By Sergio Arellano-Oros
Congressman Raúl Grijalva is celebrating the new guidelines by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which were intended to clarify the president’s recently released Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration enforcement policy. Others say the news guidelines muddy the waters even more.
The updated guidelines posted on the USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) website hold that deferred action beneficiaries are “lawfully present” under federal immigration laws but DHS still says the program doesn’t confer “lawful status.”
As a result, Arizona’s Governor Brewer is trying to sort through the newest federal guidelines. Brewer issued an Executive Order last August 15 instructing state agencies to deny public benefits and state-issued identification to DACA recipients on the grounds that they were not legally present in the state. At least five other states followed suit.
According to Grijalva, the new DHS guidance supersedes state-level rulemaking. In a statement released Monday, Grijalva called the Governor’s Executive Order, “callous pandering.” Grijalva claims that the new guidelines confirm that young immigrant students brought to the country as children are authorized to be here. That debate is over.”
He warned that state lawmakers and agencies “should immediately take note.”
As of this month, USCIS has received 407,899 requests for deferred action, including 14,069 in Arizona. Of these, 394,533 have been accepted and 154,404 approved. These statistics and more are available from USCIS at http://1.usa.gov/140VByK.
The Governor is taking the issue under advisement.