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BILLS INTRODUCED AND CONSIDERED
LEGISLATIVE FLOOR CALENDAR
UPCOMING HEARINGS AND MARKUPS
THEMES IN WASHINGTON THIS WEEK
GOVERNMENT REPORTS
SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM RESOURCES
The Chinese Communist Party Visa Disclosure Act
The bill would require F, J, or M student visa-holders and their families to disclose to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) whether they have received funds from the Government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), or any entity owned or controlled by either the PRC or the CCP.
Sponsored by Representative Greg Steube (R-Florida)
01/19/2021 Introduced in the House by Representatives by Representative Steube
01/19/2021 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary
The U.S. Senate will be in session the week of Monday, January 25, 2021.
The U.S. House of Representatives will be in session from Monday, January 25, 2021 to Thursday, January 28, 2021.
Date: Tuesday, January 26, 2021 at 11:00 a.m. (Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee)
Location: 342 Dirksen Senate Office Building
On January 20, soon after he was sworn in, President Joe Biden announced an expansive immigration bill, the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, which he immediately sent to Congress. According to an administration fact sheet, a public briefing, and several news reports, the bill would provide an 8-year path to citizenship for most of the undocumented population, a border management approach that includes a focus on addressing root causes of migration from Central America, some legal immigration reforms, a series of humanitarian provisions, and additional protections for immigrants at the worksite. The bill is set to be introduced in the Senate by Senator Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey) and in the House by Representative Linda Sanchez (D-California).
While most of the undocumented population would have to spend at least five years on a temporary status before being able to apply for green cards and eventually citizenship under the proposal, the bill reportedly would immediately provide access to green cards for Dreamers, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients, and farmworkers, provided they meet certain criteria. The legal immigration reforms in the bill include the elimination of both employment-based and family-based green card backlogs and a series of provisions designed to value family unity. The bill does not include significant reforms to the structure of the immigration visa system, although it would increase the number of annually available work and diversity immigrant visas.
The text of the bill has not yet been made public, and it is not yet clear when either Senator Menendez or Representative Sanchez will introduce it in the Senate and House. In order to pass the Senate and avoid a potential filibuster, proponents of the bill would need to find a bipartisan group of senators in favor of the reforms. On January 21, Menendez said his “door is always open” to further negotiate the substance of the sweeping proposal.
Upon taking office on January 20, President Biden signed various proclamations, executive orders, and memoranda related to immigration to reverse and review Trump administration policies.
Among the executive actions taken on January 20 was a memorandum “preserving and fortifying” Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a proclamation revoking the Trump administration’s travel bans particularly impacting individuals from African and majority-Muslim countries, a proclamation pausing border wall construction and ordering agencies to come up with a plan to reallocate associated funds, and an executive order “resetting” interior immigration enforcement policies.
Biden has also reversed the Trump administration’s order to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census apportionment count, and reinstated Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) that protects approximately 3,600 Liberians from deportation while they continue to adjust to permanent status under legislation passed in December 2019. On January 22, a State Department official announced the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan will resume processing several thousand Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applications for Afghans who have assisted U.S. military efforts.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has also issued a statement suspending new enrollments in the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the “Remain in Mexico” program, which required migrants to wait in Mexico while their asylum claims are processed. The statement did not provide a solution to the roughly 25,000 individuals currently in Mexico under MPP. The Biden administration has also called for a moratorium on deportations for 100 days, starting by January 22. The moratorium will not apply to those who arrived in the U.S. on or after November 1, 2020, as well as certain individuals who have opted out or who have been determined to be a national security threat.
On January 22, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit in response to the planned moratorium. The complaint, which is the first major lawsuit filed against the Biden administration, argues that “prior Executive pledges” prevent the White House from making significant changes to immigration policy. The suit references a series of legally-questionable deals signed by former DHS second-in-command Ken Cuccinelli with at least five states and localities, including Texas, that would require DHS to provide six months of notice before implementing immigration policy changes. Under well-established legal precedent, the federal government possesses “broad, undoubted power over the subject of immigration.”
The White House is expected to issue several more immigration-related executive actions within the first 10 days of the new administration, including a series of executive orders scheduled for January 29 on refugees, family reunification, and border processing.
On his last full day in office, President Trump authorized work permits and deportation protections for Venezuelans living in the U.S. without legal permission through a designation known as Deferred Enforced Departure (DED). The move, one that has long been advocated for by both Republicans and Democrats, would apply to Venezuelan nationals present in the U.S. for at least 18 months as of January 20, 2021, estimated to be up to 200,000 people.
According to the January 19 memo, the action is in response to the corruption of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s administration and the resulting economic crisis and shortage of basic goods that have “forced about five million Venezuelans to flee the country, often under dangerous conditions.”
Newly-elected House Representative María Elvira Salazar (R-Florida) responded to the Venezuelan DED policy by stating, “we have a fundamental obligation to provide safe-haven for those fleeing tyranny and oppression. This act of solidarity provides our Venezuelan exile community with much-needed assurance during these unprecedented times.”
On January 15, a group of about 7,000 migrants from Honduras were halted at the Guatemalan border while attempting to eventually reach the U.S. and seek asylum. Most of the migrants were fleeing violence, persecution and poverty in their home country, conditions that have worsened considerably during the coronavirus pandemic and after two hurricanes devastated parts of Honduras in November.
While several recent migrant caravans have also been stopped by Guatemalan or Mexican border officials before reaching the United States, the new Biden administration is still reportedly preparing for an increase in migrants arriving at the border. The administration is working with local organizations to build up processing infrastructure at ports of entry, and they are preparing to stand up soft-sided facilities that can temporarily house migrants in a manner that accounts for social distancing and Covid-19 concerns.
The administration has pledged to take a “more humane” approach to the border and has criticized restrictive asylum policies implemented under the Trump administration that have resulted in many asylum seekers being either rapidly expelled or forced to wait in Mexico. However, President Biden is reportedly concerned that his more welcoming approach will result in an increase in arrivals, and the administration has warned that it will take months before it reverses all of the Trump administration’s asylum and border processing policies.
On January 18, a federal court in California issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking a Trump administration rule that aimed to severely restrict asylum claims at the U.S. border. The judge ruled that asylum seekers “are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of the requested relief.”
The rule, set to take effect January 19, served as a second attempt by the Trump administration to bar asylum claims from people who transited through a third country on their way to the U.S. DHS and the Department of Justice (DOJ) initially issued the third-country asylum rule in July 2019, but it was struck down in July 2020 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which barred the rule from taking effect.
The Trump administration issued a revised version of the rule in December 2020, attempting to address the federal appeals court’s ruling through minor revisions to the text.
On January 19, President Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Alejandro Mayorkas, appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee (HSGAC) to begin the confirmation process, answering questions on immigration policy and his past experiences serving in DHS. Mayorkas, who served as the Deputy Secretary of DHS from 2013 to 2016 and has previously been confirmed by the Senate three times, expressed support for President Biden’s immigration agenda while affirming his commitment to the enforcement of federal law and the protection of national security interests.
Senate Democrats had urged that the committee fast-track the confirmation process and bring a vote to the Senate floor as soon as possible, but the objection of Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) will delay a floor vote for at least a week.
Mayorkas, a Cuban American immigrant, would be the first immigrant and first Latino to lead DHS. He was responsible for devising and implementing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) while serving as Deputy DHS Secretary in 2012.
President Joe Biden is expected to select career diplomat and Former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Roberta Jacobson, to oversee southern U.S. border policy on the National Security Council (NSC). In this newly created role, Jacobson will assist the administration’s efforts to reform the U.S. asylum system and address national security challenges related to Mexico and Central America. She’ll also be tasked with improving relations with Mexico and other Central American countries.
Jacobson spent over 30 years at the State Department, holding several senior diplomatic posts, including serving as the top State Department envoy for Latin America. Following her resignation as the ambassador to Mexico in 2018, she became an outspoken critic of the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration policies.
While the vast majority of President Biden’s Cabinet nominees continue to go through the confirmation process in the Senate, on January 20, the new administration named a number of acting agency and department heads. Concerning agencies that deal with matters related to immigration, the acting DHS secretary will be current TSA administrator David Pekokse; the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be temporarily led by former HHS Secretary Norris Cochran; the Department of Justice (DOJ) will be headed by career DOJ attorney Monty Wilkinson; and the acting Secretary of State will be Dan Smith, the former Director of the Foreign Service Institute. James McHenry will remain the director of the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), which oversees immigration court proceedings, while Biden considers his successor.
Within DHS, it was reported that Troy Miller was named as performing commissioner of Customs and Border Safety (CBP). Miller was the director of CBP’s area workplace in New York previous to turning into performing commissioner. As of January 22, the performing head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Companies (USCIS) is Tracy Renaud, who has beforehand served as performing deputy director of USCIS on a number of events.
This report describes an audit performed by the DHS Workplace of Inspector Normal to find out whether or not the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Worksite Enforcement program successfully deters unauthorized immigration. The audit discovered that ICE officers didn’t persistently implement penalties in opposition to employers discovered responsible of hiring people with out work authorization. The audit concluded that the Worksite Enforcement program doesn’t successfully forestall employers from violating employment immigration legal guidelines. The report contained 4 suggestions for ICE to replace its practices to extra successfully forestall the hiring of unauthorized employees.
This explainer summarizes a number of of the Biden administration’s day one government actions impacting immigrants. The explainer supplies summaries of 9 separate immigration-related memoranda, proclamations, and government orders.
This doc lists the Nationwide Immigration Discussion board’s immigration reform priorities for the primary 100 days of the Biden presidency. The priorities all have sturdy bipartisan assist and are primarily based within the understanding that America wants an immigration system that advances the pursuits of all Individuals.
This reality sheet supplies normal details about Deferred Enforcement Departure (DED), a brief immigration profit that permits sure people from designated nations and areas dealing with political or civic battle and/or pure disasters to remain in the US.
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*This Bulletin just isn’t meant to be complete. Please contact Danilo Zak, Nationwide Immigration Discussion board Coverage and Advocacy Affiliate, with feedback and ideas of further gadgets to be included. Danilo might be reached at dzak@immigrationforum.org. Thanks.
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