Miller Mayer immigration attorney Steve Yale-Loehr was quoted in the following publications:

He noted that presidents have typically maintained TPS status because ending it could pose a political challenge. “Individuals from those countries settle here, they have roots, they marry U.S. citizens, they have U.S. citizen children. So if you take it away then you’re dividing families and sending some people back to their home country.”

He said, “I don’t think President Trump and the U.S. Congress will be able to finalize the government funding and immigration issues by January 19. They are too complicated to resolve in just 10 days. Instead, I predict that Congress will simply extend current government funding levels without any changes for a few more weeks to give themselves more time to negotiate everything. The real deadline for DACA is March 5, not this month.”

Noting that efforts by the administration to restrict the entry of family members of migrants was shortsighted, Mr. Yale-Loehr said they “bring drive and entrepreneurial spirit to the United States.”

The article discusses a Trump administration proposal not to extend the H-1B visas of those waiting for permanent residence, which would have major ramifications for Indian IT professionals in the United States and U.S. competitiveness. Mr. Yale-Loehr said that if the administration goes forward with the changes, companies and H-1B workers could sue to stop them. Among other things, they could argue that only the U.S. Congress can make such a change, and that it is unfair to change the rules midstream while H-1B workers have been waiting patiently in line for years.

“If the administration goes forward, they would first need to publish the proposed changes” in the Federal Register, he noted. “Then they would need to wait a month or longer to accept comments from the public about the proposed change. Then they would need to read and evaluate the comments before they could publish a final rule.”

Mr. Yale-Loehr noted that despite President Trump’s claims, no government or even individual can game the system since the diversity visa program is a true lottery. Until recently, Mr. Yale-Loehr was a critic of the program. But in December, he published an op-ed in the New York Daily News arguing that recipients of the diversity visa are, in fact, not less skilled than other immigrants. Citing a 2011 report from the Congressional Research Service, he noted that a higher percentage of immigrants who entered the United States through the diversity visa program had managerial and professional occupations in 2009 than green card holders overall, about one-quarter compared to 10 percent. They also had a lower unemployment rate—3 percent—relative to the 8 percent of all recipients that year. Also, recent Department of Homeland Security data shows that about a third of those who came to the United States through the diversity visa program in 2015 were employed in managerial or professional occupations, compared to the 12 percent who received their green cards through relatives.

“Philosophically, you would think you could do a better job of picking people to come to the United States through important criteria, like people who have a unique talent, or are very smart, rather than just through a lottery,” Yale-Loehr said. “But after I looked at these statistics, and I saw that diversity visa lottery people are pretty much gainfully employed with a very low unemployment rate, I am now having second thoughts.”

The article quotes an op-ed Mr. Yale-Loehr wrote in December dispelling false claims about the diversity visa lottery: “There is no way a foreign government can game the lottery to offload the worst of their citizenry. Applicants who commit fraud, say by applying more than once each year to increase their chances of winning, are barred from the program. The State Department has issued specific warnings against fraud in the diversity visa program. So even if a government tried to game the lottery, it should be caught.”