National Immigrant Heritage Month Augurs Good Tidings (That Better Be Soon) On Legal Immigration Reforms

Published date12 June 2021
Subject MatterImmigration, General Immigration
Law FirmSeyfarth Shaw LLP
AuthorMr Angelo A. Paparelli

On June 1, 2021, President Biden heralded the 30 days when Spring transitions into Summer as "National Immigrant Heritage Month," by issuing a Proclamation that paid homage to immigrants' contributions past, and offered lofty, aspirational goals:

In every era, immigrant innovators, workers, entrepreneurs, and community leaders have fortified and defended us, fed us and cared for us, advanced the limits of our thinking, and broken new ground. . . .

I have directed Federal agencies to rebuild trust in our immigration system that has been lost, to reach out to underserved communities unable to access the opportunities our Nation offers them, to offer again a welcoming humanitarian hand to the persecuted and oppressed, and to reduce barriers to achieving citizenship and equality.

The Proclamation comes on the heels of three recent auspicious developments:

  1. Orders from the Top. As the New York Times recently reported, "Biden Aims to Rebuild and Expand Legal Immigration," the White House is reviewing an internal but unpublished May 3, 2021 "46-page draft blueprint . . . [which] maps out the Biden administration's plans to significantly expand the legal immigration system, including methodically reversing the efforts to dismantle it by former President Donald J Trump. . ." The plan appears to be the response to President Biden's February 5, 2021 Executive Order 14012, "Restoring Faith in Our Legal Immigration Systems and Strengthening Integration and Inclusion Efforts for New Americans," which requires the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security (in which USCIS resides) to devise a plan within 90 days to "identify barriers that impede access to immigration benefits and fair, efficient adjudications of these benefits and make recommendations on how to remove these barriers as appropriate and consistent with applicable law." Among other things, the plan, once implemented, would help high-skilled noncitizens, and farmworkers. Offering strategies that "could be put into practice without passage of Biden's proposed overhaul of the nation's immigration laws," the plan also features these proposed improvements:

Immigrants who apply online could pay less in fees or even secure a waiver in an attempt to 'reduce barriers' to immigration. And regulations would be overhauled to 'encourage full participation by immigrants in our civic life.'

  1. Immigration Stakeholder...

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