VAAP Talks biden policies on CCTV

ALI'S CORNER: IMMIGRATION & THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION

As CCTV Producer Steven Herron describes, “Host Ali Dieng speaks with Jill Martin Diaz, Executive Director the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, about their work, the state of immigration in the United States, and the impacts made by President Biden's administration and policies.”

Overview

On Friday, June, 28th, VAAP joined former Burlington City Councilmember Ali Dieng on his CCTV/Town Meeting TV show, Ali’s Corner to discuss the Biden Administration’s recent immigration policy changes. As has become routine following sweeping Executive immigration policy reforms — the new normal since the Trump Administration — these changes have spawned widespread misinformation, fear, and confusion about these changes’ local impacts. Below, VAAP provides an overview of proposed and enacted federal policy changes and their implications for our noncitizen community in Vermont. 

Redesignating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti 

On June 28, the DHS extended Temporary Protected Status for Haiti until February 2026. This redesignation allows Haitians with TPS to renew the status and additional eligible Haitians to apply. As VAAP explained in a recent post and an advocacy email to the VT Congressional Delegation, TPS is vital to many members of Vermont’s Haitian population, offering beneficiaries protection from removal and the ability to work legally, alongside other social, economic, and community benefits. 

Reducing Barriers to Family-Based Immigration  

On June 18th, the Biden administration exercised executive authority to remove barriers facing certain undocumented U.S. residents to regularizing their status as qualifying relatives of documented family members. The announcement proposes “parole-in-place" for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens and their children. This would enable them to apply for green cards as the beneficiaries of their petitioning family members without needing to leave the country for consular processing, as is currently the practice in most cases. If enacted, this policy will benefit an estimated 550,000 individuals whose unlawful presence otherwise bars them from benefiting from family-based immigration petitions. The policy will also enable DACA recipients and noncitizen graduates of U.S. colleges to secure nonimmigrant work visas. 

Introducing Barriers to Seeking and Being Granted Asylum 

Despite these welcomed changes, federal immigration policy also continues to perpetuate family separation and dangerous insecurity for other groups of noncitizens. 

Policy decisions by the Biden administration over the past year, including the president’s extraordinary and unprecedented Executive actions to prevent asylum seeking, introduce sweeping grounds preventing migrants from seeking asylum, receiving asylum, and having denied claims reviewed, placing procedural barriers and statutory bars in the way of otherwise valid claims. 

In particular, the actions prevent migrants from seeking asylum if they cross the border between ports of entry, absent few exceptions. Migrants are also ineligible for asylum if they traveled through other countries on their way to the U.S. and did not seek asylum there—even though these transit countries tend to be dangerous and/or already overwhelmed with asylum cases. 

Some barriers to a grant of asylum can be avoided with the use of appointments at ports of entry scheduled through the CBP One mobile app—but this requirement is a barrier in and of itself. A months-long average waiting period and technical issues inhibit the app’s accessibility, making the process highly unrealistic for would-be asylum seekers. 

Biden’s policies also expand the number of cases subject to limited review “expedited removal proceedings.” They empower CBP officers to make dispositive adjudications of whether a migrant is subject to an asylum bar and to summarily dismiss asylum seekers’ claims at the southern border without a right of further review. 

Local Challenges 

While these actions target the southern border, their local impacts are also disheartening. Family separation is prolonged and exacerbated as noncitizen Vermonters’ loved ones are stuck in houselessness in Mexico awaiting CBP-One appointments or are barred from seeking asylum due to unauthorized crossings. Others will face increased danger if they resort to escaping Mexico by crossing the border irregularly in remote, highly dangerous areas. Migrants already in Vermont face the risk of being denied valid asylum claims due solely to how they entered the U.S. or the countries they traveled through to get here. 

Other long-existing challenges faced by Vermont’s migrant population are increasing in prominence. The circulating misinformation around recent national updates enable increasing provision of predatory Notario Fraud services to VT's asylum seeking and immigrant communities. On the governmental front, noncitizen Vermonters face increasing levels of CBP and ICE encounters that threaten many longtime community members with out of state detention and deportation proceedings. 

VAAP remains committed to ensuring security and equity for noncitizen Vermonters in the context of recent policy updates and other pressing issues. We continue to stay updated on such developments to inform our work – both to support the noncitizens directly impacted by these policies, and to enable their valuable contributions to the vibrancy of Vermont’s economy and communities. 

Gratitude to South Burlington High School paralegal intern, Julia Todd for contributing toward this analysis.