Miller Mayer immigration attorney Steve Yale-Loehr was quoted by the Dallas Morning News in “Texas AG Ken Paxton’s Lawsuits Stymie Biden Agenda on Immigration and Healthcare.” He said, “For the time being, it seems like Paxton is as important as the [federal government] in deciding what immigration policy is implemented these days. Every lawsuit seems to end up in a temporary injunction prohibiting the Biden administration from changing immigration policy.” Read the article here (registration required).
Steve was quoted by Roll Call in “Supreme Court to Hear Argument Over Biden Immigration Priorities.” He said, “In the immigration context, courts have traditionally deferred to the executive branch because immigration touches on sovereignty and foreign relations. But if the high court greenlights the state lawsuit against the administration’s immigration enforcement priorities, “it means that the federal government is no longer getting the benefit of the doubt” in this context, he noted. A ruling that sides with the states on that issue, depending on how the justices write the opinion, could usher in a “major sea change” over how federal agencies establish internal guidance, he said: “It effectively gives states the power to overrule federal policy on immigration and allow states to challenge anything they want, not just in immigration but in other areas as well. If Congress says that you have to detain certain people who have committed certain criminal violations, but does not give the administration enough money to actually detain them, what is the administration supposed to do? I think it’s going to be a real conundrum, both for Congress and for the administration, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of Texas in this case on the merits.” Read the article here.
Steve was quoted by the Wall Street Journal in “Supreme Court Considers Challenge to Biden Policy Curbing Immigration Arrests.” He said, “The stakes are quite high. If the states win here, that means effectively that immigration policy will be run by the federal courts rather than the administration.” Read the article here (subscription required).
Steve was quoted by Inside Higher Ed in “Should Fine Arts and Communications Qualify as STEM Degrees?” Regarding colleges aligning their course outcomes to the Department of Homeland Security’s list of qualifying fields and requirements for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees, Steve said, “I do not consider this to be gaming the system.” Noting that the White House “very vigorously” consulted with numerous government agencies to ensure that additions to the list of STEM-designated degrees were appropriate, he said, “Ultimately Congress should decide how long international students should be able to work after they graduate and whether they should limit it to certain fields or have the same limit applied to all fields. But absent Congress’s ability to reform our broken immigration system, it is up to the agencies to decide how to interpret the existing law.” Many of the newly added qualifying fields fall within conventional STEM expectations, but others live within the intersection of science and the arts. Steve also noted that efforts to extend or curb work authorization for international students on F-1 visas in STEM fields have a “long and tortured history.” Finally, he said, “More and more these days, [the United States] needs STEM workers to help innovate, and offering those degree holders who have serious STEM credentials an opportunity to work in the United States for three years is appropriate. But Congress ultimately should reform our broken immigration system, and as part of that effort they should take up this issue.” Read the article here.