A Pen and a Phone: 79 immigration actions the next president can take

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Apr 11, 2016, 12:15 ET

WASHINGTON, April 11, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies provides 79 specific immigration actions the next president can take on his own to return credibility to the nation's immigration system. The goal would be to undo many of President Obama's own unilateral actions (both the legal ones and the illegal ones), but also to make other improvements pending more basic changes requiring legislation from Congress.

Mark Krikorian, the Center's executive director, said, "Civil rights pioneer Barbara Jordan noted that credibility in immigration policy is simple: 'Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave.' These 79 recommendations would be a huge step toward that goal."

View the entire report at: http://cis.org/A-Pen-and-a-Phone-79-immigration-actions-the-next-president-can-take

The Center's report recommends policy changes, both big and small, impacting lawful permanent residents, nonimmigrant entrants, and illegal aliens. The list of 79 actions relate to asylum and refugee claims, worksite enforcement, benefit fraud, national security, crime, and other areas.

The recommendations include:

Rescind all outstanding "prosecutorial discretion" policies that result in systematic non-enforcement of the law;
Eliminate the "Priority Enforcement Program" and reinstitute Secure Communities;
Restore regular assessments for fraud in USCIS benefits programs (green cards, etc.);
Deny asylum to any alien who could have sought asylum in countries through which he has traveled en route to the United States;
Reduce the standard period short-term visitors are permitted to stay to 30 days (down from 180 days) unless the traveler provides documentation or other justification for a longer stay;
Require at least 20 percent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent hours dedicated to locating and arresting visa overstays;
Direct executive branch agencies to deny allocation of H (work) visas to employers that lay off citizens or resident aliens in order to replace them with foreign workers. Direct additionally that the visas be revoked should layoffs of pre-existing workers occur within six months after arrival of H visa workers;
Direct that no unaccompanied minors be turned over to relatives who are illegally in the United States unless the relatives surrender themselves for processing and initiation of immigration court proceedings;
Selectively prosecute relatives who pay to smuggle unaccompanied minors into the United States;
Require that a condition of all federal grant monies given to state or local governments is that they, and the contracting employers or sub-recipients of that grant money, whether as a pass-through or for any other purpose, must use E-Verify for all their employees;
Require DHS and its subordinate agencies to not issue "certifications" of criminal aliens in state or local jails of sanctuary jurisdictions for purposes of the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP), thus removing the underpinning by which the Department of Justice provides millions of dollars in federal SCAAP funding to these non-cooperating jurisdictions;
Cease issuing "exemptions" (waivers) to known terrorists and supporters of terrorism, individually or by group, that permit them to enter the United States as immigrants, asylees, or refugees;
Eliminate the current provision that disregards the wages of illegal aliens in the household in order to determine eligibility for food stamps, leading to families that include illegal aliens often getting more in food stamps than comparable citizen or legal-resident families.