A Filipino parent of a U.S. citizen child, who is residing beyond her authorized stay in the United States, recently sent me this email:
Is it true that the President will authorize issuance of work permits for parents of DACA? What about parents like us who have U.S. citizen children? Will we also be entitled to work authorization?
The questions raised by this email sender are often asked by those similarly situated. In June 2014, President Obama announced that he will come up with his own executive actions towards the end of summer. Most of the undocumented including parents of U.S. citizens are expected to receive work permits. If these executive actions are released in a few weeks, what impact will they have on the Filipino immigrant community?
Demographics of the Undocumented Filipinos
In a study released by the Pew Research Institute, there are 11.7 million unauthorized residents in the United States. Only 3% of this population is from the Philippine compared to 59% from Mexico. Nevertheless, based on this figure, there are approximately 351,000 undocumented Filipinos residing in the United States. The data released also reveals that three-fifths of those who are present in the United States have been residing as undocumented for a decade or more.
Nature of the Executive Action
For more than a year after the immigration reform bill was introduced in the House of Representatives, President Obama held off, despite pressure from immigration reform activists, from taking any policy actions to change priorities on immigration enforcement. His deference to Congress was more of a political move to exact permanent solutions to a broken immigration system. Since the US Congress had indulged in a “year of obstruction”, the President is determined to release his executive actions even without the help of Congress.
Within his power to do so, President Obama may take action to advance the goals of immigration. More specifically, he can expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program not only to undocumented children but also to the parents of undocumented children. When it comes to protection from prosecution, he can set priorities for enforcement by deferring deportation and extend employment authorization to the undocumented immigrants.
After conducting several meetings with interest groups, a proposal to reduce backlogs of family and employment based petitions is being considered. While setting the limits on visas is a Congressional act, the President may set priorities on how these numerical limits are counted. Possible executive action includes a proposal that would count only the principal applicant towards the numerical limit exempting derivative children and spouses. If this happens, more visas will become available resulting in shorter waiting period for the petitioning family.
Temporary Reprieve
The issuance of employment authorization and the other proposals that are being considered are only temporary in nature, and it possible that the next administration may choose to unilaterally revoke the executive actions for any reason. Unfortunately, with no new legislation before Congress at this time, the best available solutions for undocumented immigrants are the much-anticipated executive actions.
(Atty. Lourdes Tancinco may be reached at law@tancinco.com, tancinco.weareph.com/old, facebook.com/tancincolaw or at (02)721 1963)
