WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers from both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives calling on the Biden administration to take urgent action to protect the more than 250,000 “Documented Dreamers” – children of long-term visa holders – who are at risk of aging out of their dependent status and will be forced to self-deport if they are ineligible for another status.

Despite growing up in the United States with legal status, children of long-term visa holders age out of their dependent status when they turn 21 and are often left with no choice but to leave the United States if they cannot transition to a new status. This is largely because families’ adjustments of status applications face extensive backlogs, preventing them from securing permanent resident status.

Senator Coons previously cosponsored bipartisan legislation, led by Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), to protect over 250,000 Documented Dreamers through the America’s CHILDREN Act.

“These young people grow up in the United States, complete their education in the American school system, and graduate with degrees from American institutions,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ur M. Jaddou. “However, due to the long green-card backlog, families with approved immigrant petitions are often stuck waiting decades for permanent resident status.”

“While we continue to pursue legislative solutions to permanently protect these individuals, such as the bipartisan and bicameral America’s Children Act of 2023, we urge you to take administrative action to protect the thousands of children who may be forced to self-deport each year,” the lawmakers continued.

In addition to Senators Coons and Padilla, the letter was also signed by Senators Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), as well as U.S. Representatives Deborah Ross (D-N.C.), Ami Bera (D-Calif.), Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), André Carson (D-Ind.), Judy Chu (D-Calif.), Jim Costa (D-Calif.), Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.), Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.), Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Young Kim (R-Calif.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Mike Levin (D-Calif.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Scott Peters (D-Calif.), Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), Delia C. Ramirez (D-Ill.), María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), Marilyn Strickland (D-Wash.), Juan Vargas (D-Calif.), and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.).

Full text of the letter is available here and below:

Dear Secretary Mayorkas and Director Jaddou:

We write to urge swift administrative action to protect children who have grown up in the United States with full legal documentation as dependents of long-term visa holders who are at risk of aging out of status or deportation because of our outdated immigration laws.

Many other families have no pathway to permanent residence and can live in the United States only as long as they maintain their work visas. Meanwhile, the children of these immigrants age out of their dependent status when they turn 21 and are forced to leave the United States if they cannot find a new status.

While we continue to pursue legislative solutions to permanently protect these individuals, such as the bipartisan and bicameral America’s Children Act of 2023, we urge you to take administrative action to protect the thousands of children who may be forced to self-deport each year.

We are grateful for the policy guidance issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in February 2023 that updates when an immigrant visa “becomes available” for the purpose of calculating age under the Child Status Protection Act for individuals seeking lawful permanent resident status. The change to calculating individuals’ ages using the Dates for Filing chart rather than the Final Action Date chart provides relief to young adults who otherwise would have narrowly aged out of the system. However, more must be done to fully address the problems that this population faces.

We urge you to consider the following actions:

1. Clarify the applicability of potential grants of deferred action on a case-by-case basis, where discretion is warranted, for children of long-term visa holders who age out of status. Deferred action is a discretionary determination to defer removal of an individual as an act of prosecutorial discretion. USCIS recently updated its policy manual to clarify that it would consider deferred action for individuals with approved Special Immigrant Juvenile Status petitions who cannot adjust status because a visa number is not available. USCIS should similarly clarify the applicability of deferred action to children of long-term visa holders on a case-by-case basis where discretion is warranted.

2. Expand eligibility for Employment Authorization to child dependents of visa holders, and to individuals with approved I-140 petitions. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should authorize employment for additional categories of nonimmigrants, including child dependents, in any category for which the spouse of the primary visa holder is authorized to work, as well as nonimmigrants with an approved I-140 petition who are stuck in the green-card backlog. DHS should also expand eligibility for a compelling circumstances Employment Authorization Document (EAD) to include children who are aging out. According to USCIS, a compelling circumstances EAD is a “temporary stopgap measure intended to address particularly difficult situations, including those that may have otherwise forced individuals on the path to lawful permanent residence to abruptly stop working and leave the United States.” Currently, only principal applicants of certain employment-based petitions and their dependent spouses and children are eligible for a compelling circumstances EAD. We urge DHS to include children of long-term visa holders who are raised in America in any expansion of eligibility for compelling circumstances EADs.

3. Grant parole to children of long-term visa holders who age out. USCIS has authority to grant parole on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian or significant public benefit reasons. We urge USCIS to create a process to allow children of long-term visa holders who have aged out to seek parole on a case-by-case basis, if warranted for urgent humanitarian reasons or to advance a significant public benefit.

We urge you to fully consider each of these actions. We ask that you provide a response detailing which actions you intend to pursue, and, if any actions are not practicable, why that is your determination.

Sincerely,