immigration

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released a final rule making sweeping changes to the "public charge" test that will disproportionately block immigrants of color from obtaining lawful permanent residency, also known as green cards, inhibit immigrant workers and foreign students from extending or changing their visas, and undermine the ability of green card holders to re-enter the U.S. if they have spent more than 6 months abroad. The new rule dramatically expands the public charge ground of exclusion from a limited inquiry into whether an immigrant relies on the government for cash assistance or institutional care to an extraordinarily broad test that will exclude anyone who may use, at any time in the future, one of the supplemental benefits that millions of working Americans rely upon, such as non-emergency Medicaid, food stamps, and subsidized housing.

Today, the parties in Bhattarai v. Nielsen, a case challenging the termination of temporary protected status (TPS) for people from Nepal and Honduras, asked the Court to enter an order temporarily halting termination of TPS for people from those countries. Under the agreement, TPS for Nepal and Honduras—currently slated to end on June 24, 2019 and January 5, 2020, respectively—would remain in place at least until the appeal in Ramos v. Nielsen, another TPS case, is decided.

Six adults with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and two U.S. citizen children of TPS holders filed a class-action lawsuit today seeking to stop the unlawful termination of TPS for over 100,000 TPS holders from Honduras and Nepal and prevent the separation of tens of thousands of U.S. citizen children from their TPS-holder parents. The suit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Plaintiffs are represented by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, and Sidley Austin. 

As June wraps up and Immigrant Heritage Month comes to a close, the Value Our Families coalition flexed a lot of organizing muscle throughout the month to fend off the Trump administration’s sustained attacks on immigrant and refugee families.