\n<\/p>\n
Kim Xavier, a senior associate at CoveyLaw, an immigration law firm based in New York, has spent much of the last year bracing herself for any Friday announcements that might affect her clients.<\/p>\n
So when Donald Trump announced on a recent Friday that he will impose a $100,000 fee on H-1B visa applications, the timing <\/strong>was not totally surprising.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery day, it\u2019s like I\u2019m trying to stay afloat. And every Friday, I\u2019m just like, now what?\u201d Xavier told the Guardian.<\/p>\n Though headline after headline has highlighted the Trump administration\u2019s crackdown on undocumented immigrants, Xavier said many Americans don\u2019t realize the heightened uncertainty legal immigrants are facing \u2013 something that immigration attorneys like herself have to confront every day.<\/p>\n \u201cThe perpetual fear that undocumented immigrants have dealt with their entire lives is now spread across the whole immigration system,\u201d Xavier said. \u201cThis is something new, I think. This is something that a lot of people don\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n Cracks and fissures have existed within the legal immigration system for years, long before Trump came into office. The last time Congress passed comprehensive immigration reform was 1986. In the nearly four decades since, those trying to immigrate legally often face ambiguous standards, outdated quotes and backlogs, along with other issues that appear administrative but can have a huge impact on a person\u2019s ability to stay in the country.<\/p>\n The difference seen over a generation is stark. \u201cEven for people who have been through the immigration system, they\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, 30 years ago, I just came with a suitcase from Canada and I got my green card in three months\u2019. It\u2019s not like that any more,\u201d Xavier said.<\/p>\n The pathway to becoming a legal immigrant in the US is a narrow one. A person can get legal status through family \u2013 if a spouse, child or parent is a citizen \u2013 or through their employer, like H-1B holders, or through extraordinary talent. Though the US has offered legal status for humanitarian purposes, for asylum or refugees, the White House has dramatically cut down on these humanitarian pathways.<\/p>\n The Trump administration has emphasizedthat its crackdown on immigration is targeted toward removing undocumented immigrants from the country.<\/p>\n \u201cRamped-up immigration enforcement targeting the worst of the worst is removing more and more criminal illegal aliens off our streets every day and is sending a clear message to anyone else in this country illegally: self-deport or we will arrest you,\u201d assistant secretary for homeland security, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement last month.<\/p>\n But the administration is reportedly trying to cut down on legal immigration too. A recent Reuters report said the White House is planning to cut the number of refugees the US takes in from 125,000 down to 7,500, with the majority of slots reserved for white South Africans.<\/p>\n The administration also seems to be combing through the records of immigrants, including green card holders, for potential violations that weren\u2019t considered deportable before his term. In September, an Irish green card holder living in Missouri was detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) facility in Kentucky because she wrote a bad check for $25 in 2015.<\/p>\n Immigration attorneys like Xavier, who works solely with immigrants who have gone through the process legally, have seen how the ongoing scrutiny has had a chilling effect on legal immigrants who have lived in and even started families in the US.<\/p>\n Hanging over the head of many of these immigrants is the threat of losing their legal status, even temporarily, because of what Xavier calls \u201coperational inefficiencies\u201d: ambiguous <\/strong>delays and unclear communication about applications have left lawyers scrambling to keep their clients\u2019 legal status.<\/p>\n Processing delays have been a major stress for Xavier\u2019s clients, and can often leave legal immigrants in limbo. Lawyers don\u2019t know when their client will hear back on an application, which can sometimes leave them stuck in the country.<\/p>\n One client with a pending green card application applied for \u201cadvance parole\u201d, which would allow her to leave the US and legally re-enter even as her green card application is under review. Because her father was undergoing quadruple bypass surgery, she applied for an expedited advanced parole to be with him after the procedure. But, \u201cthey still denied the emergency advanced parole,\u201d Xavier said, so she couldn\u2019t travel back home for his surgery.<\/p>\n Xavier has also seen clients who have been living in the US for years and have had multiple visas get \u201csoft denials\u201d for renewals, meaning an application has been put on hold pending further documentary and scrutiny.<\/p>\n Complicating the process for visa applicants is that the renewal process requires communication between two branches of the federal government: US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which is under the Department of Homeland Security, and the consulate of their home country, which falls under the Department of State. Lawyers have said there can often be a lack of communication between the two that causes delays.<\/p>\n Delays on application decisions can outlast certain \u201cgrace periods\u201d the federal government gives to applicants for certain visas that allow them to legally stay in the country while they await renewal. This puts them at risk of being taken into custody or put into court proceedings when the grace period is up.<\/p>\n The Trump administration also recently gave USCIS special agents law enforcement powers, including the ability to make arrests and execute search and arrest warrants, powers that the ACLU has said has never been given to the agency and is a way to \u201csystematically restrict legal immigration and strip people of their legal status\u201d.<\/p>\n The added stresses and uncertainty has taken a heavy toll on both immigrants and their employers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe hear about the erosion of legal immigrant pathways impacting Silicon Valley, but also innovative startups, it\u2019s fashion designers who are using sustainable efforts, it\u2019s architects. There are so many different industries that are impacted here,\u201d Xavier said.<\/p>\n Though the changes in immigration enforcement may seem insignificant for legal immigrants, the impact has been huge..<\/p>\n \u201cThey seem little, they seem incremental, but it\u2019s been a long time coming. It\u2019s been built into the system, and now they are coming at lightning speed, often in different areas and under the radar of the mainstream public, that when taken together they are overwhelmingly detrimental,\u201d Xavier said. \u201cIn Spanish, we have a saying that goes la gota que derram\u00f3 el vaso <\/em>\u2013 it\u2019s the last drop that made the glass overflow. You have these little drops, but they\u2019re coming, and by the time you know it, you\u2019re flooded.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kim Xavier, a senior associate at CoveyLaw, an immigration law firm based in New York, has spent much of the last year bracing herself for any Friday announcements that might affect her clients. So when Donald Trump announced on a recent Friday that he will impose a $100,000 fee on H-1B visa applications, the timing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[16398,3095,2081,324,3949,1931,2975,71],"class_list":{"0":"post-27461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-afloat","9":"tag-crackdown","10":"tag-immigration","11":"tag-legal","12":"tag-quiet","13":"tag-stay","14":"tag-toll","15":"tag-trumps"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}