Immigration reform is dead.
For this year, for next year, and for the year after that. It never had a chance.
Democrats have neither the votes, nor the will, to provide a path to citizenship for our country’s undocumented immigrants. Despite their lofty words, they believe that Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 was aided by many Americans’ fear that immigrants might take away the little they have. They are afraid that trick will work again.
Advocates need to stop spending millions of foundation dollars, and our sweat and toil, on a futile quest for broad reform. Instead, let’s focus on demanding the Biden administration use its administrative powers to help at least some deserving immigrants. Here are three suggestions.
Streamline U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services processing. A naturalization applicant who files their application today likely won’t get U.S. citizenship until mid-2023. Applications for employment authorization are taking from a few months to more than a year. Now that the pandemic is waning, USCIS needs to prioritize citizenship and work permission applications, and find ways to streamline the process.
Naturalization applicants should be sworn in remotely after they pass their interviews. USCIS should expand its current “automatic employment authorization extension” initiative to all categories.
Parole in place for relatives of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Many relatives of U.S. citizens and permanent residents cannot process their green cards in the United States because of old laws that require them to go home for their immigrant visa interviews. U.S. consulates, where these interviews happen, are backed up more than USCIS.
“Parole in place,” a program already available for relatives of U.S. military service members, will allow these individuals to interview for green cards here, the process called “adjustment of status.” They could get employment authorization while their cases are pending and permission to travel abroad to see loved ones.
Expand Temporary Protective Status: When war or natural disaster hits a country, the Department of Homeland Security can grant nationals of the country TPS. This allows them to live and work in the United States with the right to travel abroad. The most recent DHS grant was to Afghans, and before that Ukrainians. Why not extend the TPS cutoff date for El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, and add Guatemala and Ethiopia?
Allan Wernick is an attorney and director of the City University of New York’s Citizenship Now! project. Email questions and comments to questions@allanwernick.com. Follow him on Twitter: @awernick.

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