DHS Outlines Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Process

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USCIS to begin accepting requests for consideration of deferred action on August 15, 2012

released Aug. 3, 2012

WASHINGTON—The Department of Homeland Security today provided additional information on the deferred action for childhood arrivals process during a national media call in preparation for the August 15 implementation date.

On June 15, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano announced that certain young people who came to the United States as children and meet other key guidelines may be eligible, on a case-by-case basis, to receive deferred action.  U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is finalizing a process by which potentially eligible individuals may request consideration of deferred action for childhood arrivals.

USCIS expects to make all forms, instructions, and additional information relevant to the deferred action for childhood arrivals process available on August 15, 2012. USCIS will then immediately begin accepting requests for consideration of deferred action for childhood arrivals.

Information shared during today’s call includes the following highlights:

• Requestors – those in removal proceedings, those with final orders, and those who have never been in removal proceedings – will be able to affirmatively request consideration of deferred action for childhood arrivals with USCIS.
• Requestors will use a form developed for this specific purpose.
• Requestors will mail their deferred action request together with an application for an employment authorization document and all applicable fees to the USCIS lockbox.
• All requestors must provide biometrics and undergo background checks.
• Fee waivers cannot be requested for the application for employment authorization and biometric collection. However, fee exemptions will be available in limited circumstances.
• The four USCIS Service Centers will review requests.

Additional information regarding the Secretary’s June 15 announcement will be made available on www.uscis.gov on August 15, 2012. It is important to note that this process is not yet in effect and individuals who believe they meet the guidelines of this new process should not request consideration of deferred action before August 15, 2012. Requests submitted before August 15, 2012 will be rejected. Individuals who believe they are eligible should be aware of immigration scams. Unauthorized practitioners of immigration law may try to take advantage of you by charging a fee to submit forms to USCIS on your behalf. Visit www.uscis.gov/avoidscams for tips on filing forms, reporting scams and finding accredited legal services. Remember, the Wrong Help Can Hurt! An informational brochure and flyer are also available on www.uscis.gov.

For more information on USCIS and its processes, please visit www.uscis.gov or follow us on Twitter (@uscis), YouTube (/uscis) and the USCIS blog The Beacon.

Last updated:08/03/2012

Illegal Immigrants Should Not Receive Child Tax Credit Payouts

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By Curtis Dubay and Robert Rector
August 3, 2012

Included in the House of Representatives–passed budget reconciliation bill earlier this year was a provision that would halt payments to illegal immigrants through the refundable portion of the child tax credit.[1] This is a sensible reform.

Refundable Child Tax Credit Provides Cash Payments to Those Who Pay No Income Tax

The refundable child tax credit (also called the additional child tax credit) provides cash payments to low-income parents who pay no federal income tax. The refundable child credit is a means-tested welfare program that is similar to the more widely known earned-income tax credit (EITC).

The refundable credit is provided to families with children. The amount of the credit is capped at 15 percent of each additional dollar of earned income above $3,000. Thus, a family with $13,000 in earned income would receive $1,500 in cash aid from the program. The maximum value of the cash aid is $1,000 per child in the family.

The refundable credit provides added cash benefits to many families receiving the EITC. For example, a family earning $16,000 per year with two children would receive more than $7,000 in combined cash payments from the refundable child credit and the EITC. These refundable payments, even though the IRS administers them through the tax code, are rightfully considered (for budgetary purposes) means-tested welfare outlays rather than reduced tax revenue.

The income tax code also provides a non-refundable child credit worth $1,000 per child for married couples with incomes below specified income levels ($110,000 for married couples and $75,000 for single parents). This credit is used to reduce the amount of income tax a family owes. In the middle-income range, the value of the refundable child credit is phased down and gradually replaced by the non-refundable child credit, which is used to reduce income tax liability.

The combined value of the refundable and non-refundable credits cannot exceed $1,000 per child.[2] For example, a family with two children would be eligible for two $1,000 credits. If the family owed $1,700 in income tax before credits, it would receive $1,700 in non-refundable credits (reducing its tax liability to zero) plus $300 in refundable cash payments.

Illegal Immigrants Currently Able to Claim Child Tax Credit Refundable Payments

The reformed child tax credit in the House reconciliation bill responds to mounting evidence that illegal immigrants are claiming refundable payments through the credit. They can claim these payments because the current law authorizing the child tax credit does not require tax filers to include their Social Security numbers on their tax returns to prove that they are legal U.S. citizens or are authorized to work in the U.S. to qualify for the credit or its refundable portion.

The Social Security Administration issues Social Security numbers only to U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and eligible foreign nationals. Individuals who are not citizens can get Social Security numbers only if the Department of Homeland Security authorizes them to work in the U.S.

People who are not eligible for Social Security numbers earn income in the United States and therefore need to file tax returns with the IRS. This group includes foreign investors and individuals working without authorization in the U.S.—i.e., illegal immigrants.[3]

To allow these individuals to file their returns, the IRS issues them an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). ITINs are only for individuals who are required to have a taxpayer identification number for tax purposes but are not eligible for a Social Security number because they are not authorized to work in the U.S. The IRS issues ITINs regardless of immigration status.[4]

ITINs are necessary because foreign investors with U.S. holdings must pay U.S. taxes. These foreign investors are not the focus of the problem with the child tax credit. Investors who legitimately use their ITINs to file their taxes are unlikely to claim the credit.

The extensive and rapidly growing problem is that illegal immigrants who reside in the U.S. are able to acquire ITINs from the IRS and then use those identifiers to file tax returns on which they claim the child tax credit and its refundable payment. A study from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reports that the number of ITIN filers claiming refundable payments nearly doubled between 2005 and 2008 from 796,000 to 1,526,276.[5] The growth in ITIN filers claiming the credit tracks closely with changes in the credit that increased both the number of tax filers that can claim the refundable payments and the size of those payments.

House Bill Adds Social Security Number Requirement for Refundable Portion of Credit

The House reconciliation bill would stop illegal immigrants from claiming the refundable portion of the child tax credit by requiring tax filers to include their Social Security numbers on their tax returns. Their ITINs would no longer be sufficient identification to qualify. The EITC, a credit similar to the child tax credit, already has such a requirement.[6]

The House bill does not apply the Social Security number requirement to the children claimed under the credit. Illegal immigrants could continue to use the child tax credit to offset their income tax liability if they continue to file tax returns.

The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimates that if Congress added the Social Security number requirement and thereby stopped child tax credit payments to illegal immigrants, the federal government would spend $7.6 billion less over 10 years.[7]

The JCT estimate vastly understates the savings because it assumes that in 2013, the child tax credit will return to its status prior to the Bush tax cuts, when the credit’s value was half what it is currently and its refundability was much less generous. If JCT took the more sensible approach that Congress is likely to extend the child tax credit’s current value and refundability parameters, the estimated savings would be far higher.

Sensible Reform

The House bill’s requirement that tax filers have a Social Security number to receive a payment through the child tax credit is a sensible and long-overdue reform. Illegal immigrants are in the U.S. wrongfully and are not authorized to work here. The government should not reward illegal immigration by providing illegal immigrants with cash welfare aid through the refundable child credit. The purpose of the refundable child tax credit is to help low-income working families that are legal citizens or authorized to work in the U.S.

Curtis S. Dubay is a Senior Analyst in Tax Policy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies and Robert Rector is Senior Research Fellow in the Domestic Policy Studies Department at The Heritage Foundation.

Show references in this report below:

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[1]Douglas W. Elmendorf, Director, Congressional Budget Office, letter to the Honorable David Dreier, May 9, 2012, http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/HouseRulesReconSequester.pdf (accessed May 24, 2012).

[2]Next year, if Taxmageddon strikes, the credit will fall to $500 per eligible child. See Curtis S. Dubay, “Taxmageddon: Massive Tax Increase Coming in 2013,” Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 3558, April 4, 2012, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/04/taxmageddon-massive-tax-increase-coming-in-2013.

[3]U.S. Department of the Treasury, Inspector General for Tax Administration, “Recovery Act: Individuals Who Are Not Authorized to Work in the United States Were Paid $4.2 Billion in Refundable Credits,” July 7, 2011, p. 1, http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2011reports/201141061fr.pdf (accessed May 29, 2012).

[4]Ibid.

[5]Ibid., p. 4.

[6]Cornell University Law School, Legal Information Institute, “26 USC § 32—Earned Income,” http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/32 (accessed August 3, 2012).

[7]U.S. Congress, Joint Committee on Taxation, Description of the Budget Reconciliation Legislative Recommendations Relating to Social Security Number Requirements for the Refundable Portion of the Child Tax Credit, April 17, 2012, https://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=4421 (accessed May 17, 2012).

U.S. set to start program sparing young illegal immigrants deportation

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/03/us-usa-immigration-idUSBRE8721MB20120803

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON | Fri Aug 3, 2012 5:15pm EDT

(Reuters) – Young illegal immigrants – many of whom have spent much of their lives attending schools in the United States – will be able to begin emerging from their uncertain status on August 15 when the Obama administration begins letting them apply to stay temporarily.

An estimated 800,000 young undocumented residents could qualify for the program that would grant deportation deferrals of at least two years for those who are approved.

Two months after President Barack Obama surprised the Hispanic community with a move to suspend deportations for some young illegal immigrants, the Department of Homeland Security will begin accepting applications that also would grant them work permits.

“You cannot overstate how important this moment will be in immigrant communities and Latino neighborhoods across the country,” said Democratic Representative Luis Gutierrez, who represents a Chicago district with a large Hispanic immigrant population.

Before Obama’s program has even gotten off the ground, however, several Democratic congressmen warned that lawyers and other immigration “specialists” have been trying to prey on the young illegal immigrants. Telling them they need to move quickly to apply, they are charging exorbitant fees to help with applications that most will be able to do on their own, the lawmakers said.

“We have had cases of folks coming into our office … telling us of lawyers who want to charge $750 to get an application ready,” said one House Democratic staffer with knowledge of the issue.

For years, legislation has languished in the U.S. Congress that is aimed at aiding children of undocumented parents who were illegally brought into the United States through no fault of their own. Some entered as young as infants.

Obama, whose administration has aggressively deported illegals with criminal backgrounds, announced on June 15 that he was moving unilaterally to help this group of youths – many of them Hispanic – who have become more and more vocal in calling for help.

“RIGHT THING TO DO”

With the November 6 presidential elections looming, Obama responded to the pressure from the Hispanic community, which is an increasingly important voting block in key swing states such as Florida, Nevada and Colorado.

When he made the announcement, many Republicans in Congress criticized the action, including Senator John McCain – Obama’s 2008 opponent for president – who accused him of a “politically motivated power grab.”

Obama said it was simply “the right thing to do” following Republican roadblocks to legislation. He added that this unique group of illegals “are Americans in their hearts and minds; in every single way but one – on paper.”

Alejandro Mayorkas, director of Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services, told reporters in a briefing on Friday that applicants must be under the age of 31 and must have entered the United States before they turned 16 years old.

While the government will do background checks on the individuals, Mayorkas said federal officials will not use information from applications to trigger immigration proceedings against them, unless they find a security threat or serious criminal background.

Once the two-year reprieve expires, an additional two-year waiver can be sought, a senior administration official said.

Angela Kelly, an immigration specialist at the liberal Center for American Progress, praised the rules being set by the administration. But she added, “The program will rise or fall depending on how clear, consistent and speedily both the policy and execution of the program goes.”

Applicants will have to pay a $465 fee, which Mayorkas said would cover the government’s cost of administering the program. The senior administration official said that it could take several months to conduct background investigations and then grant the requests for each applicant.

While Obama’s program does not put these youths on a path to citizenship, which some Democrats want, it would allow them to gain some basic privileges, such as obtaining drivers’ licenses that are often needed to hold down jobs, open bank accounts or get library cards.

(Editing by Fred Barbash and Eric Walsh)

Letter: Clinton unfairly maligned

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Published on Concord Monitor (http://www.concordmonitor.com)

Letter

Clinton unfairly maligned

Thomas Kerins, Contoocook

For the Monitor

August 3, 2012

In his letter, “What Clinton ignored in Laos,” (Monitor, July 21) Merrill Vaughan criticizes the secretary of state for visiting an exhibit of cluster bombs, while failing to discuss the question of American servicemen still missing in Laos. He writes: “I guess since she demonstrated against the war, she does not realize there are 318 Americans still listed as Missing in Action in Laos alone.”

In fact MIA were discussed during the visit.

The joint Lao-U.S. communique on the visit states that the two sides “agreed to improve and further facilitate the accounting operations for American personnel still missing from the Indochina War era.”

With respect to the exhibit, between 1964 and 1973 U.S. forces dropped an immense tonnage of bombs over Laos. About 30 percent of cluster bombs dropped did not explode. Since the bombing ended, some 20,000 people, about 40 percent of them children, have been killed or maimed by accidental detonation of unexploded cluster bombs.

Hillary Clinton’s support of increased funding for cleanup efforts, her empathy for others who have incurred war-related losses, and her willingness to go to Laos, the first official visit by any U.S. secretary of state in 57 years, are likely to enhance rather than hinder U.S. efforts to achieve a final accounting of American remains and to provide some kind of closure for those families who have been waiting for 40 years or more to put loved ones to rest.

THOMAS KERINS

Contoocook

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Source URL: http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/346011/clinton-unfairly-maligned