Senator Kyrsten Sinema works on bipartisan immigration deal to protect Dreamers, extend Title 42

U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is working on potential last-minute immigration reforms that would give 2 million undocumented youth, known as Dreamers, a path to citizenship while extending the controversial Title 42 border restriction for another year.

Sinema, D-Ariz., alongside Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., detailed the draft framework Monday, hoping to forge bipartisan legislation before a new Congress, with Republicans taking hold of the House and Democrats maintaining control of the Senate, is sworn in in January. The effort was first reported by the Washington Post.

The draft comes less than three weeks before the slated end Dec. 21 of Title 42, the Trump-era health policy that allows border officials to rapidly expel migrants. Alongside extending Title 42, the framework would protect undocumented youth who came to the U.S. as children and now face an uncertain future.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema listens during a council of water experts meeting in her office in Phoenix on Oct. 17, 2022. They were discussing how to spend federal drought relief funds available for keeping Colorado River water in Lake Mead.

The compromise framework aims to please lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, keeping in place a policy that has limited migration flows at the border while paving a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented people.

Arizona advocates applauded the effort to protect Dreamers but criticized the continuance of Title 42.

“We don’t think it’s humane how Title 42 has been implemented in treating migrants because they’re not getting the due process,” said José Patiño, vice president of education and external affairs at Aliento, a youth-based community group advocating for undocumented and mixed-status families.

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Patiño said the initiative was a good starting point in protecting Dreamers but held reservations about the other aspects included in the draft. Communities that the organization works with, including asylum seekers, put up resistance to the framework in part because of the continuance of Title 42 language.

“The devil is in the details,” Patiño said. “We’ve been at this for multiple cycles now, so we’re always skeptical.”

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Jose Patiño, a director with Aliento, helps a student with classwork as they wait for election results on November 14, 2022 to determine whether Proposition 308 passed or failed. The measure grants in-state tuition to undocumented students.

The proposal, which is in flux, includes at least $25 billion in increased funding for Border Patrol and border security alongside a significant boost in resources to facilitate the processing of asylum seekers with new processing centers, asylum officers and judges.

Title 42 would be slated to end after at least one year if the regional processing centers, which would serve to house migrants, are up and running. The draft would also include more resources to expedite the removal of migrants who don’t qualify for asylum from the country.

Migrants seeking asylum march through the streets of Nogales, Sonora to protest Title 42, Border Patrol abuse against migrants, and lack of access to healthcare in Nogales. The protest on Monday, Sept. 26, 2022 followed the World Day of Migrants and Refugees.

Laura St. John, legal director with the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, applauded the proposed legislation to protect Dreamers but denounced the potential plan to prolong the end of Title 42 for another year.

“We resoundingly reject the premise that protections for Dreamers must come at the expense of protections for those fleeing persecution and seeking safety in the United States,” St. John said in a written news release.

“The proposed framework would extend the dangerous Title 42 border closure and, in an attempt to further ‘streamline’ already expedited deportation procedures, this proposal will eliminate essentially all access to counsel and leave only a facade of due process in a system stacked against asylum seekers.”

Supporters celebrate the passage of Proposition 308, which allows any college student, regardless of their legal status in the U.S., to qualify for in-state tuition if they graduated from an Arizona high school and have lived in the state for two years prior.

In October, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that the 2012 version of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, created by executive action was unlawful and sent the case back to a lower court. A federal judge in Texas is expected to rule on the legal status of DACA, potentially dismantling the Obama-era program that allows Dreamers to work and study in the U.S. without fear of being deported.

Arizona voters recently approved Proposition 308, which granted in-state tuition to Dreamers, saving them about $6,000 annually in university tuition.

The framework also comes in what could be the final weeks of Title 42, which was first invoked in March 2020 to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, and was recently vacated by the U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington, D.C. The health policy is projected to be lifted on Dec. 21. Officials and experts expect a surge of migrants and asylum seekers at the southern border.

A young migrant looks through the border wall as migrants seeking asylum march through the streets of Nogales, Sonora, to protest Title 42, Border Patrol abuse against migrants, and lack of access to health care in Nogales. The protest on Monday, Sept. 26, 2022, followed the World Day of Migrants and Refugees.

The policy has largely affected migrants from Mexico, Venezuela and the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador who can be returned to Mexico under the restriction. Title 42 has been used to expel migrants more than 2.4 million times since it was implemented, per U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

Sinema has long called to keep the policy in place until the Biden administration implemented a comprehensive plan with input from local leaders and Arizona communities.

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On Nov. 18, three days after Sullivan’s ruling, Sinema, alongside Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas expressing “deep concerns” about the upcoming end of Title 42. The two Arizona Democrats detailed their worries over the projected impact that the end of the restriction would have on migrants, border communities, nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, and Department of Homeland Security employees.

U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., speaks at the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry update from Capitol Hill luncheon at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix on April 12, 2022.

“The ongoing influx of migrants puts serious strain on CBP resources and forces Border Patrol Agents out of the field and into processing and administrative roles,” Sinema said during a recent U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs hearing.

Sinema declined Tuesday to provide additional comments to The Republic.

The centers proposed in the draft framework would be similar to ones detailed in the bicameral Bipartisan Border Solutions Act, legislation Sinema helped introduce in April alongside Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

The facilities would hold migrants as they have their immigration cases make their way through the court system and toward adjudication, which could take months or years. In 2022, it took roughly three years on average to process a case in immigration court, according to Syracuse University’s Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse.

Migrants seeking asylum march through the streets of Nogales, Sonora to protest Title 42, Border Patrol abuse against migrants, and lack of access to health care in Nogales. The protest on Monday, Sept. 26, 2022, followed the World Day of Migrants and Refugees.

The country’s immigration courts are inundated with a 1.9 million case backlog, according to TRAC. The framework aims to have cases heard more quickly and replace the current process where migrants are released with a notice to appear later in immigration court.

The Bipartisan Border Solutions Act proposes that there be no less than four processing centers located in high-traffic sectors of Border Patrol along the southern border. The centers would provide various services to migrants, including credible fear and asylum interviews, and coordinate numerous federal agencies and NGOs under one roof.

The Washington Post reported that people familiar with negotiations between Sinema and Tillis say the lawmakers have not yet whipped votes to see if the proposed framework would have the necessary support to pass. The details of the draft are also loose, given they can change as the senators attempt to gain more supporters.

Have a news tip or story idea about the border and its communities? Contact the reporter at josecastaneda@arizonarepublic.com or connect with him on Twitter @joseicastaneda.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema works on deal extending Title 42, DACA protections