Hispanic rights advocates are protesting the government’s plans to revoke amnesties for potentially hundreds of illegal immigrants who refuse to return their erroneous three-year work permits, saying that the illegal immigrants shouldn’t be punished for the Obama administration’s mistake.
The plea comes with less than a week to go before Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson must prove to a court that he has rescinded all of the 2,600 or so three-year permits his department issued in defiance of U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen’s injunction.
With the judge breathing down his neck, Mr. Johnson has threatened to outright cancel the amnesties of those illegal immigrants who refuse to turn over their three-year employment authorization documents (EAD) and instead accept two-year cards.
He has even instructed officers to go door-to-door to demand the documents be turned over.
But the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda sent him a letter Friday saying it is “irrational” to cancel amnesties for Dreamers, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients, because of a government error.
“An expectation for individuals to comply with less than two weeks’ notice is frankly unacceptable and is likely to result in individuals failing to return their EAD by the July 30 deadline,” the organization said. “Furthermore, the threat to terminate DACA status for affected individuals who do not return their three-year EAD unfairly penalizes DACA holders for the Administration’s error.”
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Homeland Security agency that administers the program, repeatedly has tried to ask the 2,600 to return their botched cards, but as of the middle of July only about 1,200 had done so.
The agency did not appear to budge over the weekend, saying it is sticking with its plans.
“USCIS will terminate DACA and all employment authorizations effective July 31, 2015, if the affected recipient does not return their invalid three-year EAD. Individuals who received these three-year EADs are not being penalized for requesting DACA, they are merely being reissued the correct two-year cards,” the agency said.
The agency did not say how much progress it has made in the first week of door-to-door canvassing.
President Obama announced his expanded amnesty in November, making millions more illegal immigrants eligible for the amnesty he announced in 2012. At the time, Mr. Obama also announced the amnesty would expand from two years to three years — including for Dreamers who qualified for the initial 2012 program.
Judge Hanen issued an order Feb. 16 halting the expansion, but government officials told him they already had processed more than 100,000 three-year amnesties between November and the time of the injunction. The government later announced it had processed 2,600 three-year amnesties even after the injunction.
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It’s that second set of approvals that Judge Hanen is ordering be revoked — and he has expressed shock at what he called the administration’s “cavalier” attitude toward breaking his order.
Mr. Johnson has blamed technical glitches and bad procedures for the botched approvals, and has ordered an investigation by the department’s inspector general.
Judge Hanen has said if the issue isn’t resolved to his satisfaction by July 31, he will demand Mr. Johnson appear personally in his courtroom next month to answer.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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