U.S. Immigration Weekly Recap

Felicia Persaud Immigration Korner

Since President’s Biden’s trickle on immigration in his State of The Union of Feb. 7, quite a lot of headlines have made U.S. immigration news—too many to simply focus on one topic this week. Here are my top five headlines making immigration news this week.

1: First Caribbean immigrant performer at the U.S. Super Bowl

The Caribbean was in the spotlight Sunday as Rihanna became only the second immigrant and first Caribbean immigrant to perform in the U.S. Super Bowl HalfTime Show. Of course, Rihanna is also one of only seven

Black women who have now performed at the U.S. football extravaganza, much to Donald Trump’s dismay. El Trumpeto could not contain his xenophobia by referring to the billionaire singer, actress, and entrepreneur as “talentless.” What a “cunumunu,” as we would say in the Caribbean. For my American friends: “idiot” or “fool.”

2: Biden’s trickle in SOTU address

U.S. President Joe Biden barely dabbled in immigration into his 2023 State of the Union. Nearly an hour into the Feb. 7 speech, Biden gave a lip-service segue to the issue by saying, “Let’s also come together on immigration and make it a bipartisan issue like it was before.”

Then he quickly pivoted to lower the bar, calling for funding and targeted legalization bills rather than comprehensive reform.

“If we don’t pass my comprehensive immigration reform, at least pass my plan to provide the equipment and officers to secure the border and a pathway to citizenship for ‘Dreamers,’ those on temporary status, farm workers, essential workers,” he said. So much for the president who was all in for immigrants. What a waste of time, especially in the Republican-controlled Congress, where we are back to scapegoating immigrants. Good luck with that, Joe.

3: Kamala Harris touts supposed successes as immigration czar

U.S. Veep Kamala Harris cannot be seriously touting success as the “immigration czar.” After being largely MIA from the hot-button issue,

Harris announced almost $1 billion in new pledges by private companies to support communities in Central America, which is part of the Biden administration’s effort to keep migrants from fleeing toward the U.S. border.

Sadly, the pledge is merely a drop in the ocean as crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border remain high, the Biden administration struggles to find solutions to the problem, and cities like New York continue to bear the brunt of the increase in migrants seeking a better life in America.

4: Senators unveil bipartisan bill to protect Dreamers

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) seems to have reverted back to his pre-Trump self, at least temporarily. Graham has joined with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) to reintroduce the DREAM summit heighten, retired University of the West Indies professor and regional author Mark Kirton blasted the region for its consistently lukewarm approach, saying that Haitian independence back in the early 19th century set the stage and paved the way for other enslaved colonies to achieve their own freedom from colonization.

“Our approach has been way too lukewarm,” Kirton said. “We need Caricom to have a sustained engagement. After all, Haiti is the one which first set the thinking about independence with what it did back then. We are either all brothers on one ship or not. We need a strong, sustained intervention from Caricom as Haiti is a member of the grouping. This has been severely lacking. We ought to have a more managed approach to the situation.”

Act. The Friday, Feb. 10, reintroduction came three days after President Biden called for lawmakers to find common ground on immigration reform.

The two highest-ranking members on the Judiciary Committee are re-upping legislation that would give undocumented young immigrants, or Dreamers, a pathway to legal residency. The two senators have introduced the bill for many years without success and it’s likely to die again, given the Republican control of the House.

5: TPS immigrants still living in limbo

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sudan who are in the U.S. under a Temporary Protected Status (TPS) order are still being kept here at the mercy of the courts. Thankfully, on Feb. 10, a federal appeals court decided to revisit a case that could decide the fate of the more than 300,000 immigrants living in the U.S. legally on humanitarian grounds. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals voided a 2020 ruling issued by a three-judge panel in the California-based appeals court that had allowed the Trump administration to terminate the TPS of the migrants. The court granted a request by attorneys representing immigrants enrolled in the TPS programs, saying it would hear the case once more, this time ‘en banc,” or with all active judges participating. Sadly, though, it’s unclear when the 9th Circuit could rule on the case again.