Miller Mayer’s Steve Yale-Loehr was recently quoted in the following media:
Steve’s op-ed for the New York Daily News: “An Executive Order Cannot Repeal Birthright Citizenship, Period”
ABC News: What you need to know about birthright citizenship and the 14th Amendment
“We’ll have to see whether he actually comes out with an executive order on this issue. It’s unclear if he’s saying this just to get publicity and stir up his base or if he really intends” to sign an executive order. “Somebody told him he could do it by executive order and that appeals to him, particularly one week before the midterm elections, and I think that’s why he’s doing it now. Immigration has always been a strong message for him and this is just the latest example.” Mr. Yale-Loehr said he doesn’t think Trump’s executive order would stand up in the courts. “I do not think the president has the legal authority to change longstanding Supreme Court precedent,” he said. Backing up that view is an opinion issued by the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel in 1995, which is still binding, that states birthright citizenship can only be changed through a constitutional amendment, the article notes.
Associated Press: numerous papers, including the Tampa Bay Times: Trump off track on birthright citizenship
Mr. Yale-Loehr said the case against Trump’s authority to end birthright citizenship is “not open and shut, but the better view is it would require a constitutional amendment.”
NBC TV affiliate in Atlanta (video): Verify: Did the authors of the 14th Amendment not intend to offer birthright citizenship to people born of foreign parents?
Dallas Morning News: “ICE Says It Won’t Help Freed Immigrants Get to Bus Stations, Airports”
Regarding the possible new executive order President Trump is considering to bar people from applying for asylum at the southern border, Mr. Yale-Loehr said, “As the Supreme Court reaffirmed in its travel ban decision earlier this year, all presidents have wide discretion about who to admit to the United States because immigration touches on national sovereignty. But that discretion has limits. The U.S. immigration statute explicitly allows people to apply for asylum. Only Congress can change the law.”
PolitiFact: Mostly False: Donald Trump Claim That Beto O’Rourke Voted to Shield MS-13 Members from Deportation
Mr. Yale-Loehr said, “If an individual caught along the border claims asylum, he or she will have their claim reviewed by an asylum officer with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. If they can show they have a credible fear, the individual goes through the immigration court process. If they don’t have a credible fear, or if an immigration judge denies their asylum claim,” they will be deported, he said.
Politifact: Trump’s False Claims re Migrant Caravan
…A 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case also said that immigrants, regardless of immigration status, are allowed free elementary and secondary education. “But immigrant children can’t access that right if they are detained waiting for their asylum hearings, except in a few family detention centers,” said Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell Law School….
Law360: Midterms Won’t Break Immigration Reform Gridlock, Attys Say
Despite President Donald Trump’s push to make immigration a centerpiece of the Republican campaign strategy, lawyers predict that comprehensive legislative action on immigration will remain elusive no matter what party controls Congress after the midterms. … … “Immigration is so controversial right now that it will be almost impossible to get any major immigration reform bill through Congress, no matter which party is in power,” Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell Law School, said. “Even if the Democrats win control of both the House and Senate and manage to pass an immigration reform bill, President Trump would veto the measure. We won’t see immigration reform until 2021 at the earliest.”…
USA Today: Fact Check: Trump’s Stump Speeches: Immigration
Mr. Yale-Loehr said, “The diversity lottery is a true lottery. There is no way a foreign government can game the lottery to offload the worst of their citizenry.”
Inside Higher Ed: Fixed Maximum Terms for Student Visas?
The article discusses a Trump administration notice that it intends to propose a new rule in fall 2019 establishing a maximum period of authorized stay for international students and other holders of certain nonimmigrant visas. Mr. Yale-Loehr noted that the planned rule on duration of visas may never come to fruition. “Historically, there are lots of items on the semiannual regulatory agenda that never even make it into a proposed rule,” he said. “If it happens, it’ll happen slowly. They’ll have to come out with a proposed rule and then ask for comments and then they have to look at those comments before they issue a final rule, and the final rule could be subject to challenge by the courts. No one needs to worry about this immediately. Having said that, if a rule like this does take effect, there are pros and cons. It would remove some flexibility for people who may take longer than anticipated to finish their degrees. On the other hand, the unlawful presence guidance that came out in August creates a lot of uncertainty for foreign students because of the fact that right now they don’t have a fixed time limit, so they may be deemed after the fact to have been here unlawfully. Having a fixed duration would at least give a bright line for measuring when unlawful presence would start.”
Taiwan Newspaper (Sina): USCIS will revise a US rule that affects millions of people (in Chinese)