Tools and Resources to Take Action
Civic Engagement and Get Out The Vote
- Explore the CWS Civic Engagement Landing Page, which includes tools to learn more about naturalization, voter registration, voter education, and voter mobilization — providing paths for new Americans and others to get engaged in the voting process and build a plan to vote. The page also includes additional resources on uplifting refugee and newcomer rights this election season, including new voter stories, the CWS Civic Engagement Toolkit and Pathmaker Pledge Card.
- Welcoming policies for immigrants and refugees are on the ballot this November. See infographics describing what’s at stake this election for refugees, unaccompanied children, and family unity. Visit voiceforrefuge.org to learn more about supporting pro-refugee policies at the polls.
- Attend your member of Congress’s town hall, debate, or event. While there is no public repository of all congressional town halls or events, you can find them by monitoring social media accounts of your elected official, navigating to the “press releases” and “events” section of official websites, and signing up for mailing lists.
Appropriations and federal funding
- Use the Demystifying Federal Funding and Appropriations Advocacy Toolkit to learn more about how you can advocate for a federal budget that helps newcomers and the communities that welcome them thrive and flourish.
Asylum and the U.S-Mexico Border
- Sign the pledge in support of welcoming asylum seekers and refugees with dignity.
Election Update
The general election is less than three weeks away, and early voting has already started in many places around the country. There remains time to register to vote in many states (see voter registration deadlines here), and it continues to be critical to make a plan to vote.
Congress remains in recess until after the election as members are home campaigning in their states and districts. Candidates up and down the ballot are holding town halls and debates, often featuring divisive rhetoric criticizing immigrants and immigration.
This rhetoric has been paired with voter suppression efforts targeting immigrant communities. While a Congressional effort to suppress access to the polls failed in September, several state-level efforts are still alive. In Virginia, an August executive order from Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin to remove individuals from the voter rolls who fail to verify their citizenship status with the Virginia DMV is canceling the registrations of many immigrants who are eligible to vote. In Pennsylvania, an amendment to the state’s election code (H.B. 979) targeting immigrant voters has been introduced in the state legislature (the bill purports to require courts to notify the county board of elections if a juror responds they are ineligible to serve on a jury because they are not a U.S. citizen).
Biden Administration Fails to Create a Clear Process for Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan Parolees to Renew Protections
Over 530,000 nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, (“CHNV”) have arrived in the U.S. via a parole program that the Biden administration established in January 2023, building upon a similar program for Venezuelan nationals that it introduced in October 2022. CHNV parolees – who must have a U.S.-based sponsor and the means to purchase airfare to the United States – are eligible for work authorization and protection from deportation for a two-year period.
The administration recently indicated that it does not have plans to establish a streamlined process to extend parole protections for CHNV parolees. That means that hundreds of thousands of people may lose access to work authorization and risk deportation.
Rather than facilitate a reparole process that would allow individuals to extend their parole period, the administration plans to direct CHNV parolees to apply for other forms of protection. Though many CHNV parolees are eligible for various other protections, in practice, the lack of a reparole process is likely to cause widespread disruption in work authorization and put many individuals at risk of being placed in removal proceedings. The 96,000 Nicaraguans in the program are at particular risk, as the only path to protection available for most of them is asylum, which is very difficult to apply for without legal assistance and often comes with lengthy wait times for work authorization.
The majority of Venezuelans who have received CHNV parole are eligible for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and Cuban and Haitian parolees are eligible for nationality-specific family reunification parole programs. Even so, CHNV parolees are at risk of facing a lapse in work authorization in the event of a gap between the expiration of their parole and the approval of their application for another program.
The administration successfully launched reparole processes for Afghan parolees in June 2023 and Ukrainian parolees in February 2024, both of which provided needed ongoing protection to both Afghans and Ukrainians, even as many of them have continued to pursue more durable forms of status.
CWS urges the administration to establish a reparole process for Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan parolees, just as it has for other populations. The administration also must establish meaningful outreach to CHNV parolees to support them in the process of applying for other forms of protection.
See CWS’s statement on the administration’s failure to extend parole protections to CHNV parolees.
Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions Levels
On September 30, President Biden signed the Presidential Determination (PD) on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2025, setting the refugee admissions target once again at 125,000 for the upcoming fiscal year (October 1, 2024 – September 30, 2025). The administration also celebrated resettling over 100,000 refugees and over 30,000 Special Immigrant Visas in the U.S. in FY 2024, the highest number in three decades.
In the FY 2025 PD, the administration set the same regional allocations as the previous year, noting an ongoing priority to resettle refugees from the Western Hemisphere and Afghans who were displaced following the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021. These regional allocations, as well as the overall FY 2025 target, can be changed up or down by a future administration over the course of the fiscal year.
Appropriations Update
In late September, Congress passed a Continuing Resolution to temporarily continue Fiscal Year 2024 funding levels through December 20th. Congress failed to pass needed additional funding for the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and arriving Afghan and Ukrainian humanitarian parolees remain cut off from resettlement benefits.
As two major hurricanes wreaked havoc on communities across the U.S. South, President Trump and other right-wing actors spread disinformation about disaster relief funding – alleging, incorrectly, that resources for emergency response had been diverted to arriving asylum seekers.
Though the Shelter and Services Program (SSP) is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in partnership with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund has always been entirely separate from SSP funding.
Asylum and the U.S.-Mexico Border Update
Arrivals of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border are at a historic four-year low. In September, Border Patrol encountered 54,000 migrants, the lowest number since August 2020. Meanwhile in Mexico, many migrants are waiting more than six months to secure CBP One appointments to enter at a port of entry. Some large groups in southern Mexico are beginning to form and walk to reach Mexico City and/or attempt to continue north. Since December, increased Mexican immigration enforcement has cracked down on migrants traveling through the country and routinely rounded up and bused migrants back to the Mexico-Guatemala border.
The Department of Homeland Security now allows migrants to request CBP One appointments from southern Mexico. For those who secure CBP One appointments while waiting in the south, Mexico has started a new initiative to provide free, security-escorted bus rides to the U.S.-Mexico border. It is unclear how frequent these buses are and their impact on safety for migrants overall. Migration through the Darien Gap and Central America has also started to increase, suggesting that the lower arrivals trends may not continue much longer.
On September 30, the Biden administration published its final rule and revised proclamation, “Securing the Border.” The rule has been in effect since June and suspends access to asylum for people who enter between ports of entry. Under the rule, immigration officials are no longer required to ask migrants about their fear of returning to their home country. The new, final version of this rule makes the suspension of asylum more difficult to lift by requiring migrant encounters to remain below an average of 1,500 for 28 consecutive days, instead of 7 days, and by including the number of unaccompanied children in the calculation. The changes that the administration made to the final rule are expected to slow ongoing litigation against the restrictions.
See CWS’s statement condemning the final rule’s harsh restrictions on access to asylum.
California Governor Vetoes Refugee Case Management Bill
On September 28, California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed Senate Bill 85 – Immigration: Case Management and Social Services, a bill that would have extended social support and case management services for arriving refugees beyond the three month period funded by the federal government to six months.
The bill passed both chambers of the California legislature unanimously on final passage and represented a unique effort to extend support for refugees beyond what is provided by the federal government. When compared to other resettlement programs around the world, the U.S. program is notorious for prioritizing rapid self-sufficiency – sometimes at the cost of longer term programming that might promote more sustainable integration and social mobility.
In a statement, Governor Newsom said that extending case management services “would create significant, ongoing cost pressures on the state General Fund.”