Immigration Backlogs Jeopardize Child’s Organ Transplants

While debates on immigration policy often tend towards philosophical ideas, in practice the immigration system in the United States can lead to serious and even life-threatening situations. Eleven-year-old Julia Espinoza was born in Miami while her parents were attending college on student visas. Julia was born with a congenital malformation to her small intestine, which prevents her from eating normally. As a lifesaving measure, doctors removed most of her small intestine. Julia survives by getting daily infusions of nutrients through an intravenous post in her chest.

Read more

USCIS Announces They Will Resume DACA Renewals

Because of the nationwide injunction last week, US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that they will resume accepting requests to renew DACA status. The agency says that unless otherwise specified the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program will be operated until further notice on the same terms that were in place before it was rescinded on September 5, 2017.

Read more

NBC News: “Trump Administration: Dreamers Can Stay, Undocumented Parents Must Go”

On the anniversary of the implementation of the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protects approximately 800,000 immigrants (also called “dreamers”) who came to the US as children with no legal status by shielding them from deportation and providing them with work authorization for periods of two years, the Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) formally eliminated a similar program proposed to protect the undocumented parents of these dreamers.

Read more