U.S. immigration weekly briefing – Thanksgiving

Visa bulletin for December 2017 out

For the month of December 2017, and for all countries except the Philippines and Mexico:

TPS ending for Haitians

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on November 20th, 2017 that the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Haiti was terminated, with a delayed effective date of July 22nd, 2019. TPS allows, as summarized by Axios, ‘certain foreign individuals to stay in the United States because the government judges their home countries too dangerous to return to, either due to civil wars, environmental disasters or epidemics’.
Around 60,000 Haitians are said to have to return to Haiti. Next TPS decision: Salvadorans at the end of January 2018.

Travel ban headed to the Supreme Court.

The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court on November 20th, 2017 to allow officials to implement the entirety of the latest version of the travel ban. Only citizens of 6 countries (Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen) without either 1) relatives in the United States or 2) jobs, business ties or connections to educational institutions are currently banned. (quoted from Josh Gerstein from Politico).

Sanctions to sanctuary cities blocked

On November 20th, 2017, a federal judge issued an injunction to permanently block President Trump’s executive order to deny funding to cities that refused to cooperate with federal immigration officials (so-called ‘sanctuary cities’), after finding the order unconstitutional. (quoted from Eli Rosenberg of the Washington Post).