration as well. During his campaign, he advocated that before new green cards are issued to foreign workers abroad, there will be a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers. Once in office, Trump endorsed a bill sponsored by Sens. David Perdue and Tom Cotton that would have drastically slashed legal immigration. But even without Congress passing the bill, Trump managed to reduce net legal immigration 70 percent last year.

Trump isnt alone in believing fewer immigrants would be good for America. Neo-Malthusian groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the Center for Immigration Studies, and many of the anti-immigrant groups in the U.S. think a shrinking population is a good thing. Its not. Fewer people mean fewer workers and consumers and a contracting GDP. U.S. population growth has already slowed significantly, with the native population having fewer babies and stricter immigration rules making it more difficult for legal immigrants to come here.

And its not just the loss of the immigrants themselves that will drive down population. Without immigrants and the children to whom they give birth, the United States would already be below replacement levelwhich is just what the restrictionists would like to see. COVID-19 may well accomplish what the radical restrictionists and anti-natalists have been wanting for years: fewer immigrants, fewer babies, and a declining American population.

We face difficult times ahead, but it would be wrong to allow fear of any disease to drive us to erect long-lasting barriers against welcoming immigrants and providing asylum and refuge to those who flee persecution, war, and violence.

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For Trump, COVID-19 Is Another Excuse to Limit Immigration - The Bulwark

EB-5 could be brought back to life (Credit: iStock)

After the last recession, developers turned to the federal EB-5 program for cheap financing to fund new development projects in the countrys hottest residential and commercial markets. The program became such a lifeline for developers in search of funds that it was once described as the crack cocaine of real estate finance.

Now, in an effort to counter the major economic disruption brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration is considering dramatically upping the scale of the program as part of a broader stimulus package, according to Politico. The potential proposal, if implemented, could result in billions of dollars flowing into new construction projects.

Investors moved away from the program after rule changes in November, which increased the minimum investment threshold, and developers also cooled on it after lawmakers banned a popular practice which allowed developers to build projects in tony areas rather than the low-income areas the program was designed to target.

Sen. Lindsey Graham

The House is now seeking to include two changes that could increase the number of available visas available to 75,000 from 10,000, according to Politico, which cited sources familiar with the matter. For some projects, the investment threshold to earn legal residence would halve, to $450,000 from $900,000. (Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the lawmakers championing a lowering of the investment threshold, said that Politicos account was untrue and he has not spoken to the Trump administration about EB-5 in the wake of the pandemic.)

Talk of the proposal has created excitement among industry players. If it goes through, everyone will be getting into full sales mode, said Michael Gibson of Miami-based USAdvisors, which connects EB-5 investors with developers.

Bernardo Rieber, the CEO of Aventura, Florida-based Rieber Developments, who is using EB-5 money to develop a mixed-use project dubbed 12|12 Aventura, said the changes put forth in the proposal would allow him to start new projects.

It will allow me to launch one or two other construction projects, and each project employs 1,000 people. said Rieber. Its only positive.

Hudson Yards

The program gives foreigners a chance to obtain a green card in exchange for investing in a U.S. business that creates at least 10 jobs locally. EB-5 money, has been used to fund the development of major projects such as Related Companies Hudson Yards in New York, as well as glitzy condo towers in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and other core markets. EB-5 money, often structured akin to a mezzanine loan, can provide financing at low rates, often at half the interest rate of a conventional mezzanine loan. But in recent years it has been plagued with problems, including fraud and abuse as well as visa backlogs from China, where the waiting time for Chinese investors is about 14 years. Those factors have muted interest in the program from investors and led to regulators getting tougher on it.

Novembers stricter rules basically killed the program, according to Scott Bettridge, who chairs Cozen OConnors immigration practice in Miami.

We have talked to a handful [of investors], but no one is pulling the trigger at the $900,000 level, Bettridge said.

Nicholas Mastroianni II, the CEO and founder of US Immigration Fund, an EB-5 regional center that has raised $2.9 billion in capital for developers, said increasing the number of new visas issued by 60,000 would be a huge boost for his business.

It would get business back to where it was in 2013 and 2014, he said.

The proposal also comes at a time when some lenders may pull back due to uncertainty surrounding the novel coronavirus, and developers looking to build new construction projects may not have many options for financing or they might have to turn to private lenders with higher interest rates.

Desperate times call for innovative solutions, said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell University and an expert on the EB-5 program. This could be one way to jumpstart the economy.

Opening the EB-5 floodgates could help developers gain access to money when other sources are staying on the sidelines. Billy Meyer, of Seattle-based real estate investment firm Columbia Pacific Advisors, said his firm has halted all lending for 30 days. Many other lenders are in a similar boat.

We are taking a 30 day pause, said Meyer. No one knows what the hell is going on here. The virus is massively outbreaking and we dont know how bad it will get.

Steve Witkoff, an active developer in New York, Miami and Los Angeles, said that any proposal that would increase liquidity would be welcomed, but didnt think the banks would sit out the action.

Its important to remember that this is not the Financial Crisis, he said during a panel discussion with The Real Deal Monday.

EB-5, however, has strong detractors among groups that argue for less immigration as well as those concerned about its potential for fraud and abuse.

Sen. Chuck Grassley

A spokesperson for Sen. Chuck Grassley, a vocal opponent of EB-5, said that using a national emergency to allow big city developers to exploit a program designed to provide economic relief to rural and distressed areas is not something Chairman Grassley would support.

RJ Hauman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which argues for greater restrictions on immigration, claims to have been in touch with the White House and the Senate about the proposal. He said that using a coronavirus package to give more green cards to shady investors from the country where the virus originated would be Washington at its worst.

Palm House hotel

There have certainly been cases of fraud, including at the Palm House hotel project in Palm Beach, where the developer swindled millions of dollars into properties and his yacht named Alibi. Theres also the Jay Peak ski resort project Vermont, where state and federal regulators alleged that the owners misused $200 million of EB-5 money.

I think that its an invitation for fraud. I think that its a horrendous idea. As long as foreign money from distant places is pooled into the hands of Americans there is going to be massive fraud, said Doug Litowitz, a Chicago-based lawyer who represents Chinese EB-5 investors.

Litowitz added that a number of EB-5 projects are going to face headwinds due to the economic impacts of the coronavirus, causing more strain on the program and foreign investors.

Theres a lot of hotels that were built with EB-5 money. Are they going to default now on the EB-5 loan? said Litowitz.

The origins of the proposal reported by Politico are unknown. Graham and Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York previously sponsored a bill that would lower the minimum investment amount for the EB-5 program. Industry experts also say a proposal to put EB-5 in a stimulus package would make sense.

But Graham denied that he is pushing forward the EB-5 proposal in the stimulus package on Fox News last week.

I havent talked to anybody on the planet, much less the Trump Administration about putting EB-5 on the coronavirus bill, Graham said on Hannity. This is not the time or the place.

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Could a pandemic bring EB-5 back to life? - The Real Deal