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Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is pushing back on criticism the Biden administration has received over its plans to lift Title 42, saying officials are prepared for the move later this week.

During a Sunday appearance on CBSs Face The Nation, moderator Margret Brennan mentioned recent criticism from Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.).

Well, I respectfully disagree with the senator and the governor. Number one, we are prepared. As we noted at the very beginning of our conversation, weve been preparing for this for quite some time, Mayorkas told Brennan. We tried to end Title 42 repeatedly and were stopped from doing so by the courts, so we are prepared, number one.

Number two, we have a migration information center that is specifically set up to communicate with state and local officials. And we have been doing so. We are using our FEMA regional coordinators as our key points of contact, Mayorkas added. I spoke with Sen. Sinema, I think within the last two weeks, and our personnel are in touch with other officials on a regular basis.

Sinema has been critical of DHS, saying it is not sharing information on the numbers of migrants, processing time and available buses to transport them in her home state, while Hobbs has focused on the amount of money needed for emergency shelters.

Mayorkas also told Brennan on Sunday that Congress needs to push for immigration reform in the near future.

Everything that the Department of Homeland Security is doing, everything that our partners across the federal government are doing, is within a broken immigration system, Mayokas said. The president passed to Congress a proposal to fix our broken immigration system on the first day in office.

But thats like a to-do list. Thats different than putting your shoulder behind it, picking up the phone and saying, excuse me, Democrats control the Senate, lets be out front on immigration? Brennan asked.

Story continues

Margaret, we have been pushing for immigration legislation since day one. And by the way, it didnt start on day one, Mayokas replied. This is a decades-long problem.

The Biden administration is temporarily deploying 1,500 active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border ahead of an anticipated migrant surge when the controversial pandemic-era policy, which allowed the U.S. to more easily expel migrants seeking asylum at the border, expires.

Updated at 11:37 a.m.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.

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Mayorkas pushes back on criticism, says Biden administration is prepared for lifting of Title 42 - Yahoo News

Costs and challenges

According to Joseph Woodbury, founder and CEO of Neighbor.com, the companys first core value is to hire and develop the best. To accomplish this, Neighbor is one of few Utah companies that sponsor H-1B, STEM OPT and TN visas.

Sponsoring work visas is a competitive advantage for employers like Neighbor.com, Woodbury says. It provides access to a broader talent pool of extremely accomplished and driven individuals. It also brings diverse perspectives into your company that drive strategic decision-making and foster a global perspective.

Sponsoring work visas also provides significant benefits to talented immigrant workers striving to gain access to the largest economy in the world and participate in developing companies that will redefine the future, Woodbury explains.

The United States needs to work quickly to dramatically expand the number of educated immigrant workers it allows into the country, he continues. Making immigration easier will be a major benefit to the U.S. economy.

According to Woodbury, the average cost to sponsor an employee is $5,000, including premium processing. He says working with immigration law firms has helped make the process simple.

The biggest challenge Woodbury has encountered with sponsoring work visas? The United States government. The application process for an employee looking to transfer from temporary sponsorship to permanent residency is a tedious and entirely outdated system, he says. We have an employee that has gone through the lottery system for four years with a preferred Masters Cap lottery position and has still not been selected. For some reason, the U.S. government doesnt want some of the most talented individuals in the world to stay in the country.

Woodbury says the other main barriers are the filing costs, legal costs, the time to file and the requirement to publicly post documents.

Its absolutely worth the cost, but it is understandable why more companies dont embrace it given the hurdles that have been set up, Woodbury says. The system desperately needs reform to make it quicker and easier for companies to obtain work visas for talented employees and candidates.

Regardless, Neighbor has sponsored numerous employees for roles in software engineering, data and analytics, marketing and sales. In every instance, Woodbury says, it has been a net positive experience. He hopes business owners will speak to elected officials about streamlining the process for employers to obtain skilled worker visas and making it easier for talented individuals to contribute to our economy.

As one of the largest technology employers in Utah, Zions Bancorporation employs skilled technology workers from around the globe. The company currently provides immigration sponsorship for over 100 employees who are on H-1B status. This represents approximately one percent of Zions Bancorporations current employee population, according to HR Compliance Analyst Stephen Allred.

If a business is experiencing unusual difficulty hiring highly-skilled talent and is considering immigration sponsorship for the first time, Allred offers this advice: contact an experienced in-house immigration consultant and use your professional network to identify a reputable, service-oriented immigration law firm.

Utah universities put a lot of investment into attracting international students, but those students are often unable to find permanent employment upon graduation due to confusing and outdated worker visa systems, says Michelle Conley, director of partner relations for World Trade Center Utah. Formerly, Conley was the refugee program director for the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah.

While WTC Utah does not manage an immigration program, the organization is an outspoken advocate for comprehensive immigration reform. Conley says the team at WTC Utah hopes to help solve the broken parts of the system by making it easier for employers to hire international students upon graduation.

Employers are often hesitant to hire graduating students because they arent familiar with the visa system or how to apply for worker status for their potential employees, she continues. This means many talented, U.S.-trained potential employees return to their home countries. Making the process easier and more transparent for employers to hire these students would help Utah companies retain highly-educated workers who have already spent years in the state and would like to remain.

Conley believes it is very feasible to reform and increase immigrationand its in our best interest. Skilled, foreign-born workers will strengthen our economy, innovation and standing in the world, she says.

Utah is strongest when its seen as one of the most welcoming and accommodating places in the world to get an education, start or work at a business and raise a family, Conley says.

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The why and how of sponsoring employment visas - Utah Business - Utah Business

Image Credit: Carlos Lozano onunsplash.com

Conventional thinking often suggests that the people most vulnerable to climate change are those most directly hitthe individuals who experience the most damage in a flood, for example. However, recent research suggests that this is not the case. Instead, the question of who is most impacted by climate disasters has more to do with an individuals pre-existing socioeconomic position and their corresponding access to disaster preparedness and recovery resources.

But a greater understanding of this kind of vulnerability is emerging, and efforts are now underway to close the gap. Community-based organizations and local governments are starting to recognize where such individuals may fall through the cracks and are creating policies and networks for more inclusive disaster response and recovery.

After Michael Mndez, an Assistant Professor at UC Irvine, published his first book on how environmental justice organizations were engaging in climate work, he began interviews for a new research project exploring the common ground between labor, immigration, and environmental groups. Everyone he spoke to wanted to instead talk about one thing: the 2017 Thomas Fire, which burned approximately 281,000 acres of land over the course of more than six months and primarily affected the Ventura and Santa Barbara counties in California. In these counties, an estimated eight to ten percent of the population is undocumented. Mndez abandoned the original premise of his project and dove into the research of differential climate disaster impacts, which ultimately resulted in the publication of what is perhaps the seminal paper on the climate vulnerability of undocumented migrants.

Racisms legacy is just the beginning of the climate change story for the estimated 16 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.

The paper, The (in)visible victims of disaster: Understanding the vulnerability of undocumented Latino/a and indigenous immigrants, built on previous research around the concept of social vulnerability to climate change. Social vulnerability describes the way racist policies like redlining, for example, have created barriers to accumulating generational wealth and relegated people of color to living in environmentally undesirable areas. At the same time, these policies siphoned resources away from their communities.

Extensive bodies of research show that this structural oppression resulted in people of color, regardless of immigration status, facing the greatest impacts of climate disasters. The neighborhoods that are hit the hardest are often those that had the least amount of resources to begin with, says Jacqueline Martinez Garcel, the CEO of the Latino Community Foundationan organization that works closely with a number of immigrant advocacy groups in California.

Racisms legacy is just the beginning of the climate change story for the estimated 16 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. They face what Mndez calls a hyper form of marginalization. Because of their immigration status, they rarely have access to jobs that pay a living wage or provide benefits like health insurance, leaving them without the resources, financial or otherwise, required to prepare for and recover from disaster. Undocumented immigrants are also overrepresented in manual labor jobs, which further marginalize them by exposing them to pesticides, long hours of intensive outdoor labor, and/or unhealthy air quality. Substandard housing conditions, including housing that is provided by employers, also contribute to poorer health outcomes even before disaster hits.

Practically, these circumstances leave many undocumented immigrants with no choice but to continue to work even in hazardous conditions, typically without hazard pay to compensate them for the risks they are taking.

Moreover, despite the fact that many undocumented immigrants pay taxes via Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, they are excluded from most federal aid programs. This includes aid provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as unemployment insurance. Their work is deemed essential and critical to the economy. They contribute $485 million to unemployment insurance, says Martinez Garcel. Those same workers are not eligible for that insurance when a crisis hits. Theres no wage protection, theyre out of a job, theyre out of resources, theyre most likely out of homes because the homes that are built are usually closest to where the disasters happen.

Practically, these circumstances leave many undocumented immigrants with no choice but to continue to work even in hazardous conditions, typically without hazard pay to compensate them for the risks they are taking. Both Mndez and Martinez Garcel tell stories of California farmworkers, at least half of whom are undocumented, who were sent back into wildfire evacuation zones to pick crops before they were tainted by smoke and ash while wealthier community members fled. An environment that makes wine grapes taste like ashtrays has even more alarming effects on the health of workers being asked to save them. Some farmworkers talk aboutafter working days, hours, weeksthat they would come home and have black saliva, Mndez reports.

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These problems are hardly unique to California. Research has shown increased climate vulnerability for undocumented immigrants living in Louisiana, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, and elsewhere. Luis Mata, the Policy Coordinator at the Nashville-based Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition, echoed the sentiments shared by Mndez and Martinez Garcel.

TIRRC is in the midst of launching a climate justice campaign on the heels of several climate disasters, including a flood that impacted South Nashville, a neighborhood with a large population of immigrants. We realized that, when it comes to our disaster relief, a lot of our immigrants and refugees were being left out, even though we are the ones who face some of the most harmful impacts, says Mata. He cited that the lack of linguistic and cultural relevancy of services remains the main barrier to equitable disaster response and recovery.

This is why it is so important to work with local organizations, grassroots organizations that are led by people of colorpeople who understand and know their communities so that the nuances of where people are and how to reach them can be met with urgency.

Language access can be one of the most prevalent challenges in disaster recovery. This is true not only for undocumented peoplesome of whom speak Indigenous languagesbut for all populations with low English proficiency. Often, people sent by the federal or state government to provide aid dont speak locally relevant languages, leaving translation duties up to local immigrant-serving organizations like TIRRC or grantees supported by LCF. For Martinez Garcel, this highlights the need for government emergency management agencies to build relationships with community-based organizations. This is why it is so important to work with local organizations, grassroots organizations that are led by people of colorpeople who understand and know their communities so that the nuances of where people are and how to reach them can be met with urgency, she explains.

Partnerships with community-based organizations are especially crucial when populations impacted by disasters are undocumented because there is an additional layer of trust needed. Undocumented individuals may be hesitant to seek aid even if it is available because they fear deportation, especially given the fact that FEMA and federal immigration enforcement are both under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security. CBOs, which often have established relationships with impacted community members, can help ease fear for undocumented residents and act as intermediaries between community members and these governmental entities.

Nowadays, CBOs often fill the gaps left by government agencies in the aftermath of climate disasters. We are on the frontlines, in the community, making sure that folks are getting the materials, resources, and services in their language, Mata says. A prime example of this can be found in the work of several immigrant-serving CBOs who teamed up after the 2017 Tubbs fire in Northern California. The CBOs started a disaster assistance fund specifically designated for undocumented people, dubbing it an UndocuFund. The idea spread, and there are now about 40 UndocuFunds around the country that cover immediate necessities such as food, emergency shelter, and transportation, among other critical needs.

LCF, which supported the launch of the UndocuFund network, is proud to be a part of getting resources in the hands of the people who need it most. But Mata, Mndez, and Martinez Garcel all agree that the resources CBOs are able to provide are not sufficient. Though partnerships between nonprofits and governments are key, CBOs cant be expected to provide disaster relief for undocumented communities by themselves. As Martinez Garcel puts it, These UndocuFunds are the band-aidthere are some root causes that need to be addressed.

What Mndez has taken away from his research efforts is that there is a vital need for government support when undocumented populations are affected by climate impacts. CBOs are doing what they can, but without policy intervention, it is likely that undocumented communities will continue to be disproportionately affected. [Immigrant-serving nonprofits] have limited budgets, Mndez says. Disaster planning, response, and recovery is not part of their core mission. They have become de facto disaster relief experts, not because they wanted to but because they were forced to.

Directly impacted communities, like the members of TIRRC, the organizations funded by LCF, and Mndezs research partners, are leading the charge for policy change. If we really want to tackle disaster risk reduction, it starts with the social integration of undocumented migrants before a disaster happens, Mndez says. Our governments need to do better. They need to support undocumented migrant communities and provide the necessary resources to prepare and be safeguarded before, during, and after disasters. That includes additional funding and relationship building with the nonprofit sector.

Immigration reform, such as creating a pathway to citizenship for people who are working and paying taxes, may be a key step towards more equitable disaster outcomes. It has to start from there, Martinez Garcel says. National polling has shown that a majority of Americans support such pathways to citizenship for essential workers.

Slowly, change is beginning to happen.

In early 2023, Californias Sonoma County became the first in the country to create a disaster aid fund that is accessible to all residents, regardless of immigration status. It is likely no coincidence that Sonoma County is home to the 805 UndocuFundone of the most successful in the network. The 805 UndocuFund has distributed over $8 million to 17,000 undocumented Central Coast residents, demonstrating a need that the county government is now taking steps to fill. Also, in California, the latest expansion of Medi-Cal, the states Medicaid health insurance program, now includes people who are undocumented.

In Tennessee, Mata and his colleagues at TIRRC are working with the Mayors Office of Nashville to launch a Cultural Ambassadors for Disaster Communication program that places trusted community members in disaster response and communication roles.

In the meantime, climate change rages on. As Mata says, These disasters are going to continue to happen. When they do, we need to be ready to provide support for all impacted residents, immigration status aside, and that wont happen without giving voice to the undocumented people who continue to be erased in the policy sphere.

Mndezs research, building upon the work of other studies, has shown that when vulnerable communities are involved in disaster planning, outcomes improve. Our communities, being the ones that are the most impacted, should be the ones whose voices are most amplified, Mata says. We should have a seat at that table. Period.

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Undocumented and Unprotected: How Immigration Status Amplifies ... - Nonprofit Quarterly

A government-commissioned report Thursday called for a thorough overhaul of Australias immigration system.

According to the Migration Review the system is outdated and does not meet the countrys current or future skills needs, and therefore requires a long term and holistic approach to find a solution. The report makes sweeping recommendations that will be considered by Australia's left-leaning Labor government.

Home Affairs Minister Clare ONeil, who commissioned the review, said Thursday that Australia has to skill up or sink.

She said critical labor shortages are forcing Australia to be more assertive in the global race for talent to recruit highly skilled overseas professionals and do more to retain the brightest international students.

The government considers the complicated and outdated migration system to be a barrier to prosperity. It wants the country to be less reliant on temporary workers, who would, if the reports recommendations are accepted, be given more opportunities to stay permanently. The government is promising safeguards to guard against exploitation and underpayment.

The leader of the conservative opposition, Sussan Ley, responding to the report, told local media Thursday the government must address depopulation and the lack of health services in rural Australia as well as improving housing and other essential services.

ONeil told the National Press Club in Canberra Thursday that major reform to immigration is desperately needed.

I have spoken a lot about what is going wrong with Australias migration system today and there are many, many problems, ONeil said. But what I am genuinely much more excited about is the big opportunity. We have every reason to be optimistic about our countrys future and every reason to believe that our migration system can help us deliver a more secure and prosperous Australia as it has done for us so many times in the past.

The immigration review was carried out by Martin Parkinson, a former secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

His report said it was important that Australians do not feel threatened by economic migrants.

Immigration has been the dominant theme in the story of modern Australia, which was colonized by the British in 1788.

Although more than a quarter of Australias population was born elsewhere, some Australians display hostility toward, or fear of, immigrants.

Voters have supported hardline policies that sent asylum seekers arriving by boat without authorization to offshore camps in the South Pacific.

Since 2013, the Australian navy has been towing or turning away migrant boats trying to reach Australian waters under the governments Operation Sovereign Borders, which continues under the current left-leaning Labor government.

Australias unemployment rate is 3.5%.

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Report Recommends Major Immigration Reform in Australia - Voice of America - VOA News

The federal government willrewrite Australia's immigration system, with almost every visa category up for change, and a promiseto tighten rules for international students.

Among the changeswill be an immediate lift to the minimum wage threshold for skilled workers, which has been frozen for a decade, and the establishment of a pathway to permanency for about 17,000 temporary workers.

A major review commissioned by the government found the system was "complex, inefficient and inflexible", proposing a wholesale rewrite of theweb ofvisa classes, caveats, tests and other complications that has developed over the years.

You can jump to the topics you want to read by clicking below.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil saidthe system was not up to the task to solve the greatest labour shortage Australia has faced since World War II.

Yet, despite that, the minister said Australia offeredfew incentives to fix those shortages.

"We ask an overseas-trained nurse to pay up to $20,000 and wait up to 35 months to get their qualifications recognised and their visa granted," the government's strategy outlined.

The government's plan will, in fact, slightly reduce the immigration intake over the medium term, with the fix for labour shortages to come from improving the quality of who is granted a visa.

Many of the finer details will be worked through in the weeks and months to come, and will be legislated in phases, but Ms O'Neil has outlined her thinking on her "urgent task" to overhaul immigration.

Here's a breakdown of some of the biggest changes.

The federal government and the migration reviewhave deliberately avoidedputting a specific figure on how many immigrants should come to the country each year.

One of the problems with doing so, the reviewer and former treasury boss Dr Martin Parkinson argued, is that the debate around a "big" versus "small" Australia ends up consuming much of the oxygen on immigration reform, and often ignores the much larger number of temporary workers that come to the country.

However, the review does propose shifting from a hard limit to permanent migration each year in favour of measuring by net overseas migration, which would account for both permanent and temporary migration, andhelp shift Australia's economy from being so dependent on temporary workers, who are more exposed to exploitation.

It also suggests shifting migration targets from being annual decisions to being decided over 10-year stretches, which would also allow state governments to be more involved in planning to minimise population pressures on cities.

But,if all the recommendations of the review were implemented, it would result in a slightly smaller immigration intake over the medium term, and speaking at the National Press Club, Ms O'Neil said it was her "desire" that it was slightly tightened in the medium-term.

"I'mnot someone who advocates for a bigAustralia in this conversation," Ms O'Neil told the National Press Club.

"What's really important to me isthat we've got these big nationalproblemsfacing ourcountry and we're not getting theright people here through themigration system to help us addressthem."

The government argues Australia's most important methods to bring necessary and skilled workers are mired in bureaucratic problems.

For example, the occupation codes used on the back-end of Australia's migration, tax and other systems have not been added to since 2013.

There are jobs in Australia today facing labour shortages that did not exist when the code was last updated.

The minister wants to do away with those "outdated, inflexible" lists, and instead give Jobs and Skills Australia the authority to determine what occupations are in need.

The minimum wage that can be offered to a skilled worker on an employer-sponsored visa also hasn't been lifted from its 2013 figure, after it was frozen by the Abbott government in 2014, and not indexed since then.

That means more than 90 per cent of full time workers in Australia are paid above its current threshold of $53,900, and employers are using the scheme to import workers who were never designed to be included, and paying them for less.

The federal government intends to raise that threshold to $70,000 from July.

Ms O'Neil said that lift was "a substantial increase to ensure we have skilled workers coming under a skilled program".

On top of that, the government says "the points test" for skilled visas, which helps determine which applicants are most desirable for improved productivity, is not useful andmust be rewritten.

For example, the reviewers say39-year-olds scoredouble the average 40-year-old because of how a one-year age gap is calculated, and that maximum scores for most people on their English skills and qualifications mean visas are often decided on minor criteria, such as whether they studied in a regional area.

The points test has been identified by government as one of its first targets for reform that could quickly improve the quality of workers being given permanent visas.

Ms O'Neil told the National Press Club that administrative problems were "central" to Australia's immigration woes.

"I have sat with visaprocessors at theHome Affairsdepartment and honestly, hats off tothese people," Ms O'Neil said.

"They are working betweenfour or five different computerprograms, cutting and pastingthings, retyping things you willnot believe the state of this IT, itis a real issue."

Those administrative problems are also leaving employers struggling to fill other roles.

The federal government uses ex-Australian National University vice chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt, also a Nobel laureate, as an example.

When the American astrophysicist came to Australia in the late 90s, it took four days to process his working visa.

The wait for a foreignastrophysicist seeking to work in Australia today is about 180 days.

With more than 100 visa sub-classes for people to navigate, the government says the system must be simplified, making it easier and faster for people to be processed.

Those long waits are exacerbating labour shortages, but there are more issues for employers seeking to bring workers here.

Up-front costs for businesses are prohibitive and the review recommends the fees should be charged monthly instead, with workers allowed to leave their sponsored job and search for work for up to six months to make the system more flexible, and help cut down exploitation.

The federal government has also committed to establishing a pathway to permanency for people on temporary skill shortage visas, to prevent Australia from losing those in-demand workers because their visas have run out.

Currently, one of the biggest groups of migrants toAustralia is international students, and more than half of people granted permanent visas come from that cohort.

But most of those graduates also don't end up working in the industries they studied in, and because the wage threshold for someone to be eligible for a permanent "skilled" visa is set at $53,900, most graduates easily qualify even if they are not working in the in-demand jobs they studied for.

Ms O'Neil told the National Press Club the rules for who could come to study would be tightened, with more supports offered for graduates to help get into skilled work.

"We are assessinginternational students based onwhether we think they will be ableto essentially survive inAustralia's education system; it isa low bar toset, appropriately, as theyare here to learn," Ms O'Neil told the National Press Club.

"The issue is thatthis has become the dominant feederinto our permanent programs, [we have] alowbar and we have a broken test thatconverts someone from a temporary toa permanent migrant."

To support graduates, the federal government will considergranting "automatic" temporary graduate visas to people who complete their studies to provide more certainty to employers hesitant about those graduate's working rights, making it easier to find work in high skill jobs.

But the overall tightening is expected to impact how many international students will be able to study here, which will have consequences for universities reliant on foreign student fees.

"What we're reallytalking about here is making surethat the international studenteducation system is doing what itsays on the label,that is, educating [and]bringing young minds from around theregion ... that is not always the casetoday," Ms O'Neil said.

"This is not aboutreducing the number but I think itis inevitable when we list standardsthat there may be some implicationsfor numbers."

Read more here:
Student visa rules tightened, skilled worker wage threshold lifted as government begins immigration rewrite - ABC News