 Hi, I'm Sandy Baird and I'm here tonight to discuss immigration issues, particularly important, we all believe because the new president president Biden is considering changing much of the immigration procedures much of some of the laws around immigration. We don't know what he's going to do but he did promise reform for people who were in the country, either not citizens, or people coming across the border and so with me tonight is an immigration attorney Kurt Mehta who practices in Berlin in Vermont. And he will explain a little bit about the most about basic information that pertains to immigration and also maybe discuss a little bit about what we should expect from President Biden. So let's begin Kurt. There's a lot of discussion. As you know I have an office over at the Association of Americans living in Vermont, who by the way our partners on this series. A lot of confusion that in the new Americans that I see around the terms that are used also with with US people as well around the terms that are used in in immigration procedures for instance. Many people have what are known as visas I guess to be in the United States so maybe you could say what a visa is. Yeah, okay great so Sandy thanks for having me and I want to take this opportunity to thank the Vermont Institute of International and Community Involvement for sponsoring this series. It was originally titled immigration in the Biden administration. What are the expectations question mark. And Sandy, Sandy and I had a conversation this afternoon and what we thought would be a lot more helpful would be to lay a basic foundation for all of our viewers. Not just the immigrants not just Americans but everyone watching and having an idea as to what different types of immigration categories, what they are what they aren't so that we could begin to have a more informed dialogue. So let me start out this topic so let me just start out by giving you a brief introduction into the different types of people that are around us, you know, that using immigration classifications. So I'm just going to give you I know everyone loves lists I'm going to give you a list of seven different categories that I put together of people that I think for the most part and sometimes it's messy it's not neat but for the most part, everyone around us fall into these categories so the first category, you know really simple is a US citizen. So I think most of the folks that we have on line watching this live right now, probably would fall into that category US American citizens. I know for my, from my perspective, there's, there's two different ways that you can arrive at US citizenship, the most obvious one is being born in the United States, anytime after the year 1789 which I think that's all of us. The second way to become a US citizen is the process by which I became a US citizen my myself as an immigrant was going filing an application with the immigration office, and going through something called a naturalization process which is allowed for in the institution of the United States, which allows me to have basically all the same rights that everyone except one and I'm going to name that right except all except for becoming the US president. I basically enjoy all the same rights that the folks that are watching this live right now on this program have, but aside from that, in theory, you know, all US citizens have the same rights, the exception being is if I acquired my citizenship through a fraudulent procedure if I lied on my application, you know if you look on a naturalization or citizenship application there'll be all kinds of questions about, you know, one's history, if they want to become a US citizen from questions, such as you know whether or not they've committed crimes in the past, whether or not they have engaged in prostitution have belonged to the US, I mean US or any other Communist Party, or whether they were members of the 1930 prior to 1933 or after 1933. If you're a close associate or an affiliate of the Nazi regime in Germany. If you fall into the some of these various categories, you were excluded from becoming a US citizen. Still, still, still correct yeah you're not allowed to be a Communist, you're not allowed to be, you know, a big amist. You're not allowed to have engaged in prostitution or illegal gambling all these things are considered bars to becoming an American citizen. Of course, once you become an American citizen you can do a lot of these things or if you're born in this country, you can do all of those things. And obviously you're not going to lose your citizenship. Can I stop you right there. It's quite difficult to lose your citizenship. Actually, it happens on, you know, it's very exceptional, it's under extraordinary circumstances. And that's where people lose their citizenship. The easiest example I can probably point to Sandy is that you see in the news, not so much anymore but you know even up until the last 10 to 2030 years, were individuals who were later found out to be former Nazis in the Europe, who did not disclose that upon coming into the United States and someone recognize them on the street somewhere or someone did some kind of a search and found out that they were, you know, concentration camp guards or members or officials in the in the Nazi Party. And often in those cases, there have been situations where extradition proceedings often started. People were deported to Germany typically and prosecuted in Germany and in the process, Sandy, they would lose their US citizenship. But it's usually it's very extraordinary for people to lose citizenship. And that's that that's a very good thing, very good value. But let me ask you about my honey. Yes. He tried to lose his citizenship at one. He denounced the United States. He certainly Israeli Knesset. He, you know, really said I don't want to be US citizen anymore. And he was, I think it was taken away. Is that correct? I'm not. I'm not. I don't know if he was actually denaturalized as the process is called. I think he was a US citizen by birth, by birth. Yeah, the only example that I can point to of a US citizen by birth, losing their citizenship was a man named Renee Gonzalez. He was, he was born in the United States. He was born in Chicago. And he was part of the group called the Cuban five. Right. And he was arrested in the United States for spying for the Cuban regime. He was born here and then moved, moved to Cuba as a child. When Mr Gonzalez, after he was arrested in the United States for espionage, one of the conditions for his release from incarceration was that he would have to agree to giving up his US citizenship, despite having been born in Chicago to parents who were also US citizens but of Cuban descent. So very few examples where people that lose their citizen citizenship when they were actually born here. Another example I know too is a, is another one concerning Cuba. I think Margaret Randall, guys know Margaret Randall, Joanne is here with us, or Beth or Lou Margaret Randall was a poet. And she was involved in the 60s that's why I thought we might know her, she moved to Cuba, and again denounced her citizenship and thought she had given it up and then change your mind and came back and had to sue in a court and did that and the court said that you cannot, even if you denounce the United States or you say you don't want to, you don't lose your citizenship. You don't lose it. Another notable example, which I think most people will know was Lee Harvey Oswald. He went to the Russian Embassy in Mexico City, part of the assassination of President Kennedy, and attempted to renounce his US citizenship, but was not successful in renouncing it. So I want to move on. So that was the first of seven categories. Joanne has a question. Is that right? Who had a question? I do. A quick question. You said you can't be as, if you are applying to be a citizen, if you say that you have been involved in prostitution. Does that mean if you are prostitute or could you have hired a prostitute? The question as it appears right now on the application is whether you've engaged in prostitution. So typically, you know, I think disproportionately, I guess it would probably affect, you know, I know there are male prostitutes also but I think disproportionately, it would probably impact women. That question. The way it's written, it almost sounds like if you engaged in it, if you have a prostitute. But probably not. Now I think the way it's interpreted typically is for the person selling their body in exchange for money. Okay, so I, yeah, sure. So I want to move on. So there's seven categories that we want to just briefly touch upon. So US citizens, that's probably the most familiar one to us. The next one is a green card holder also known as permanent resident or lawful permanent resident. A green card holder is someone who basically can do most of the things that US citizens can do, except, except they cannot vote, one of the most notable exceptions to the category of things you can do that citizens that citizens can do. If you are not allowed to vote as a permanent resident, you're allowed to live in the United States, and you're not to allow you're not allowed to leave the United States for a period of more than 12 months. If you leave the country for more than 12 months and try to re enter the United States, you may be questioned by an immigration officer at the airport or at a land border, and maybe given a difficult time. But you can do make arrangements to leave the country in excess of 12 months but you have to do it in advance and get an authorization from the US citizenship and immigration services, you know, known as the immigration office. And you can actually secure that but if you do, if you do leave the country for more than 12 months and do it without permission you can expect having trouble coming back into the country. So permanent residents are green card holders, you know, synonymous terms. That can be acquired a couple of different ways. We have a few different processes through which someone can get a green card and it's actually a card that happens to be green. And it has a photo of a person on it, the individual that's the holder, as well as when they receive the green card. And that data is put on it and the category under which they came into the United States and it has things like height and weight and some other basic information about the person as well as the person's signature. So, one of the ways that someone gets a green card is by a family member, applying for them. There are categories under which someone can apply for a family member to come to the United States and get a green card, the person either has to be a spouse, a child, a parent, or a sibling. That's it. If you don't fall neatly within one of those categories and they could be step kids. Also, they do allow for that. But if you don't otherwise fall neatly within these categories. There are four different sets of categories. You will not be able to apply for someone to come here. So no boyfriends, girlfriends, aunts, uncles, grandparents. Sorry, they do not fall within those categories. How about fiance. I'm going to get to that shortly, but that's not a, that's not someone who gets a green card right off the bat when they get to the airport. The only way someone can get a green card is through employment. So if you have some kind of skill, typically these days, these skills tend to be limited to folks that classify their background in the STEM field. You know, high tech, high education, you know, anything like that. You can apply if a company an American company or a government office, or an agency or nonprofit. Here's about you, if you're in another country, and you apply through them, they can secure a green card for you they have to establish first that they can find a similarly qualified American. They have to, or American citizen or green card holder, who's already here. And they also have to promise that they're going to pay you what's known as a prevailing wage, which by prevailing wage, different from minimum wage. It's the wage that's typically paid for someone in that industry. If you're a for a simple example, you know, computer programmer and a computer programmer with similar qualifications will get paid 50 or $60,000. That company sponsoring that potential immigrant, they would have to promise that they're going to be paying that person 50 to $60,000 and they have to do so for that person to continue to stay here, otherwise, they can't. A third way that a person can get a green card and come into the United States is through a system called a visa. I'm sorry green card lottery program green card lottery program literally chooses a bunch of countries that are underrepresented in the United States through their immigrant populations and people will apply from those countries. It's typically countries where individuals, for the most part, either just don't apply to come here, or that often they don't have the means to even come here. So it's not the typical person from, you know, China, India, the Philippines, but it'll be, you know, someone from Mongolia, or a country, you know, that you don't typically associate with high numbers of immigrants in in the United States. So this immigrant visa lottery program which is literally like a lottery, because I've had clients who've gotten that and they said out of the blue, they got a letter from the from the US Embassy saying you know after they applied of course that they've been selected in this lottery, and were able to come here. Just as an aside, my one my father originally came to the United States, he came in a program that was somewhat similar to that in the late 1960s. India, right. He came from India back at a time where that was a rare thing you didn't see too many people from that country in the United States. Now that's not the case anymore but that was in the 1960s. So on a personal note, Kurt, when how old were you when you came. 10 months, 10 months so you never knew you never knew India really. Now now not not until I went back there when I was 11. Yeah, for for a summer. Yeah. So, did you like it, did you like it. Not at the time it was just too different for me. Yeah, I missed my baseball, my, you know, my, my, my soda and all the other bad things that I was used to doing. Okay, go ahead. So, move along then. So, yeah, after, after green cards the next category of person that may be in your presence if you're out there outside is something that a lot of us Vermonters are typically a familiar with and those are asylees or refugees. Groups typically come into the United States. There are pretty strict quotas on how many asylees and refugees come into the United States during the last presidential administration the number was reduced to 15,000 a year. The Biden presidency will talk about this a little later but they're trying to up that number to 125,000 and typically it's been closer to 100,000 in previous administration prior to President Trump's administration on an annual basis. So, people that come on a refugee basis or on, you know, as in perspective asylum seeker, their goal typically is to eventually get a green card, the prior category we just talked about and then move on to citizenship. I just wanted to finish mentioning about green cards is if people have their green card for five years without any other without any issues coming up. If they choose to they can then apply for American citizenship, which is again on a personal note that's something that you know I did as a kid. So, after five years, you can actually acquire US citizenship if you have a green card. So when you a minor when you became a citizen, do they let minors or do you have to go through. Yeah, sure. So the rule typically is is, if, if a parent, right, if an adult has children and the children are under the age of 16. If an adult applies for citizenship and gets it because the requirement is you have to pass, pass an exam, where you have to demonstrate that you can speak, read, write English, and also have a, oh, and no, no basics about US history, which has over the years has gotten a little bit more and more involved to the point where I think they've done studies and they indicate that most American adults, but not even, you know, pass past the exams anymore. But so you have to go through that and go through a fingerprint background search to make sure that you haven't been involved in any criminal activity for individuals over the age of 14. I was obviously exempt from that as a child. But so that's, that's how a child can can become a citizen. If the parents become citizens and the child is under the age of 16. The application the kids automatically become US citizens. So we talked about asylum seekers, refugees, and then we're going to move on to the next category, which are non immigrant visa holders and typically that's where I get the most amount of confusion from friends and other people that I acquaintances as well as fellow attorneys. They don't know quite what that is, and it's a pretty broad category. It's called non immigrant visa holders. So what what is that. So that can be a person who's come to see Disneyland from France, which is a visitor that could be a student learn teach, I mean, taking exams at UVM from from a foreign country. So someone on a student visa. And that doesn't all that allows them to do is study a visitor all that allows them to do is visit as a tourist. And those those visas for tourists are typically three months unless you try to extend them, which then that can be six months and that can be extended again. Student visas, as we have a lot of students at Champlain College and at UVM from many countries around the world. They're not allowed to stay up until their education is completed. They're not allowed to work. They're not allowed to earn income, unless they actually get special permission from the government from from the immigration service to get a job. It could be at the school bookstore, or it has to be something on the on the campus. You know they can't go to church street, you know we're speaking from Burlington, Vermont here so they can't go to church street and work at Starbucks or the outdoor gear exchange, not allowed it has to be something related to the educational institution that they're attending. Other non visa non immigrant visa categories or things like. Yeah, I haven't asked questions so the visa this was very confusing when we've dealt with Cuba for instance. Okay, comes from the host government correct. So the meaning the United States in our situation correct issues the visa. Yes, to the person who wants to come for a temporary stay. Correct. Yeah, yeah so good question Sandy so just to give people a little bit of an idea what that means that you know that is the ability to do a lot of traveling. You know, this is a, the immigration process is a partnership between the US CIS, which is the government agency used to be called ins long time ago, but it's USC is now the Department of Homeland Security. And we have a whole system of consulates throughout the world embassies that represent American interests in pretty much every country in the world, except for Cuba. Right now they do we have a yeah, yeah, except yeah it's just a couple of janitors and cops there right now, but for the month. But for the most part, yeah, we have an embassy in most countries and one of the things embassies do aside from helping American citizens who are traveling is that's where the preliminary interview takes place when you have a foreign person who's trying to come to the United States. So, you know, if I'm, you know, myself, and I'm from India and I want to come to the United States, and I've applied and all my applications have been improved. Then I would go to an interview at the American Embassy in that country. There's India China Russia wherever it is doesn't matter, but I would, I would go into a building and be interviewed by an American consular officer, who would check to make sure that everything on my application to come to the United States was correct. Oh, and to make sure that I am who I claim to be. And don't pose a threat to the, to the mainland of the United States when I get here. So, and then they literally give you a stamp in your passport, the American visa system also has your photograph in it, right that they just stick into your passport. And it has a bunch of all kinds of numbers and how long the visa is good for, and when it's when it was issued and when you're supposed to come back and it's got an electronic photograph of the individual. Except if you come from Western Europe, or Japan or a couple of other countries that are basically for lack of a better description are known as being the wealthy countries that don't require a visa for a person from that country in the United States. So if you're from France, Germany, anywhere from Scandinavia from Japan from New Zealand, and you want to go to Disney World in Florida, you buy a ticket and you just come. You don't have to get interviewed by anyone, you know Canada the same thing you don't get interviewed. But if you come from China if you come from India if you come from you know a developing country, or even Eastern Europe, parts of Eastern Europe. If you go physically to a building and be interviewed and you can be approved or you can be denied. And then you'll get that stamp in your passport with your picture allowing you to come. So, different sets of rules for countries that are considered more well off where individuals are less likely to come here and decide, Hey, I'm just going to stay here, because you know economically we're better. A term that I find is a lot of confusion about also is, it might be a minor point but an embassy versus a console. Yeah, because yeah, same thing. Typically the same thing with few exceptions, few exceptions, but it's typically the same thing. Except that an embassy isn't in the capital of that other country has the ambassador. That's where the ambassador is right. Yeah, but they do have branch embassies in countries where there's where the countries are quite large. In some cases, and in countries in countries where a single embassy simply cannot do the job, because there's a fair amount of immigration or the country geographically is very large. And that goes both ways. In the United States, we have certain certain foreign countries embassies, some are located on the West Coast and on the East Coast, because of the size of our country. Right. So, and that pertains to situations overseas where the US will have multiple embassies in countries that are very large. Right, right. So, just finishing up non immigrant visas. So you have, you know, people like students, au pairs fashion models, business visas, people that come and get a that are that are sponsored by employers who don't sponsor them to come here to live here permanently. Like one of the methods by which you can get a green card, but temporarily they may want someone to compute a programmer for three years. And then that person completes their assignment and goes back. Vermont has a has had a system in the past, where we used to get a lot of agricultural workers from the country of Jamaica from the island of Jamaica in the summer, and they would they would come here in the summer work here and then they would typically, they would go back in compliance with visa terms that they came on. So there's different categories of these non immigrant visas where they're supposed to be temporary in nature so that could be based on work, studying the other thing I mentioned visiting and as well as they even have things like religious visas, where, you know, pastors priests, rabbis come here for a short period of time and work at a church or synagogue and then go back. Any moms. Any moms, correct. Yeah. So that's that's a category, and then finally we're going to get to two categories that are often in the news quite a bit and will continue to be in the news in the next coming months. Those are for people that I don't want to get into the semantics of the terms. Some people call them undocumented, some people call them illegal, some people call them unauthorized. And all through all of these, these names that I mentioned, they're all folks that are in the United States and don't have the authority to legally be here, either because they came here legally with the visa. Give you a quick example, like, let's say someone coming to study UVM, they finished their studies and decide, you know what, I think I like it here, I like Vermont, I don't think I'm going to go back, and I'll figure out what I need to do. This is a situation where someone is documented, they came here with the proper documents, and they complied with their requirements for the stay, except they didn't go back, but they still have their passport. They still have their expired visa they maybe even acquired a legal driver's license in the process, but they're not supposed to be here. Another type of person who falls within that category is someone who through either fraud, or through a means such as crossing a land border or sneaking onto a plane, gets into the country and they're what you would classically call undocumented, they often don't have their passports, they don't have any other documentation verifying their background or whether from or anything about them. And that is a major part of the discussion that we're going to have today and that that our country is going to have in the coming years and our country had during the prior administration, there's there's approximately 11 to 12 million people that fall into that latter category of people either whose visas expired and they decided to just stay. And they work here, you know, and I'm going to use the pejorative term but I don't have another word at my, you know, my tongue illegally they're working here illegally without authority authorization. And people that are undocumented who also are working here without the authorization work. So we've got 11 to 12 million people in that category. We're going to transition the conversation into what the topic of today's talk was going to be which is you know what the Biden administration is going to allegedly do. Does anyone else have questions. Yeah, okay. Yeah, any question about the seven categories that I talked about I think it was seven. Okay, go ahead. There. Um, who does, who does I guess. I'll am see her, Kurt. Seeker, what does an asylum seeker do they cross the border and say I want asylum. Yeah, there's a couple of different ways. So that's one example. And one of the most common in terms of, you know, if you took a poll if you counted the population, someone crosses the border, they're required to state their intent to claim asylum. And whatever, what was the other category you said asylum seekers and what are refugees, refugees, okay, refugees. So that was one category that I combined. So must stated a desire to seek asylum. Correct, they have to do that within 12 months. That was something that was instituted during the Clinton administration. Prior to that people were able to make that declaration, even after 12 months. But during the Clinton administration they passed a set of immigration reforms, and they wanted to tighten some things up. One of the things that they did is they required that in order for an individual to successfully seek asylum in the United States, and to eventually get their case approved for asylum and then eventually a green card and maybe eventually after that becoming US citizens. And even when they get here they have to within 12 months file the paperwork with the immigration service, stating that they, they're going to seek asylum. The border, how did they get over the border in the first place. Okay, so good question Sandy so they're a number of ways. I mean, in the cases when we're talking about the southern border, and actually in 20 years ago even the northern border more so, but literally by walking across the border. You know, a big part of the conversation over the last four years was securing the southern border, and to develop, you know, what was hopefully going to be an impenetrable border wall. The southern border because that was it was noted that that was where the largest number of these undocumented undocumented immigrants were coming in from the thinking was that if there was an impenetrable border that the numbers would be greatly reduced. That was the, that was the objective of the Trump administration's immigration policy with respect to border security. And at the end of the day, what what happened there was only 47 miles of additional new border wall construction that happened. And out of the 1800 mile border that we have with Mexico. There was already 450 miles of border that was already in place at different spots that we have notably I mean I, you know, I crossed into Tijuana, Mexico from San Diego so there was a wall there, even 2030 years ago. So some of those walls were for the further fortified during the prior administration during, you know, the Trump administration, but in terms of new wall that was created the total barrier put up was about 47 additional miles on top of the 450 that were previously existed and maybe in poor repair. So that was fixed up. Right, but that has been stopped. That was one of the exact words, right. Correct, correct. So when the when the new president came in. They're ceasing any further construction of this border wall, the objective of which was to cross the entire to place a barrier across the entire southern border, which would amounts about 1800 miles with with Mexico. I think that they weren't honoring that though that that they were. They were still stopping people. Well, they can stop people. No, they're supposed to stop people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is, you know, regardless of the administration that's in power. So it's always been the, the, the, well, you can call it the goal or the, the rules in place that individuals are stopped. We're just talking about a physical barrier being constructed and expanded upon that the that the new president via executive order stopped funding towards new construction. There was a lawsuit against that, by the way. Yeah, yeah, I mean, chances are with most of these things on both sides, whether it was President Trump putting through executive orders or Obama before him and I'm sure when Biden puts them, there will be lawsuits in the federal courts, regardless of the party and power that will attempt to challenge what Biden does and they attempted to challenge what Trump did previously. So I wanted to transition into some of the, so now that we have an idea of some of these different categories of individuals that are in our country, all of us, for the most part, fall into one of those categories. I want to talk a little bit about what the Biden administration is trying to attempt to do in some cases expanding upon and some, in some cases, going in the polar opposite direction that the, that the Trump administration was going in. Sandy started out by mentioning, you know, one thing was the border wall construction that the president is the new president via executive order is stopping further funding of so likely that will probably not the further construction will probably happen. I also wanted to make the conversation a little bit more political in that talking about from my perspective, what goals are reachable and what goals are I think are going to be a little far fetched and difficult politically for a new administration to accomplish in the in the realm of immigration. Another thing that the Biden administration has talked about is expanding upon the deferred action program. So most folks will know that program by the term that was coined, I think, 10 years ago they they call them dreamers dreamers are basically people that children for the most part, what are they were children at one point when they were brought into the United States, either unauthorized illegally or with a visa and they have visas that have since expired. Again, in short, you know, individuals and younger folks for the most part that that are not technically supposed to be here, according to US immigration law. The thinking behind an executive order that President Obama put forth in 2012 was that these young individuals had benefited from American educations, a significant investment had already been made for them by being in this country and receiving different types of benefits including an education, and that at that point since they don't did they don't and didn't know of any other country. They did not give them some kind of legal status and allow them to become contributing taxpayers and just to clarify the assumption now is that President Trump was against that program and actually that's that's that's false. When the when President Trump came and when his administration did come into power. The President at that time Trump indicated that he did support the program. He wanted to negotiate a an overall border security and comprehensive immigration reform package with the Democrats that were in power, and then work towards further legalization of these dreamers, these younger folks typically not over the age of 31 that's the top bar, the top bar age under which people were allowed to apply for that program as long as they could prove that they go into high school or some form of secondary school in the United States. But this comprehensive immigration reform package was not negotiated and they did not arrive at a deal. And that's why the Trump administration then dropped their interest in the dreamers. They dropped their interest in them they were no longer in favor of trying to provide further legalization for the individuals that were in this dreamer DACA program, and that they wanted to actually close the program from basically preventing new students or young people from applying for it. So they didn't, did they drop it or not then they did drop interest in it and then there were lawsuits that were filed and the US Supreme Court in 2019. Decided against the Trump administration's solicitor general in the lawsuit and indicated that the that the method by which they were trying to drop the program was done incorrectly it required more notice and that there were certain legislative hurdles and procedural hurdles that needed to be faced before the program could be formally dropped. So it has not dropped. So it has not been dropped and since the new administration has come into power on January 20. The, the new president actually signed an extension of the program, and part of the, the goal, eventually is to not limit these young people these dreamers to what they have now which are just these work permit permit cards, nothing more than that which allows them to work and continue on towards higher education if they choose to and get social security numbers. But the the goal that the Biden administration has if the if it's past is to actually put forth the path towards US citizenship for these people. So, so what's what's what's Biden trying to do so what's what's been proposed, and I'm quoting here it's called the US Citizenship Act of 2021. That's what the this comprehensive immigration reform program is referred to. Basically, if what this has to do now again this requires congressional approval, like anything else, it's not something that the president's going to be able to do via executive action. What the president has done via executive action is as Sandy mentioned, number one is cease further construction of the wall. We just talked about making DACA the law the land, not through legislation put by executive action. So that's been extended. The other thing that the new president administrations been able to do is to end the so called presidential proclamation signed by by President Trump. In 2000, I want to say, 18 early 18, which commonly in the press has been referred to as the Muslim ban. You know, even though there were a number of countries on it that were that do not have predominantly Muslim populations but that's as well North Korea for a period of time Belarus was on it. So, there are some countries that do not have large demographics of Muslim populations in their in their citizenry. But the president, the new president was able to essentially tear up that proclamation that placed people from some of the select countries. It's not all Islamic countries. It was a select group of countries and essentially the entire perspective immigrants to enhance scrutiny during the immigration process. You know, and that that that has since ceased as of January 21 of this year a couple of days ago. So that has been done by executive order but some of the bigger, bigger goals that the Biden administration has under this US Citizenship Act of 2021. And one is to make these the dreamers give to give them green cards through an expedited process, as long as they're able to pass background search to show that they paid their taxes, and have not gotten into any kind of legal trouble. They want to provide these young folks a, a easier, quicker, narrower path towards US Citizenship. Pretty quickly. They also want to try to provide a path towards citizenship for the undocumented. The idea. Yeah, so we're talking about now and I'm including the folks that that have come here legally through visas and then later the visa expired, as well as the dreamers the numbers estimates as we talked about earlier, or close to about 11 to 12 million people. So all documented. Essentially, yes, all individuals that you know we used to call illegal unauthorized undocumented that entire class of, if you want to use the term immigrant would essentially be put on a path towards citizenship after five years. They would have to pay taxes go undergo background searches to confirm that they are not that they don't have criminal backgrounds. And if they continue that for five years, they would then be given the opportunity to apply for green cards. Remember, we talked about green card holders as permanent residents. And then, if they get their green cards they would then after five years be eligible to apply for American citizenship. So it's, it's going to be a very difficult program to pass. You're talking about 11 to 12 million people. It's probably the most sweeping immigration reform that's been passed since, believe it or not, it was the Reagan administration that gave the largest transparency in recent history in 1986 when President Reagan legalized 3 million undocumented individuals and put them on a path towards citizenship, but not since then has there been the political will and bipartisan action on the part of any president to legalize this large class of individuals. There have been attempts by President George W Bush in 2006, and the proceedings fell apart in in the house, largely due to a lot of blowback that he that the president received from his own party members at that time. And then there was a second attempt through a bill that was co sponsored by then Senators, John McCain and Ted Kennedy, Massachusetts. And in 2013 that was under the Obama administration and similarly it passed the Senate, but it failed to achieve approval in the house. So what. So, a lot of people talked about the fact that this is a pretty risky prospect that Biden seems to be focused on as his signature attempted achievement right from the get go to try to get comprehensive immigration reform. And what's different between the, the approaches that President Obama followed or pursued and the approach that President George W Bush attempted to pursue was that there isn't a complimentary complimentary a border security plan. It's being offered as, as bait for people, you know, Democrats and Republicans that are on the right are in states that are typically, you know what we know is red states that may be not in favor. There's been a difficult conversation, even President Trump when there was an initial talk about comprehensive immigration reform. You know, the condition that he put up was that, you know, we need to strike a balance between border security and and comprehensive immigration reform and that once we struck a balance that we could have that conversation and during the prior administration, a big part of that discussion was trying to actually erect that wall across the entire southern border first, before there was any meaningful conversation about immigration reform with respect to benefits being given out so you know that that there wasn't the bipartisan will to do that in the last administration so that didn't happen. And this time around the, the new president is attempting to put through this, this program, it's a massive, it's a massive program and so the conversation in the immigration legal community, even though it's gotten a lot of people that are on the receiving side that are excited about what this could mean is, you know, the politics involved here is, you know, the country is at a high unemployment rate right now because of lockdowns due to COVID-19, the COVID-19 pandemic. And there's, there's going to be a lot of resistance that we will see in the Congress from both sides of the political aisle, I think, especially in states that have inordinately high unemployment, stating that, you know, we, how are we in a position to bring in more people, when the people that we have here already, which is, you know, which is an age old argument. But in this case, you know, it may be a, a dispositive argument in some, if the plan fails, in that how do we account for this when we have so many people here that are unemployed to pass a program like this. The president is in the Democratic Party. I'm trying to push this through. I don't believe has simply has enough votes, even within its own party to put something as ambitious as this. There is a possibility that some of the other goals that this Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act consists of could happen. It's a possibility that perhaps the dreamers may receive some forms of benefits that will go closer to, you know, a path towards citizenship. You know, other aspects of this, you know, reform, which we didn't talk about is the president wants to talk. It's actually a program that Mitt Romney, when he ran for president, brought up. It was basically to give any foreign student who's in a US doctoral program in a STEM field, essentially give them basically handout green cards to them. You know, with very little effort, and that's certainly something that the president in this new Citizenship Act this Comprehensive Immigration Reform package has also brought up as, as a possibility of doing. I think there's there may be political will to incrementally provide benefits for certain classes of individuals. Without going through a reconciliation budgetary process or killing the, you know, I know we're getting a little bit in the weeds here but you know, killing the filibuster, the Senate filibuster, it's going to be an awfully difficult endeavor to succeed in this, in this, you know, in this immigration reform push that the president's put forth. In this in this time as well with so much unemployment. So with so much unemployment, yeah, yeah. So, you know, the, the Democrats have talked about the use of the, the reconciliation process in the budget. Yeah, through and passing this and putting the immigration bill as part of a larger. In 19 slash relief, right package, and make it part of the budget the way they would justify it as part of the reconciliation process since they have to show that any any legislation has an impact on revenues and tax spending is that the what they would accomplish this by is by showing that when these individuals who would be benefiting from, from legalization, when they, when they are legalized they will be able to add to the tax base and pay taxes. And then in the process they would also be paying some hefty application fees. And basically add to the as a plus to the to the budget for a government agency like the Department of Homeland Security or the USC is or ice. So, but even in, in that situation, whether it's through the reconciliation budgetary process, or an attempt to enact closure by closing off the filibuster arguments. It's going to require, you know, almost the entire Democratic Party will have to vote in unison with very little luxury of anyone breaking ranks for such an ambitious project to to actually come into being. I wanted to then open this up to questions without, you know, I can talk hours about this stuff. I have a question anyone. And we can go back to anything immigration categories green cards visas. Yeah, go ahead, Lou. Yeah, I just, I remember when I was working at the EIC we had a people that we hired had an H1B visa, there are different subcategories of. Yeah, so, and yeah, so different things. So the H1B visa category that falls under the cat the the the big category that I brought up of non immigrant visas. So an H1B, you know, non immigrant meaning that they can't stay here forever. H1B visas are good for three years and you can renew renew them one more time for an additional three years, then you have to go back to your home country. And then you can apply for it again after staying there for a year or two, unless unless your employer, while you have this H1B visa, this temporary work, it's a work visa. It's mostly used by folks these days in the high tech field. And don't ask me why fashion models come into this category too. I worked in Congress, but when the category was created, those were the basically the two main areas of employment that it covers. But it is a temporary category and it is a work visa. And it comes under non immigrant visas and it's also, you know, there's a lot of question about you know whether a lot of times individuals are properly interviewed at the consulates whether they actually have the qualifications to do the jobs. And the scams that go on, I've actually been party to clients that have come here with H1B visas and they found out that there was no employer. So they they left their employment families elsewhere and came here thinking that they were starting, you know, 50 to $70,000 a year jobs, and they find out that that the employer physically was not here. And so some individual in their home country, a lot of money to apply for the program and then then they're basically here and doing, you know, work that's not in their area of specialty or expertise, and then they become illegal in the process or unauthorized. Anybody else. Well, I just had a question I know that every in the summers. One sees many young people working at the Cape. And here at the mountains. On the lake. Yes, and I wondered if when I didn't see as many this past summer, or hear of them and wondered whether Trump had changed things enough that they weren't allowed to come. Is that a program that that does that follow with the be what what was the name of the the number H1 H1B. No, no, so typically H1B again these days. You know, the categories of employment that we're typically familiar with are mostly folks in the computer and tech IT industry. And as I mentioned fashion models, they fall within that category of H1B visas. The category that you talk about I live up here in Bolton Valley. Right. And so every year, you know that I've been living here for the past 14 years, we get young students either from Peru, or I shouldn't call them. They're young students, but that yeah but that's not a qualifier, but the young people that come from either Peru or Chile, or other countries in South America, and they work at the ski resorts. And then once ski season is over they typically a week or two before that they go back and I understand yeah that's the case at Stowe at sugar bush and a number of other Vermont ski resorts, as well as this places in the summer as as you mentioned, in Burlington, other parts of the country they'll be working at amusement parks. These are what were and au pairs. Yeah, childcare providers au pairs they fall into that category in the categories called J1 visas. So, the President. There was, there was some impetus on the part of the prior administration to reduce that category significantly of people that come on a J1 visa. And, however, combined with what happened with the COVID pandemic and lockdowns. You know, these individual these programs were shut down largely internally from their own countries, preventing the students from going abroad, and then possibly you know, having an issue with an infection and coming back. So, it was not formally closed off by the Trump administration. The thing about the J1 visa that is right but what Joanne was saying is interesting because much of our tourist industry, including foreign tourists has been really destroyed by COVID and yeah, you know it's not really the Trump administration that did that. It was a whole pandemic that did that, including now. I mean, if you're going to come to Vermont as a tourist, or the United States you have to quarantine for 14 days. Yeah, yeah, I mean the just to clarify yeah the prior administration's focus was on immigration. But, and by immigration I mean you know individuals that wanted to permanently settle here. There weren't any curbs on tourists coming to the United States, unless they can't unless they came from a couple of the countries, and that presidential proclamation 9645 that stopped, you know, majority Muslim countries as well as North Korea, Venezuela, Belarus, a few other places. I think Belarus was then later taken off but a few other places. Tourists from those countries were excluded from entry into the United States without you know a lot of, a lot of, you know, haggling and a lot of exemptions and waivers that would have to be secured. The prior administration's focus was more on permanent immigration. Well, also the prior administration, although they didn't start this practice, they got a lot of well deserved heat about the fact that as people came into this country illegally that families were separated. So I mean, the, the, the administration. It was a, it was a plan that was actually hatched by the Attorney General at that time. It didn't come from the President or even Stephen Miller his immigration guru, so to speak. It was hatched by the Attorney General Jeff sessions the former senator from Alabama. They came up with a program and they called it zero tolerance. Right. The zero tolerance program was designed to basically essentially shock and awe individuals that were crossing in. Now you know again we talked about a couple of different categories of people that are considered, you know, unauthorized, immigrants in the country, but this was specifically targeting individuals that were physically crossing in from the, the Southern board of the United States from Mexico. And large numbers of which were came from originally from Central America, but also, you know, large numbers from from Mexico itself. And they started a policy of separating the families. Which again, that wasn't new. I know that there was a lot of politics I the part that that was new in the process was the fact that typically in the past, when the children were separated, because they usually don't incarcerate children, they were put in foster homes with foster families until there was some kind of disposition as to the the immigration or deportation removal case. What happened differently in this case was that the children were also incarcerated in separate facilities. And the, the outrage that that a lot of the American public, especially the legal community expressed was that the conditions at these centers where the children were being held were inhumane so those were the allegations and there are still investigations going on against at this point the focus has been more on the individuals who have hatched, who were responsible for hatching the program, namely the initial attorney general that President Trump had with Jeff sessions and that so the litigation is against sessions. That's correct. Really. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah. The, again, the thinking was that this would be so problematic and upsetting towards individuals migrants who cross the border to the the prospect of Yeah, the prospect of not just being separated from the children but the children being essentially incarcerated in difficult conditions that they wouldn't come. Right, right. Anybody else have a have any further questions. I just have one before we wrap up and that is, I think President Biden also said he was going to haul deportations for 100 days, correct. Yeah, I think there was that that was his. The executive order that he signed within 24 hours of being inaugurated 24 hours within the inauguration date. However, again, it's, you know, most of these things are litigated. So he's the president's experience of glitch in that order. There's a lower federal court judge who has basically intervened and is putting a stay on the executive orders application, so that the deportations and removals that take place that have already been ordered by immigration judges will continue so this is probably going to go up the the legal the judicial chain to to the to the appellate level. Okay well anybody else have any questions. No. I have one other thing. So, historically, also, I mean I would love to explore immigration in historical ways there were times when for instance the Chinese were excluded. Sure. And there were times when the unskilled were excluded. Ben Franklin, Ben Franklin didn't like Germans. Right. Well, there's no, yeah, there are some Germans here, actually grads. And I am too, but that's true about the Germans but of course they were, they were the adversary at least in two wars was that right now I'm talking about Benjamin Franklin. Right okay was against. Yeah he was against German immigration because he thought the ethnic nature of the country would change. Really, because they were different they spoke a different language and that the language would change also from English. Right. Yeah, so yeah I mean, historically yeah there've been waves of immigration and there've been waves of anti immigration then there've been waves of anti immigration, directed at certain ethnic groups like the Chinese that you mentioned. Right, right, right. And some of that has been labeled at least anti Catholic as well right. Sure. Yeah, that the Irish were punished by those kinds. So, but anyway, it is, I would, I've been very interested to know even the history of immigration because of course we are a country still of immigrants, I mean that's what immigrants and people who were forcibly emigrated from there from the continent of Africa so right, I mean it was anyway, so maybe that I mean some people would you know it's an interesting conversation so you know you have you have people arguing in favor of it because of the diversity that it adds to our country and communities. And then you have the business communities. Well, they've also basically in something on many levels have been the secret sauce to American success, because there's always been this constant supply of cheap labor, right, whether originally it was from Europe, you know that it moved on to other countries like South America, Asia, Africa, but we have a form of labor of all and that was slavery, slavery, right but the once once that, you know, ended after the 13th amendment, Civil War, you know, the industrialization of this country required large amounts of and cheap labor, where you know the Europeans didn't have that luxury they were not necessarily you know immigration destinations if anything that's where people left from. And, you know, they also as a result often had to pass a lot of legislation in their countries that were more more pro worker more more pro labor, because, you know, they didn't have people that were willing to work for nothing that just came, you know, came to our shores. You know, industry has benefited greatly over the past couple of centuries by always having this cheap supply. And even in the within the Republican Party just as an ending point, you know where they're been clashes in the last two decades about you know whether or not we should have let more people in the business end of the Republican Party has always been in favor of having the supply of cheap labor, and even moderately priced labor, while you'll have you know the working classes that are, you know, Republican, look at that as you know a means to keep wages down. Working class that you're talking about the ones that would oppose immigration. Yeah, the way saying I largely I think I would guess in the Democratic Party. Used to be used to be yeah I think they're you know I think that's there's been a, you know, paradigm shift, the past couple of decades but we're probably going off topic right now. Right. But anyway, anybody else have any further things to say, if not, I guess we'll wrap up for the evening and thank Kurt a lot and yeah, in a week or so right. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye.