Fragile Immigration Legality Collapses in the Trump Era

The legality of immigration status has become murkier in recent years as more categories of status have been created, resulting in a class of immigrants who are neither legal nor illegal in the traditional sense. The author uses the term “quasi-statuses” to describe these dubious categories, such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS). In the article, she explores the surge of quasi status immigration and how immigrants with such status were exploited during the Trump Administration as part of its anti-immigration policy agenda. She argues that the quasi-status immigration system is unsustainable and potentially dangerous as it “leaves hundreds of thousands of immigrants in an unacceptable state of vulnerability susceptible to capricious and discriminatory enforcement by the executive branch.” To remedy this problem, she makes several policy recommendations, including greater use of prosecutorial discretion in immigration courts and replacing TPS with paroled status. Further, the author proposes a pathway to citizenship to many immigrants with quasi status, and a reform of the removal rules as part of a much-needed immigration reform. (Jaisang Sun for The Immigrant Learning Center’s Public Education Institute)

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