After dinner last night between President Trump and the two top Congressional Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), a number of reports have emerged about whether the three agreed to a deal around a host of immigration issues, including those around how to protect individuals impacted by the repeal of DACA. While the Democratic leaders have stated that an agreement had been reached, the White House and Congressional Republican have pushed back against those assertions. Like other issues that must be dealt by the federal government, the situation on this front also remains fluid.
Category: Immigration
DHS Provides Additional Materials, Documents on DACA Termination
The Department of Homeland Security has released several documents related to this morning’s announcement that DACA is being rescinded. These include:
- A statement from the Acting Secretary of DHS
- A memo from the Acting Secretary of DHS
- A fact sheet on the wind-down process prepared by DHS
- A Frequently-Asked-Questions (FAQs) document
- A letter from Attorney General Sessions asking DHS to rescind the program.
DACA Being “Rescinded”
Earlier this morning, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the DACA program is unconstitutional and is being “rescinded” by the Trump Administration. During his remarks, he added that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has started the “orderly wind down” of the program.
DHS has posted the following memo on the steps that it is taking to end DACA.
Federal Relations will continue to provide updates.
Definition of “bona fide” relationship expanded by federal judge
A federal judge in Hawaii has ruled that the list of relatives created by the Trump Administration in its attempt to define a “bona fide” relationship with respect to its modified travel ban against six majority-Muslim nations is too narrow. The U.S. Supreme Court allowed a limited ban to go into effect and is scheduled to hear the case against the ban next year.
With respect to family members, the judge ruled yesterday that the government could not limit its definition of “bona fide” relationship to spouses, parents, parents-in-law, children, siblings and step- or half-siblings, sons- and daughters-in-law, and fiances. The judge ruled that the ban did not apply to other relatives, including grandparents and grandchildren, uncles and aunts, nieces and nephews, cousins, and brothers- and sisters-in law.
Modified Travel Ban Takes Effect, Hawaii Files Suit
Lawyers for the State of Hawaii and an imam in Hawaii yesterday filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration’s partial ban that went into effect last evening. The lawsuit argues that the definitions being used by the government are narrower than what the Supreme Court allowed in its order.