Dear Readers:
I hope you have had a happy holiday season so far. As we get closer to the inauguration of the new President, we have had some questions answered regarding appointments to new positions, but there remain unanswered numerous questions about the policies President-Elect Trump will pursue on immigration.
The four major cabinet-level appointments that deal with immigration are Secretary of State, Attorney General, Secretary of Homeland Security and Secretary of Labor. Mr. Trump has chosen Rex Tillerson, the head of Exxon, for Secretary of State and Andrew Puzder, the CEO of the Carl’s Jr restaurant chain as the Secretary of Labor. Both have solid pro-immigration records. Retired Marine General John Kelley will head the Department of Homeland Security. General Kelley is largely an unknown quantity when it comes to immigration. And for Attorney General, Senator Jeff Sessions has gotten the nod. Senator Sessions has earned the reputation for being the most anti-immigration member of the Senate. So we’re left scratching our heads for a signal. It’s quite possible – indeed probable – that immigration was not a key factor in any of these appointments. Which could be viewed as a positive – that immigration is no longer a key priority and dramatic changes will not be occurring. Or it may simply be still too early to say.
With regard to specific policies, there has been little discussion of anything yet. But so far we have had hints regarding DACA, skilled workers and “extreme vetting”. Regarding DACA, the deferred action program for certain “Dreamers”, restrictionists are urging Mr. Trump to repeal the program. But Mr. Trump is suggesting that he may take a more flexible policy and could seek a compromise that allows DACA recipients to keep their status for a while until a bigger deal is made. Indeed, Senator Graham and a group of five other Democrats and Republicans have introduced a bill to extend DACA for three years, something the new President may support.
The President-Elect has sent mixed signals on skilled workers. On the one hand, in a Youtube address he suggested that cracking down on H-1B abuses would be a major priority. On the other hand, he recently met with a group of leaders of the biggest tech companies in America and suggested he was ready to help to make sure they had access to global talent.
An on “extreme vetting” of people from Muslim countries, we still have no clear answers. Mr. Trump has suggested he still intends to make it much tougher for people from Muslim and Middle Eastern countries to enter the US. But we have yet to see specific plans leaving a lot of people nervous about how to proceed with immigration processing.
We still have not heard about who will head the three DHS immigration agencies – Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). These are key appointments that may tell us more about where Mr. Trump is headed.
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In firm news, a number of lawyers in the firm attended the Second Physician Immigration Institute in Washington. Greg Siskind, Elissa Taub and Adam Cohen were each speakers and a number of us also stayed on a day to visit House and Senate offices advocating on immigration issues.
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This issue marks the debut of our newest team member, Andrew Bagley, who is taking over from Sarah Schrag as associate editor of Siskind’s Immigration Bulletin and Siskind Susser’s webmaster. We’re very excited to have Andrew on board and look forward to great things.
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As always, we invite you to contact us if our firm can be of assistance. Please visit our web page at www.visalaw.com for information on reaching the firm or scheduling a consultation.
Regards,
Greg Siskind
Disclaimer: This newsletter is provided as a public service and not intended to establish an attorney client relationship. Any reliance on information contained herein is taken at your own risk.