The Center for Migration Studies made estimates, based on over six independently reform initiatives proposed in 2021, of many persons currently in the United States would have their illegal or legally vulnerable status adjusted to permanent legal status. The CMS analysis does not address the proposed recapture of unused visas nor the “parole” provisions in the Build Back Better (reconciliation) bill. There is a lot of overlap among the initiatives.
It is not clear to me what would be the total maximum number of persons positively affected were all the provisions of all the initiatives done. The U.S. Citizenship Act, Biden’s bill of early 2021, which in effect is a kind of omnibus bill, would affect 10.3 persons. It would likely make unnecessary the parole provision in the reconciliation bill.
The Dream Act of 2021 would legalized 2.3 million persons (compared to about 900M persons under the administrative program initiated by Obama).
Citizenship for Essential Workers Act: 7.2 million (of which 5.5 million are workers, the others are spouses and children).
Farm Workforce Modernization Act: 300K.
Temporary Protected Status adjustments to permanent status: over 1.5 million persons from many countries at least 100,000 of whom from El Salvador, Haiti, Venezuela, and Honduras. Currently, TPS status persons are from 10 countries.
U.S. Citizenship Act: 10.3 million. (Go here and here.)
Year: 2021
Naturalization trends
Naturalizations of eligible persons rose upwards towards one million a year during the Trump administration, out of fear that he would block naturalization. The Pandemic drove the numbers down to under 700,000. (Go here and here).
Consistent with his anti-immigration policy, President Trump even made it more difficult for Green Card holders to become citizens, by doubling fees, eliminating most fee waivers for low-income applicants, and impose a more difficult and time-consuming civics test. The fee proposal was blocked by a U.S. district court judge, and the Biden administration reinstated the earlier civics test shortly after taking office in early 2021.
There were 23.2 million naturalized U.S. citizens in the United States in 2019, the most recent reporting available, making up 52 percent of the overall immigrant population, which stood at 44.9 million.
Many immigrants who are here on permanent visas (green cards) don’t take out citizenship, but most do, and the rate has gone up. According to Pew Research, naturalization rates rose from 62% in 2005 to 67% in 2015. An estimated 9 million are eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship. The 11 million illegal immigrants are of course not eligible.
Eligible immigrants from Vietnam, 86%, and Iran, 85%, had the highest naturalization rates of any group in 2015. Above 80% rates are seen for India, South Korea and a few other countries. The rate among Chinese is 76%. Mexican immigrants have long had among the lowest U.S. naturalization rates (42%) of any origin group.
To be eligible for U.S. citizenship, immigrants must be age 18 or older, have resided in the U.S. for at least five years as lawful permanent residents (or three years for those married to a U.S. citizen), and be in good standing with the law, among other requirements. The multi-step process to obtain U.S. citizenship begins with submitting an application and paying a $725 fee.
The U.S. government denied naturalization applications from 2005 to 2015 to 11% of the 8.5 million applications filed during this time. The standards are here. Ability to speak English is one of them but there are exemptions.
Undetected illegal Mexican border jumping: relatively less a problem today
This posting attempts to put summary figures to evolving strategies of getting into the United States at the Mexican border.
Estimating the illegal, successful border crossings changes in the number of unauthorized persons in the U.S. is fraught with data errors and guesses. Many if not most, unauthorized persons may be entered legally. But it appears that what analysts call undetected crossings of the border declined relatively and asylum applications rose relatively as a strategy of entry.
In the 1990s and 2000s it appears that the good way to get into the U.S, was illegally and evade arrest. (In addition to overstays of legal entries.) Then, there were 300,000 to 500,000 annual additions to the size of the unauthorized population. Internal (non-border) arrests a relatively few, about 150,000 a year, equivalent to a little more than 1% of unauthorized persons in the country.
Illegal crossing have traditionally been a Mexican citizen pattern: Douglas Massey, the master at this topic, estimated “well over 90 percent of Mexican migrants simply crossed the border without inspection rather than entering with a visa and then violating its terms by staying too long. Non-Mexican migrants are much more likely to overstay their visas than to enter without inspection.”
Now it may be the better way, at least for families and minors, is to cross illegally and apply for asylum, take your chances at a positive result or general amnesty. This especially the case with the strategies of non-Mexicans.
Homeland Security reported at in FY 2021 ending September 30 there were 1.6 million arrests at the Mexican border. How many crossed undetected?
Data analysts at TRAC (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse) works on sifting through official data, reconciling inconsistencies and gaps, and estimating unreported figures such as the volume of undetected crossings. One of its categories is “undetected single adults.”
The graph below shows TRAC’s estimate of undetected single adults for over three years ending in October 2021. The average monthly volume was about 11,000; the average annual volume was about 140,000. That is less than 10% of border arrests – a sizable number but the raw summary data and the news reports indicate that a lot cross over with the intent of being arrested and applying for asylum.
How many cases are clogging the court system, enabling person to stay and work in the U.S. for years before their cases are resolved?
The size of the immigration court backlog has grown by about one million cases in the past 7 or so years; that is, roughly 150,000 a year (in FY 2021, 127,000). This suggests that while border enforcement to deter undetected crossings, a better way to get into the United States may be to cross and apply for asylum. The backlog of asylum cases is about 400,000. (Go here, here and here,)
Diverging population trends drives migration, raises risk of interstate conflict
Replacement rates, driven by women’s fertility rates, vary enormously. India just went below the replacement rate. Sky high African rates portend more out-migration pressure to advanced countries which accept talented migrants (U.S., commonwealth countries, Germany) – for instance, Nigerian medical professionals. Racial issues will come to the fore. Countries which face great reductions in population, notably China, may become militarily and diplomatically more aggressive.
Where Dem politics collides with Hispanic voters
Ronald Brownstein in The Atlantic notes greater Dem dependence on non-white voters (“Since the mid-’90s, white Americans without a college degree have fallen fr om about three-fifths of all voters to about two-fifth…. voters of color have nearly doubled, to about 30 percent of the total vote”). Hence the importance of the Hispanic vote, which is increasing by 3% a year).
(1) immigration enforcement at the border. Hispanic voters near the border. See the time lines for Stay in Mexico and Title 42 – Biden continuing Trump policies.
(2) Most important and under-appreciated by Dems, in my mind, are Hispanic gains in economics, middle class (such as educational improvement and home buying) Brownstein quotes political analysts, “…lots of working people of all races … want opportunity … They want a way to get ahead of their own effort.” “There are things that people trust Republicans on and you have to neutralize those disadvantages by moving to the center on them, and that includes the size of government, that includes the deficit.”
(3) Hispanic indifference to some specific progressive culture ideas (such as use of the word Latinx (so note here).
One issue Brownstein does not mention as troubling to Hispanic voters is legalization of unauthorized persons. Half of Hispanics know a family member or close friend illegally in the country.
US remittances to countries heavily influenced by income of immigrants in US.
When you look at which countries are receiving the largest sums of remittances from the U.S., it becomes clear that the flows are heavily influenced by not only the size of the immigrant population in the U.S. but also by their income level. Let’s examine this by using the number of first generation immigrants.
For example, in 2017 U.S. remittances to Mexico were about $30B. there are about 18 million first generation Hispanics in the U.S, roughly two thirds of whom are Mexican, or 12 million. This comes to the equivalent of about $2,500 per immigrant. Virtually all of remittances to Mexico come from the U.S. ($30B is equivalent to 3% of the country’s GDP.)
In 2017 about $6.1B was remitted to Nigeria, about 28% of all remittance income in that country. There are not more than 250,000 first generation Nigerians in the U.S. That comes to an equivalent of $24,000 per first generation immigrant – ten times that of Mexicans. ($6.1B is equivalent to 1.5% of the country’s GDP.)
Alarm over Biden Admin mishandling of Afghan refugee applications
The East Bay Jewish Family and Community Service organization is up in arms about the way that the administration is effectively abandoning many Afghans who deserve to get out of that country, It issued a press release on December 7, containing these excerpts:
This week, the U.S. government began denying humanitarian parole applications and dashing the hopes of thousands of Afghans awaiting rescue. After months of inaction on these urgent petitions, this week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began denying them and extinguishing any chance of rescue.
In just four months, JFCS East Bay has resettled almost 300 Afghan evacuees and anticipates welcoming many more. Our Immigration Legal Services team has assisted in the filing of nearly 100 humanitarian parole applications and covered thousands of dollars in USCIS filing fees since August.
The wave of denial letters received by immigration advocates across the U.S. this week articulate—for the first time—a set of stringent new criteria that will exclude the vast majority of Afghan humanitarian parole applicants from eligibility. (For definition of “parole,” go here.)
Among other things, USCIS rejection letters are asking applicants to provide “documentation from a credible third-party source specifically naming the beneficiary and outlining the serious harm they face and the imminence of the harm in the location where the beneficiary is located.”
USCIS reports that it has received more than 30,000 such applications. At $575 per person, USCIS has likely taken in about $17,250,000 in application fees from these filings, making this process look like a classic “bait and switch” scam.
“Not only has USCIS created a very high evidentiary standard, it’s announcing these new stringent criteria after the fact, and applying them retroactively to pending applications,” says JFCS East Bay Director of Immigration Legal Services, Kyra S. Lilien. “We have clients who have been waiting for an answer for months. While they wait, their family members have been kidnapped by the Taliban. Afghans are in hiding, freezing, without enough food, while being hunted by the Taliban. Turning the tables on them now is fundamentally unfair.”
Yahoo estimates the current volumes of cases. The problem above deals with Afghans still in Afghanistan: Those already been from Afghanistan and brought to the U.S.: nearly 5,000 American citizens. More than 3,000 are green card holders. 75,000 Afghans of which more than 2-in-5 are eligible for SIVs due to their or their family member’s aid to the U.S. government in Afghanistan. Others are family members of U.S. citizens and green card holders, journalists, human rights activists or other at-risk humanitarian workers. Roughly 35,000 evacuees are waiting at military bases in the U.S., while another 36,000 are home in the states or resettling into new U.S. communities.
Why Immigrants self employ and cluster
This research paper asks in effect the question: why to immigrants start their own businesses and form clusters within a sector (Korean grocery stores, Gujaratis from India running half the motels).
The reason, the paper says, is that self-employed immigrants have more income than do immigrants employed by firms, and clustering adds even more income. Not rocket science, but good that it has been documented.
The world has experienced a massive increase in migration in the past fifty years. A key reason why is that the risks of migration have gone down and on balance the rewards have gone up. I’ve covered this with respect to the cost of migration, which Trump wanting to sharply increase, and with respect to earning potential. Once here, self employment in a clustered sector trumps Trump.
A time line for Title 42 expulsions on Mexican border
Title 42 of the United States Code, Chapter 6A, Subchapter II, Part G, Section 265 addresses suspension of entries and imports from designated places to prevent spread of communicable diseases:
“Whenever the Surgeon General determines that by reason of the existence of any communicable disease in a foreign country there is serious danger of the introduction of such disease into the United States, and that this danger is so increased by the introduction of persons or property from such country that a suspension of the right to introduce such persons and property is required in the interest of the public health, the Surgeon General, in accordance with regulations approved by the President, shall have the power to prohibit, in whole or in part, the introduction of persons and property from such countries or places as he shall designate in order to avert such danger, and for such period of time as he may deem necessary for such purpose. (July 1, 1944, ch. 373, title III, §362, 58 Stat. 704.)”
March 2020 The Department of Health and Human Services (CDC) issues an emergency regulation to implement Title 42. As it is considered an “expulsion” rather than a “deportation”, the migrants are not afforded the right to make a case to stay in the U.S. before an immigration judge. Final version of order was issued in September, 2020.)
CDC officials objected to the use of Title 42 at the border (there are many millions of legal border crossings a week that are not covered by the order); it was initiated by DHS. (Go here and here.)
November 2020 A federal court ordered a halt to the practice in regard to unaccompanied minor children; in January 29, 2021, the stay was lifted.
February 2021 The CDC issues a notice formally exempting unaccompanied children from expulsion.
February 2021 Mexico stopped accepting families with children under the program. Also, Mexican stopped accepting non-Mexican family units with minor children returned to Mexico under Title 42.
August 2021 Biden Administration extends use of Title 42 policy. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that “Title 42 is not an immigration authority, but a public health authority, and its continued use is dictated by CDC and governed by the CDC’s analysis of public health factors.”
September 2021 In FY 2021 (Oct 2020 – Sept 2021) more than 60% of Border Patrol encounters of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border resulted in expulsion under Title 42.
December 2021 Title 42 continues to be applied, now citing the Omicron variant.
Since March 2020, U.S. authorities along the border with Mexico have used a public health authority known as Title 42 to rapidly expel migrants more than 1,163,000 times without allowing them to see an immigration judge or an asylum officer.
Time line for Stay in Mexico Policy Jan 2019 – Dec 2021
January 2019 Trump Administration introduces the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). Usually referred to as the “Remain in Mexico” program. Under MPP, individuals who arrived at the southern border and asked for asylum (either at a port of entry or after crossing the border between ports of entry) were given notices to appear in immigration court and sent back to Mexico.
March 2020 The Supreme Court, reversing an appellate court order, allows the Trump administration to maintain the Remain in Mexico Program. The Justice Department told the court that without a stay from the Supreme Court the appeals court’s ruling was “virtually guaranteed to impose irreparable harm by prompting a rush on the border and potentially requiring the government to allow into the United States and detain thousands of aliens who lack any entitlement to enter this country, or else to release them into the interior where many will simply disappear.”
March 2020 Candidate Biden tweets “Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy is dangerous, inhumane, and goes against everything we stand for as a nation of immigrants. My administration will end it.”
January 2021 Biden’s DHS on the first day of his administration suspends all new enrollments in MPP, ending people being sent back to Mexico. It undertakes to terminare the program.
August 2021 As part of a lawsuit brought by the states of Texas and Missouri, a federal judge orders the Biden administration to “enforce and implement MPP in good faith until such a time as it has been lawfully rescinded in compliance with the Administrative Procedure Act” and until such a time as the federal government has sufficient detention capacity to detain asylum seekers. The Supreme Court agrees with the ruling.
September 2021 the Biden administration discloses that it had begun internal deliberations about reinstating a “lite” version of MPP and was engaged in diplomatic negotiations with the government of Mexico, and that no person could be sent back to Mexico without that country’s cooperation. However, DHS Secretary Mayorkas writes in October that MPP should be terminated.
October 2021 DHA issues another termination of the program designed to overcome the objections to its initial termination (Texas law suit),
December 2021 The Biden Administration introduces a revised version of MPP. Per the administration, changes to the Trump program include better access to legal representation, resolution of applications within six months, safer shelters in Mexico, work permits in Mexico, and health care.