Biden Administration Grants Legal Protections For Pending U-Visa Applicants

Speaker 1: 00:00 People living in the U S illegally are encouraged to report crimes committed against them, but some fear that may lead to deportation. So a federal program has been in place allowing undocumented crime victims to apply for a U visa, which will give them status in the U S the problem is the program has a backlog of applications and people can wait years. A new Biden administration policy is coming to the aid of those stuck in limbo. It allows qualified applicants to receive work, permits, and be protected from deportation while they wait for their U visas. The new policy could affect the lives of tens of thousands of undocumented people across the country. Joining me now is Kate Morrissey and immigration reporter for the San Diego union Tribune and Kate, welcome to Speaker 2: 00:49 The program. Hi, thanks for having me the wait time Speaker 1: 00:53 For these UVisas would seem to threaten their effectiveness and getting undocumented people to report crimes. How long are people waiting for these visas? Speaker 2: 01:03 So right now, the weight is taking roughly five years or so sometimes a little bit longer, but that weight is likely to increase. So that's the people who are getting their visas now waited about five years, but the people at the back of the line, um, it's likely to take even longer because of how much that line is growing. That's Speaker 1: 01:20 The extent of the backlog and the reason for it. Speaker 2: 01:23 So there's currently, or at least as of the end of December, there were just under 270,000 pending applications for these UVisas. And part of the issue is that when the visa was created, there was an annual cap put on how many of those visas could be given out. So once they reached the cap, everybody else has to wait until the next year. Once they've reached a certain point in their processing, they usually get what's called deferred action, which means that they're not going to be deported while they're waiting for that last bit. But even getting to that point takes almost the full amount of time, because there's so many visas to process relative to the resources, put into processing these visas as well. And so that's what the Biden administration done is said, has said, Hey, we're going to go ahead and work through the whole stack and see who has crossed all their T's and dotted their I's on their application and give them that deferred action. So they're not under this threat of deportation, and we're also going to give them work permits so that they can go ahead and start getting a little bit more settled in their lives while they're continuing to wait. Now profiled Speaker 1: 02:27 A woman in San Diego who has qualified for this new policy. Tell us about her. Speaker 2: 02:33 She is currently working in the fields at a succulent farm, and she's, you know, raising her kids as a single mom and doing her best to make it, but she has dreams of going to school, becoming a nursing assistant. And she knows that in order to do that, she needs the work permit and to be able to really make the money, to give her kids the life that she wants them to have having a work permit, it's going to make a big difference for her. So when I spoke with her, those were the first on her mind was what the work permit was going to do. And then when we dug a little deeper, you know, the idea that she would be protected from deportation was also very significant, especially to her kids. One of her kids has a friend whose parent was actually deported. And so this woman's daughter has been terrified that the same thing might happen to her mom. And so now, knowing that that is coming much sooner, that protection is a big relief. And this whole Speaker 1: 03:23 Process started for Rossa when she was the victim of domestic violence. Right. And reported it. Speaker 2: 03:29 Yes. And it took her a long time to get to a place where she felt like she had to report it. She told me that when her son was born, she decided that enough was enough. She'd been living with the abuse for so long. And she had already seen, you know, the effects of that trauma in her daughter as her daughter grew up in. So she said, you know, I don't want to do that to my second child as well. I'm getting out. And so she moved out, but this person continued to threaten her. And at one point showed up at the garage where she was renting the garage as a room and sort of ransacked it. And so that was when she got the police involved. And because of that, she's now eligible to apply for this visa. And how Speaker 1: 04:11 Different is this new approach to crime victims waiting for you visas these new benefits and protections. Then the track record of the Trump administration. Speaker 2: 04:20 One thing that we saw under Trump was that if somebody had a U visa application pending, that was not enough to protect them from deportation. If you look back historically, you know, the attorney for the person who's, who's helping them with this UVC could, could talk to ice and say, Hey, you know, they have this UVC pending. Can you guys use your discretion and like, hold off on, deporting them right now. And before Trump, like, it was much more likely that you could get your client to be able to stay in the U S while they were waiting under Trump. More people started to be deported while they were waiting. The argument was that they can still wait for the visa while they're outside of the country. And if, and when they get the visa, then they can come back. And so I remember I wrote about parents of young children who were all of a sudden being deported, who thought that they had this protection coming. How Speaker 1: 05:09 Are you visa applicants being able to find out if they're qualified for the new program for a work permit and this protection from deportation. Speaker 2: 05:19 So my understanding from the attorneys that I spoke with is that, um, this is a process that's going to happen automatically. The UVS, the applicants don't have to take any kind of step to start this review of their application, that it it's going to happen. And so they just need to wait until they hear from the federal government to say, Hey, you know, here's your, here's your work permit? Um, you know, we reviewed your application. I've been speaking Speaker 1: 05:45 With Kate Morrissey and immigration reporter for the San Diego union Tribune. Kate, thank you so much. Speaker 2: 05:51 Thank you. Um, Speaker 3: 05:58 Um,