Democratic President Joe Biden s fast motions to reform federal immigration policy will have a significant impact on Arizona, which has a sizable population of undocumented immigrants.
Among a flurry of executive orders that Biden signed was a directive to protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. His administration has also ordered that deportations and immigration-related arrests be curtailed.
The executive order calls on federal officials to preserve and fortify the DACA program. Meanwhile, a separate memo authored by David Pekoske, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), directs U.S. immigration agencies to focus on enforcement based on protecting national security, border security, and public safety. People who have engaged in or are suspected of terrorism or espionage will be prioritized by immigration authorities, as well as individuals apprehended at the
The city of Phoenix can t bar certain immigrants like asylum seekers and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients from receiving pandemic-related housing assistance through a federally funded program, a judge ruled today.
Last July, local immigrant advocacy groups Poder in Action and the Arizona Dream Act Coalition, as well as a Phoenix resident and a DACA recipient who was denied housing assistance, filed a lawsuit against the city of Phoenix in the U.S. District Court of Arizona alleging that the city illegally denied people without qualified immigration status from accessing assistance for housing costs like rent, mortgage payments, and utilities. The $25 million program, officially dubbed the Emergency Utility Rent and Mortgage Assistance Program, was funded through the $293 million that the city received from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that was passed last spring. It was designed to help Phoenix residents weather the economic fall