DHS Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen told a House panel on Wednesday that she intends to increase the limit on H-2B visas over the existing annual cap of 66,000. Nielsen told Members of a House Appropriations Subcommittee that she and Labor Sec. Alex Acosta will discuss a timeline by the end of this week.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested arrested 97 suspected illegal-alien workers last Thursday, in the largest workplace raid in a decade, at a cattle-slaughter facility in northeast Tennessee just outside Knoxville. The agency worked with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Tennessee Highway Patrol, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to execute a federal criminal search warrant of the facility.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released a report Wednesday revealing that border patrol agents apprehended 50,308 persons last month — 37 percent more apprehensions than in February and about 200 percent more than the 16,588 apprehended the same month one year ago.
DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced in the White House press briefing today that Pres. Trump has told officials to deploy the National Guard in order to bolster security along the southern border and that he “will be signing a proclamation to that effect today.”
The White House and Department of Homeland Security are working together to craft legislation that would attempt to purge “loopholes” from the immigration system that entice foreign nationals to illegally immigrate to the U.S. and incentivise employers to illegally hire them. The legislative package includes reforms that will lessen legal limitations imposed on law enforcement that restrict who they can detain and the duration of time they can detain them.
The Department of Justice sent a memo to immigration judges Friday outlining new quotas that will require judges to process 700 cases per year and have less than 15 percent of their rulings sent back by a higher court. The quotas will go into effect October 1, 2018 for FY 2019.
A recent poll conducted by Survey USA for the Eyewitness News-Southern California News Group reveals that 54 percent of all California voters believe that state and local law enforcement should be permitted to assist ICE in arresting violent criminal illegal aliens, with only 11 percent in favor of 'sanctuary' policies.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Chief Division of Law Enforcement Kevin Gardner issued new guidance Wednesday clarifying three sanctuary policies the state passed last year barring state and local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. The guidance says that California state and local law enforcement officers are prohibited from assisting federal law enforcement unless state and local law enforcement are also policing an existing state law.
Pres. Trump announced in a memorandum Tuesday the termination of the Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) program which had allowed about 3,500 Liberians to live and work in the U.S. since it took effect in 1999. There are currently 839 Liberians working in the U.S. under the program. To ensure an "orderly transition" for both DED beneficiaries and the Liberian government, the President has granted a "12-month wind-down period", starting March 31, 2018, for Liberian citizens to make arrangements for their return, and the Liberian government to prepare accordingly for receiving and reintegrating them.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are attempting to include a provision in the the 2018 omnibus spending bill that would increase the number of H-2B visas. In the Senate, with the support of Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a vocal advocate for increasing the number of low-skilled foreign guest workers through the H-2B visa program, is pushing to increase the current cap of 66,000 to 90,000. In the House, Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) is seeking to raise the cap to 120,000.