Guest Post: Matthew Boles (SPLC)

Guest post by Matthew Boles, Senior Direct Services Attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center's Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative

This summer has been a busy one in immigration. While each law school’s schedule is different, in terms of when the semester ended, here is a non-exhaustive list of just some of the changes since students may have last studied immigration:

1. On July 1, the U.S. and Panama signed a Memorandum of Understanding to close the Darién Gap to irregular migration.[1] As a result, barbed wire has been erected in an effort to block people from crossing.[2]
2. On June 28, the Supreme Court overruled the Chevron doctrine in a 6-2 opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts. Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. ___ (2024). A blog post from July 14 cites a statement from the American Immigration Council, which states some immigrants may benefit from the decision, while others may not. While the case itself does not deal with immigration, there will undoubtedly be ramifications.
3. On June 18, President Biden announced that a new program to expand the use of Parole in Place, which will allow people to become Lawful Permanent Residents via Adjustment of Status, as opposed to leaving the country and having to do consular processing.[3] At the time of writing, DHS has not announced a procedure/application process.
4. On June 4, President Biden signed an executive order, restricting asylum for people who enter the U.S. without inspection.[4] Two days later, he was in Normandy, France, for the 80th anniversary of D-Day.[5] Ironically, WWII was the genesis for refugee law, at least how we think of it today, with the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Refugee Protocol.[6]
5. In April, a Temporary Final Rule went into place about Employment Authorization Documents (work permits) for asylum seekers with pending cases. 89 FR 24628. For asylum seekers who are applying to renew EAD under (c)(8) category, USCIS temporarily announced that the automatic extension is now 540 days, up from 180 days. Id. This is particularly important, as the case processing timeline for renewal EAD for the category is 14 months.[7]

Endnotes:

1. Abel Alvarado and Omar Fajardo, US and Panama sign agreement that aims to close the Darién Gap to ‘illegal migrants’, CNN, July 1, 2024, available at https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/01/americas/panama-us-darien-migrants-agreement-intl-latam/index.html

2. Didi Martinez and Julia Ainsley, Panama is using barbed wire to try to block a major route for U.S.-bound migrants, NBC NEWS, July 8, 2024, available at https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/panama-using-barbed-wire-block-darien-gap-us-bound-migrants-rcna159774

3. The Biden Administration’s Parole-In-Place Announcement: Helping Mixed-Status Families Stay Together and Avoid Bureaucratic Traps, American Immigration Council, June 18, 2024, available at https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/research/the_biden_administrations_parole-in-place_announcement_helping_mixed-status_families_stay_together_and_avoid_bureaucratic_traps.pdf

4. Fact Sheet: Presidential Proclamation to Suspend and Limit Entry and Joint DHS-DOJ Interim Final Rule to Restrict Asylum During High Encounters at the Southern Border, DHS, June 4, 2024, available at https://www.dhs.gov/news/2024/06/04/fact-sheet-presidential-proclamation-suspend-and-limit-entry-and-joint-dhs-doj

5. Justin Gomez and Fritz Farrow, Biden marks 80th D-Day anniversary in Normandy, ABC NEWS, June 6, 2024, available at https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-marks-80th-d-day-normandy-france/story?id=110894807

6. Matthew O. Boles, Refugees v. Internally Displaced Persons: Why the Externality Requirement Should Be Eliminated, 21 HOLY CROSS J.L. & PUB. POL'Y 9, 25 (2017)

7. https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/ (last accessed July 14, 2024) (stating that 80% are completed within 14 months).