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You are in the Harris 2020 Group. Only members who have selected Kamala Harris as their preferred Democratic presidential candidate are permitted to post in this Group.
Kamala Harris's plan to provide DREAMers a pathway to citizenship, explained
What Harris is proposing
Harris’s proposal would expand the scope of deferred action protections and use a series of executive actions to address legal obstacles that DREAMers currently encounter as they attempt to obtain a green card:
1) Set up a “DREAMers Parole-in-Place Program” using the authority granted to the executive branch by the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA): Because the INA only considers an immigrant eligible for permanent legal status if they have been “paroled or admitted” to the US, Harris would establish a program that “paroles” DREAMers. DREAMers who apply and are “paroled” would be able to pursue a green card if their spouse was a US citizen.
2) Establish a rule asserting that DREAMers were not at fault for any lapse in their legal status: Only immigrants who have been able to maintain a “continuous lawful status” since they’ve arrived in the US are able to apply for a green card and DREAMers are seen in violation of this part of the statute. There is, however, a tenet that says immigrants who fell out of lawful status because of “no fault of [their] own” are still eligible to apply for legal status. Because DREAMers came to the US as children, Harris would create a policy that deems them not at “fault” as a rule.
3) Call on the Homeland Security secretary to grant DACA recipients retroactive work authorization: For some DACA recipients, one of the bars to obtaining legal status is the fact that they’ve “accepted[ed] unauthorized employment.” By enabling DREAMers to apply for retroactive work authorization, Harris would give them the opportunity to remove this barrier from an application for legal status.
4) Do away with the three- or 10-year bans that DREAMers face if they try to get a green card at a US consulate in another country: Because they are undocumented immigrants, if DREAMers were to leave the country in order to obtain a green card at a US consulate abroad, they would be hit with a three- or ten-year ban before they could reenter the US. Harris’s plan seeks to eliminate this ban, which is waived under “extreme hardship.” Harris seeks to classify separation from a close family member as “extreme hardship,” so that DREAMers who attempt to apply for a green card at a consulate would not be affected by this ban.
Harris’s plan is seen as a “creative” one because it leverages power allocated to the executive branch under existing immigration law. Additionally, it’s a proposal that enables DREAMers who would otherwise be eligible for family or employer-sponsored green cards to actually get them.
“Under her proposals, the only people she’s putting on a path to permanent residence and then citizenship are people who already qualify for permanent residence for existing law, but face technical obstacles,” said Washington University at St. Louis law professor Stephen Legomsky, a former chief counsel of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, who also offered feedback on this proposal.
Additionally, Harris’s plan intends to expand the pool of those who could apply for deferred action. Because of how narrow the constraints were for the DACA program, only a select group of undocumented immigrants within a certain age range were even able to participate. Harris would widen the group that could benefit from deportation protections significantly, so it encompasses more people including the parents of legal immigrants.
link --> https://www.vox.com/2019/6/13/18663029/kamala-harris-dreamers-immigrants-citizenship?utm_campaign=vox&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
Harris’s proposal would expand the scope of deferred action protections and use a series of executive actions to address legal obstacles that DREAMers currently encounter as they attempt to obtain a green card:
1) Set up a “DREAMers Parole-in-Place Program” using the authority granted to the executive branch by the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA): Because the INA only considers an immigrant eligible for permanent legal status if they have been “paroled or admitted” to the US, Harris would establish a program that “paroles” DREAMers. DREAMers who apply and are “paroled” would be able to pursue a green card if their spouse was a US citizen.
2) Establish a rule asserting that DREAMers were not at fault for any lapse in their legal status: Only immigrants who have been able to maintain a “continuous lawful status” since they’ve arrived in the US are able to apply for a green card and DREAMers are seen in violation of this part of the statute. There is, however, a tenet that says immigrants who fell out of lawful status because of “no fault of [their] own” are still eligible to apply for legal status. Because DREAMers came to the US as children, Harris would create a policy that deems them not at “fault” as a rule.
3) Call on the Homeland Security secretary to grant DACA recipients retroactive work authorization: For some DACA recipients, one of the bars to obtaining legal status is the fact that they’ve “accepted[ed] unauthorized employment.” By enabling DREAMers to apply for retroactive work authorization, Harris would give them the opportunity to remove this barrier from an application for legal status.
4) Do away with the three- or 10-year bans that DREAMers face if they try to get a green card at a US consulate in another country: Because they are undocumented immigrants, if DREAMers were to leave the country in order to obtain a green card at a US consulate abroad, they would be hit with a three- or ten-year ban before they could reenter the US. Harris’s plan seeks to eliminate this ban, which is waived under “extreme hardship.” Harris seeks to classify separation from a close family member as “extreme hardship,” so that DREAMers who attempt to apply for a green card at a consulate would not be affected by this ban.
Harris’s plan is seen as a “creative” one because it leverages power allocated to the executive branch under existing immigration law. Additionally, it’s a proposal that enables DREAMers who would otherwise be eligible for family or employer-sponsored green cards to actually get them.
“Under her proposals, the only people she’s putting on a path to permanent residence and then citizenship are people who already qualify for permanent residence for existing law, but face technical obstacles,” said Washington University at St. Louis law professor Stephen Legomsky, a former chief counsel of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, who also offered feedback on this proposal.
Additionally, Harris’s plan intends to expand the pool of those who could apply for deferred action. Because of how narrow the constraints were for the DACA program, only a select group of undocumented immigrants within a certain age range were even able to participate. Harris would widen the group that could benefit from deportation protections significantly, so it encompasses more people including the parents of legal immigrants.
link --> https://www.vox.com/2019/6/13/18663029/kamala-harris-dreamers-immigrants-citizenship?utm_campaign=vox&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
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Posted above are just the bullet points of her plan there is more at the link.