Immigration Advocates Await the Signing of Additional Migration-Related Executive
Actions and Orders
Actions and Orders
Monday, February 13, 2017
 | Drafts of at least three additional migration-related Executive Orders have been leaked to the media, including ones that would restrict benefits for noncitizens, restrict legal immigration, and cancel President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for the Parents of Childhood Arrivals (DAPA) initiatives. The following briefly summarizes the three draft orders: |
- Draft DACA/DAPA Executive Order. The draft executive order on DACA and DAPA would rescind the DAPA program entirely. However, it would cease the processing of new DACA applications immediately and allow “current DACA recipients to retain their work permits until they expire at some point in the next two years.”
- Draft Employment-Based Immigration Executive Order. The draft executive order on employment-based immigration would require various officials of the executive branch to undertake studies, issue regulations, and prepare legislation with the goal of “protecting American jobs and workers by strengthening the integrity of foreign worker visa programs.”
- Draft Immigrants and Social Services Executive Order. The draft executive order on immigrants and social services would require the person who sponsored an immigrant into the United States to reimburse the federal government for any benefits the immigrant used, direct the government to publish regular reports on the benefits used by immigrants in the United States and how that money could be “reinvested” in the inner cities, prevent families from making use of the refundable portion of the Child Tax Credit if the parents are not legally present in the United States, and prevent undocumented persons from being eligible for Social Security during the time he or she was working illegally in the United States, even if he or she was paying into the system.