Relief agencies are facing new challenges to meet demand as undocumented immigrants with citizen children are heading to food pantries instead of participating in federal assistance programs, such as receiving food stamps–another example of the ramifications of the public charge rule expansion under the Trump administration.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), which allows a possible 300,000 new eligible applicants to apply for protection.
There have been at least 66 unaccompanied migrant children (ages 12-17) expelled without a court hearing or asylum interview after a federal judge had ordered the practice to stop.
The pro-immigration reform group FWD.US. recently released a study based on the 2019 American Community Survey that found that over two-thirds of undocumented immigrant workers are in frontline jobs that are deemed essential in the fight against COVID-19 in the U.S.
Immigrant advocacy groups recently met with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team on family separation to discuss a plan to address the trauma and rebuild trust of immigrant families who have experienced family separation.
The U.S. Supreme Court threw out a lawsuit meant to block President Trump’s plan to leave out immigrants from the population count, which determines the allocation of congressional districts to states.
The U.S. government is planning on deporting more than a dozen immigrant children and parents at a Texas immigration detention center, including a four-year-old girl with a broken arm who is in need of surgery.
The recently passed $900 billion COVID relief bill will include mixed-status immigrant families with undocumented family members, making them eligible to receive stimulus checks, which they were not able to receive with the first stimulus package last spring. Mixed-status families with one Social Security Number-holder will also become retroactively eligible for the checks that were a part of the CARES Act.
In 2017, mother and son Leticia and Yovany traveled from Guatemala and crossed the Rio Grande to seek asylum in the United States. Soon after, they were detained and separated. Speaking to Catherine Rampell of The Washington Post, Leticia and Yovany describe the trauma of such separation, something her son likened to “being a flower without water” and call on the U.S. government and the American public to redress the harm done to them and countless other families.
Despite a preliminary injunction issued on November 18th that blocked the Trump administration from turning back unaccompanied children at the border, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) flight with 33 children took off for Guatemala. ICE officials claim that they were not aware of the ruling at the time the flight departed. However, immigration advocates have stated that the children should be brought back to the United States due to the judge’s decision.
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