City leaders say card will help immigrants, transgender people,and City Council approval was unanimous, but concerns about data security persist.

The wall is unlikely to be built, but Trump administration policies are keeping  migrants out and punishing those already here.

Minneapolis is one step closer to creating municipal IDs for undocumented immigrants.

The first members of the caravan arrived at the borderto find about 3,000 people already waiting to be processed into the U.S.

November 26, 2018 – On Sunday afternoon, the world saw U.S. immigration officials lobbing tear gas across the border into a crowd of migrants. The world saw barefoot, choking children, and mothers crying as they dragged toddlers away from tear gas.

“This is not the American way: this action does not represent American values nor the ideals engraved on the Statue of Liberty,” said John Keller, Executive Director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. “The current administration has intentionally escalated and manipulated this refugee crisis. It has shown its cynical bad faith by acting unlawfully and without regard for international human rights, settled U.S. law, and human dignity.”

“The unlivable violence in Central America has created a refugee crisis, and unambiguous U.S. law requires that any person who seeks asylum must be given a chance to be heard,” he continued. “These people fleeing violence cannot simply apply for asylum in their home country. They must come to the United States to do so. The Trump administration has intentionally misrepresented the character of both the migrants and the law at every turn.”

Over the past months, the Trump administration closed down border crossings to asylum seekers, arbitrarily claiming they could only process a handful of applicants each day. That resulted in thousands of asylum seekers waiting in Mexico, even before the Central American caravan’s arrival. As people waited for weeks in difficult conditions, not even allowed to approach the border crossing, some decided to cross without permission and ask for asylum once they were inside the United States.

Again, the law is clear: anyone entering the United States, either at a border crossing or without permission, is allowed to seek asylum. With more than a month’s notice to prepare, instead of sending judges or asylum officers to process their lawful petitions for protection, this Administration preferred the political optics of sending 5,000 troops.

The president even tried to rewrite long-settled immigration laws via an executive proclamation restricting asylum to only those presented at official border crossings. A federal judge almost immediately enjoined that order on November 19, rebuking the president for seeking to reverse a law clearly passed by Congress.

This intentional stoking of the refugee and border crisis led to the use of tear gas on children and the complete closing of part of the border on both sides on Sunday.

“Rows of razor wire, full border closings, and armed border forces intentionally tear gassing choking, barefooted children and toddlers in traumatized mothers’ arms are images not from a faraway war zone but from California and this Administration’s cruel and unlawful assault on unarmed asylum seekers,” said Keller. “This Administration’s actions towards immigrants and refugees continue to corrupt the very soul of who we strive to be as expressed by our national motto, E Pluribus Unum.”

Trump’s plan raises the risk of summary deportation for thousands of asylum seekers — if it’s allowed to move forward.

November 9, 2018—Today the president issued an emergency proclamation that unabashedly violates the clear law of the land and our international human rights obligations, and betrays our national values and commitment to offer safe haven to those who come to the United States seeking to escape violence and persecution.

Asylum seekers are clearly protected under U.S. and international law. Any person may make claims for asylum whether or not they have entered through border checkpoints:

“Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival…), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum in accordance with this section…” 8 U.S.C. §1158(a)(1) [emphasis added]

In contravention of this clear language, today the president has ordered that anyone who enters the United States outside a designated border checkpoint will not be allowed to apply for asylum. In support of this illegal proclamation, he claims a national emergency, based on an increase in the number of Central American families and children seeking asylum. Absent from his rationale is the reality that the increase of Central American migrants is due to crisis levels of violence in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, and to the utter failure of those governments to protect their most vulnerable citizens.

In desperation, mothers and fathers risk everything, including the lives of their children, as they walk more than a thousand grueling miles seeking safety. Along their route, people in Mexico have greeted these hungry and footsore refugees with food and bandages and compassion.

The response of the United States government has been to shut down access to legal border crossing points to all but a trickle of applicants, leaving others sleeping on sidewalks and bridges, waiting for a chance to apply. Further, this administration just a few months ago took the unprecedented step of intentionally separating children from their parents, some still remaining separated to this day, in a cynical attempt to discourage future migration. The former Attorney General has also unilaterally restricted asylum claims that will even be considered. Now the president recklessly and autocratically seeks to discard U.S. asylum law and the values embodied in the United States as a champion of human rights, defender of the democratic rule of law, and place of refuge for the persecuted. .

“This action cannot and will not be allowed to stand,” said John Keller, executive director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. “The United States is a nation governed by laws, not by presidential prejudice or whim. The United States is an idea and promise of fairness and freedom, when we are at our best. We are strongest when our laws reflect the promise of equal access to the law, protection and opportunity for all that seek to call the United States home. We are strongest when we act out of compassion, justice and equality. Like the good people of Mexico, the everyday people of the United States and Minnesota, given the chance, have welcomed their immigrant brothers and sisters, bound up their wounds and helped heal their trauma, offered shelter and a seat in their churches, synagogues and mosques, and given thanks for the richness, strength and energy that they and their families bring to our country and state.

“The president’s latest illegal, anti-immigrant action will be challenged in court. We will not give up the values of the United States, the commitment to this nation of laws and checks and balances, and our obligation to respect human rights and human dignity.”

 

 

This document was last updated in November, 2018. For current background information on public charge, click here.

On October 10, the Trump administration introduced an administrative rule change that seeks to limit the number of people allowed to obtain immigration benefits or enter the United States based on their health, age, and financial resources.  The proposed rule change, “Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds,” which will take effect after the government considers comments it receives during a 60-day public comment period, will be the most radical change to immigration law and the use of public benefits by immigrants in 22 years. If enacted, the rule will have a devastating impact on low-income and working-class immigrant families and their US citizen children, many of whom will face the difficult choice between jeopardizing their family’s  immigration status or refusing assistance to ensure their children’s food, housing, and medical care.

Click here for information on how you can say something about this change.

Click here for much more information and a list of documents relating to public charge regulation.

The “public charge” rule has had a narrow application. Currently, the government can deny immigration status to persons who it deems may become dependent on three cash-based assistance programs: TANF, SSI or long-term institutional care such as Medicaid coverage for nursing home care.

The current public charge test affects approximately 3 percent of family-based visa and green card applicants. The new proposal would widen the scope of eligible public assistance programs to include many more forms of public assistance and would give government officials wide discretion with little accountability on how to apply the test. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that the new rule change will affect approximately 382,000 family-based immigrants per year.

In 1999, the Immigration Service clarified that only a few cash-based public assistance programs could lead to a finding of public charge. Now, the Trump administration has published its proposed rule change prior to the mid-term elections to support the false narrative that immigrants rely on public assistance more than native-born citizens. That is not true. This attempt at garnering electoral support from anti-immigrant rhetoric, will have real, devastating and long-lasting consequences for immigrant families, and for all of us, long after the election is over. Among the direct consequences:

• The proposed rule change will undermine public health. The proposed changes, which attempt to punish immigrants, will affect entire families, including U.S. citizen children. If a mother refuses to sign her family up (or un-enrolls) for SNAP (food stamps) because she fears that benefit use will harm her or a relative’s immigration prospects in the future, her whole family will suffer. Health care advocates report that immigrants already are withdrawing from crucial programs such as SNAP and WIC (one of the programs listed in earlier versions of the proposed rule change). This chilling effect puts children at risk for low birth weight and other health problems.
• The proposed rule will limit family-based immigration. Spouses, parents, and children of U.S. citizens, as well as legal permanent residents, may be refused visas if they cannot show relatively high income and good health. Many immigrants from Mexico, China, the Philippines and the Dominican Republic, the countries sending the largest number of family immigrants to the United States may not be able to pass public charge scrutiny under the new rule.
• While the new rule does not directly impact the green card applications for refugees, asylees, survivors of domestic violence and other protected groups, it may diminish their chances of filing family-based petitions in the future to reunite with family members still waiting in other countries.
• Short-term public assistance benefits help stabilize immigrant families putting them on track for long-term financial stability.

Below is the full list of public benefits included and not included in the new proposal.

Receipt of Cash Benefits Included in the public charge assessment:

• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
• Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
• State and local cash assistance programs that provide benefits for income maintenance
• Programs supporting individuals who are institutionalized for long-term care

Receipt of Non-Cash Benefits Included in the public charge assessment:

• Medicaid (except for emergency Medicaid and certain disability services related to education)
• Medicare Part D Low Income Subsidy
• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps)
• Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program
• Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance, and
• Public Housing

Public Benefits not included (but previously rumored to be included) in the public charge assessment:

• Emergency Medical Assistance
• Disaster Relief
• National school lunch or school breakfast programs
• Foster care and adoption
• Head Start
• Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP or SCHIP) (not included now, but under consideration for the future)
• Earned Income Tax Credit or Child Tax Credit
• Subsidized Health Insurance Under the Affordable Care Act
• Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC)
• Housing Assistance, or
• Energy Benefits

This regulation is aimed at anyone applying for legal permanent resident (green card) status in the U.S. as well as those seeking family-based immigrant visas abroad.

Click here for information on how you can say something about this change.

Click here for much more information and a list of documents relating to public charge regulation.