[ad_1]
LRIF Strategy Group estimates that as many as 10,000 Liberian immigrants currently protected by Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) may be eligible for green cards under this law, but ProPublica reported earlier this month that only a portion have been able to apply since last year due to mind-boggling rules and outrageous inaction from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the politicized immigration agency that’s supposed to process this paperwork. Supposed to.
“Birth certificates, which the federal government had accepted from these immigrants when they had applied for temporary legal status under past presidents, were now deemed insufficient,” ProPublica reported. “So were expired Liberian passports—even though they were being offered as proof of nationality, which doesn’t expire.” USCIS could have also mailed immigrants information about LRIF since it already has their data on file, but “it did not,” the report said.
Applicants were also required to do in-person interviews in the middle of a pandemic, LRIF Strategy Group notes. Even the end date for applications—Dec. 20—came with fine print, because USCIS was saying that applications had to be received by that date, when in the past it accepted a postmark just fine.
But following the spending bill’s signature last week, the new deadline for completing and sending in LRIF applications is now Dec. 20, 2021. “As the first immigration legalization bill to pass congress and be signed into law in over a decade, Black undocumented people, the Liberian community are invested in the success of LRIF, we all must be,” UndocuBlack Network National Policy and Advocacy Director Patrice Lawrence said in the statement.
“This one year extension for the application period is necessary and is only the beginning of what is needed to ensure proper implementation of the LRIF program,” she continued. “It is important for the Biden administration to be successful for this population of 10,000, as this is a test of their will and systems ahead of the expected 11 million undocumented people! They must start with reversing the Trump policy guidelines for LRIF on day one! Additionally, Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) must be given by executive action retroactively to January 10, 2021 so that pending LRIF applicants can work and have protections.”
Thousands of Liberian immigrants who have lived and worked here for as long as two decades faced deportation following the Trump administration’s attacks on Deferred Enforced Departure. A provision in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act subsequently allowed these families to apply for permanent status. “The LRIF program was created through unyielding advocacy efforts by Liberian and other Black immigrant advocates as well as a bipartisan effort in Congress over many years,” LRIF Strategy Group said in the release.
“It gives people the ability to dream about someday going back home and reuniting with their family members that they haven’t seen,” Abena Abraham, co-founder of the Black Immigrant Collective and a DED holder who came to the U.S. from Liberia when she was just 4, told CBS News last year. “And it means that people can go to bed at night and not have to worry about what they’ll hear tomorrow.”
[ad_2]
Source link
