Immigration

President Obama lost his bid to kick-start his deportation amnesty after the Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 on Thursday, keeping in place a lower court’s ruling that stopped the White House plans to grant work permits to as many as 5 million illegal immigrants.

The ruling was cheered by conservatives who said Mr. Obama tried to subvert the Constitution. But immigrant-rights advocates called it a miscarriage of justice, saying illegal immigrants will continue to struggle to live and work in the shadows of American life.

In the near term, the decision is a devastating blow to Mr. Obama’s hopes of a legacy-burnishing step on immigration. But it could have been worse — had the late Justice Antonin Scalia still be on the court, analysts said Mr. Obama would likely have lost in 5-4 decision that could have spanked him for overstepping his constitutional bounds.

Instead, the tie decision leaves in place the ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that rules Mr. Obama broke immigration law.

Immigrant-rights advocates had feared the ruling, and have vowed to take the issue to voters in November, saying Republicans — who generally opposed the amnesty — will suffer at the ballot box.

Culled from The Washington Times

By Zeeshan Aleem |

Democratic presidential front runner Hillary Clinton will announce Wednesday her intention to open a new federal office in Washington devoted explicitly to overseeing immigration and refugee settlement in the United States, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The office would be responsible for helping coordinate local and national programs, and be in charge of executing recommendations made by an Obama administration task force. An aide to Clinton’s campaign told the LA Times that it would represent “a dedicated place in the White House where integration services are studied and coordinated across the government.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, the office would “help undocumented immigrants as well as those here legally.”

The announcement comes on the same day that Clinton is expected to receive an endorsement from the New York State Immigrant Action Fund, an immigrant rights group.

The announcement of the new immigration office doesn’t constitute a bolder or more progressive position on immigration than she’d held in the past, but it does exemplify her campaign theme of being a “progressive who gets things done.”

It’s difficult to imagine her rival for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders, making a similar announcement on the kinds of administrative steps that could help build institutional backing or momentum for his immigration reform agenda.

While Clinton’s announcement doesn’t yet indicate novel policy thinking, it’s probably good politics. Both she and Sanders have been playing up their immigration reform ambitions — and downplaying some of their more conservative positions on immigration policy in the past — in the run-up to the delegate-rich New York primary Tuesday. As Sanders comes within striking distance of Clinton in the polls — a Quinnipacpoll released this week has him trailing her by 13 points — Clinton needs to do everything she can to maintain her edge.

By Sara Ashley O’Brien (CNN Money).

This year, 236,000 foreigners applied for the H-1B, the most common visa for high-skilled foreign workers. That’s up 3,000 from 2015 — and up significantly more from 2014 which had 172,500 applications.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will grant just 85,000 H-1B visas (20,000 of which are reserved for master’s degree holders), which it selected on Saturday, April 9, via a lottery process.

For applicants — and employers — the fate of their applications is out of their hands.

“The lottery makes everything very uncertain,” said immigration lawyer Tahmina Watson of Watson Immigration Law, who said she was anticipating that the number of applications would indeed be higher this year.

The growing demand is one of the reasons why some regions — Massachusetts, Colorado and most recently New York City — have introduced programs to help applicants get around the H-1B cap. With the help of universities, a select number of H-1B applicants can bypass the annual quotas.

Silicon Valley types have spoken out about the need for high-skilled immigration reform for innovation’s sake. Without a pathway to stay in the country, many talented techies could take their ideas and companies elsewhere.

After all, according to a recent study from the National Foundation for American Policy, more than 50% of the U.S.’s “unicorns” — or privately-held companies deemed to be worth $1 billion or more — had at least one immigrant founder.

Legendary investor Ron Conway spoke about the ongoing need for immigration reform in February.

“28% of new [tech] startups in American are started by immigrants,” said Conway.

Conway is one of the original backers of FWD.us, a group focused on immigration reform that was launched by Mark Zuckerberg and other tech CEOs in 2013.

“We have CEOs who can’t even stay in the country with the rest of their team. That’s the most catastrophic case,” added Conway.

Hillary Clinton Releases One of 2016’s Biggest Immigration Proposals Yet

High-skilled visa applications hit record high – again

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