Legislative Bulletin

 

 

Hello all,

The National Immigration Forum's Legislative Bulletin for Friday, July
21, 2023, is now posted.

You can find the online version of the bulletin
here: [link removed]
<[link removed]>

All the best,

Alexandra 

**LEGISLATIVE BULLETIN - Friday, July 21, 2023**Welcome to the National
Immigration Forum's weekly bulletin! Every Friday, our policy team
rounds up key developments around immigration policy in Washington and
across the country. The bulletin includes items on the legislative,
executive, and judicial branches, as well as some coverage at the state
and local levels. 

Here's a breakdown of the bulletin's sections:

DEVELOPMENTS IN IMMIGRATION THIS WEEK <#Themes-In-Washington-This-week>

BILLS INTRODUCED AND CONSIDERED <#bills-introduced-and-considered>

LEGISLATIVE FLOOR CALENDAR <#legislative-floor-calendar>

UPCOMING HEARINGS AND MARKUPS <#upcoming-hearings-and-markups>

GOVERNMENT REPORTS <#government-reports>

SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM RESOURCES
<#spotlight-on-national-immigration-forum-resources>

**DEVELOPMENTS IN IMMIGRATION THIS WEEK**Immigration policy is a dynamic
field subject to constant change. Here, we summarize some of the most
important recent developments in immigration policy on the federal,
legal, state, and local levels. 

Content warning: This section sometimes includes events and information
that can prove disturbing. 

****State and Local ****

**Report: Texas Law Enforcement Instructed to Push Migrant Children Back
Into Rio Grande as Concertina Wire Injures Families**On July 17, the
Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News reported
<[link removed]>
on a state trooper's email
<[link removed]>
to his superior raising serious allegations against Texas Gov. Greg
Abbott's (R) border security initiative,Operation Lone Star
<[link removed]>. 

The email, reviewed byHearst Newspapers
<[link removed]>
and later published online
<[link removed]>
by KSAT.com, cited orders to push small children and nursing babies back
into the Rio Grande and mentioned a directive not to provide water to
people, even in the sweltering heat.  

The trooper described these actions as inhumane, justifying his concern
through a number of disturbing incidents. 

According to the email, Texas officials have set up razor wire-wrapped
barrels in parts of the river with high water and low visibility,
creating potential hazards. The wire has also increased risks of
drownings and injuries by forcing migrants into deeper and more
dangerous stretches of the river. 

On June 30, a pregnant woman suffering a miscarriage was found caught in
the wire, doubled over in pain, and a 4-year-old girl separately passed
out from exhaustion in the over 100-degree heat after she tried to cross
the wire but was pushed back by Texas Guard soldiers. 

On the same day, a teenager broke his leg while trying to avoid the wire
by traversing an area of the river that was unsafe. 

In response to the email's contents, Texas Department of Public Safety
(DPS) spokesperson Travis Considine said that there is no policy against
providing water to migrants. But DPS Director Steven McCraw has called
for an audit to minimize risks to people trying to cross and has
acknowledged an increase in injuries from the wire. 

Since news broke of Texas's concerning practices, lawmakers have been
pressing the Biden administration to hold the state government
accountable. "I raised the issue of @GovAbbott's barbarity at a dinner
tonight with @SecBlinken," Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) tweeted
<[link removed]>. "I
read him the title and first paragraph of the @ExpressNews article and
urged the Administration to intervene - and to remove the death traps
Abbott has installed for the sake of human rights."

In aletter
<[link removed]> on
Friday, Castro led 87 House Democrats who called on the Biden
administration "to assert your authority over federal immigration policy
and foreign relations and investigate and pursue legal action, as
appropriate, related to stop Governor Abbott's dangerous and cruel
actions."

Separately, Mexico has also started putting pressure on the federal
government to take action against Texas's aggressive border tactics.
Mexico's Foreign Relations Secretary Alicia Bárcena announced last
week
<[link removed]>
that her nation had formally raised concerns with the U.S. about
Texas's deployment of floating barriers along the Rio Grande. 

Bárcena said an inspection team would assess whether the buoys were
extending onto Mexican territory, and she raised the possibility that
the floating barriers could contravene long-established treaties. 

On Thursday,the Department of Justice
<[link removed]>
alerted Texas that it was planning to take legal action against the
state's use of buoys, which the agency said "violate federal law, raise
humanitarian concerns, present serious risks to public safety and the
environment, and may interfere with the federal government's ability to
carry out its official duties."

****Federal ****

**Report: Louisiana Detention Center Subjects Migrants to Solitary
Confinement, Undrinkable Water**Despite promises to improve living
conditions at a notorious immigration detention center in Louisiana,
inadequate medical care, dirty accommodations, overcrowding and general
abuse of detainees have continued to affect the facility, NBC News
reported Monday
<[link removed]>. 

The exposé found that immigrants and asylum seekers held at the Winn
Correctional Center in rural Winn Parish lack access to drinkable water,
live under the constant fear of solitary confinement, and have limited
access to doctors. 

And yet the population held at the site continues to climb -
stretching the detention center's already thin resources even
further. 

"Nothing has changed about the conditions of this facility," said Mich
González, associate director of the Southeast Immigrant Freedom
Initiative at the Southern Poverty Law Center's Immigrant Justice
Project. "People with open wounds not getting the treatment that they
need. People on crutches being told that they don't have a
humanitarian interest in being released even though they're not a
danger to anyone and they have people waiting for them at home. People
detained for upwards of a year unnecessarily." 

At Winn, the water appears "yellow" and residents worry it is unsafe to
drink. The facility also appears to serve food that has expired, said
John Star, a Nigerian man who said that he had been detained at Winn
since November.

 "You open it and the smell alone will make you choke," Star said. 

Likewise, detainees at the facility struggle to access adequate medical
attention, instead receiving a level of care that may amount to alleged
"medical neglect." Sarah Gillman -  director of strategic U.S.
litigation for the advocacy group Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights -
said that she and her colleagues met with about 40 people at Winn last
year "who had medical issues that they had tried to seek help for and
had not received." 

But perhaps most alarming, detainees at the facility are subject to
forced isolation - a popular practice in ICE detention. "It's the
most famous threat there," a Colombian asylum seeker said. "They
threaten you every day, frequently." 

He described solitary confinement as a punitive measure for those
accused of troublemaking. Despite the facility housing civil detainees,
those held in solitary are confined to a small personal cell, with no
sunlight. 

"There's been a lot of reports on Winn, and there's been a lot of
documentation, and even with all that it continues to exist," Gillman
said. "The only solution in my opinion is to shut it down." 

**Canada Recruits U.S. Workers Frustrated by Broken Immigration
System  **On July 16,
<[link removed]>
Canada debuted a new program offering open work permits to H-1B visa
holders in the United States, in hopes of enticing highly educated
foreigners to move north for a reprieve from the U.S.'s broken
immigration system and the headaches it causes. 

By the next day, Canada had already reached
<[link removed]>
its maximum number of applicants: 10,000.  

H-1B visaholders
<[link removed]>
must have a bachelor's degree or its equivalent, making them skilled,
educated workers. Through
<[link removed]>
the new program, these professionals will be able to move to Canada
without already having a job there, so they can search for one upon
arrival. And, through Canada's merit-based points immigration system,
experts say the foreign workers could likely qualify as permanent
residents relatively quickly. 

By comparison, the U.S. is experiencing a growing backlog of green cards
and stiffly competitive visa lotteries, making the path to H-1B visas
and eventual lawful permanent residence increasingly difficult. 

Chris Richardson, a former U.S. diplomat, told the Wall Street Journal
<[link removed]>
that "with the H-1B lottery getting worse and worse every year, for a
lot of these individuals Canada may actually be their only option."

**Migrant Encounters at Southwest Border Reach Lowest Level in Over Two
Years **On July 18, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced
that June marked the lowest number
<[link removed].>
of overall migrant encounters at the U.S.'s southwest border in over
two years. 

In the first full month after the Title 42 public health order ended,
Border Patrol documented 99,545 encounters between ports of entry along
the southern border, constituting a 42% drop from May. 

Generally, southwest border encounters - including at ports of entry
- plummeted by 30% from a month earlier, reaching their lowest point
since February 2021.

It is important to note, however, that migrant encounters are almost
always lower in the summer months, as many people avoid timing their
travels to coincide with the hottest temperatures of the year. And
experts claim that the short-term decreases in migration are at least in
part a result of a "wait and see
<[link removed]>"
approach, as migrants try to suss out the real-world effects of new
restrictions at the border. 

"We're gonna have to wait and see how all of this plays out," said
<[link removed]>
Arturo Sarukhán, former ambassador of Mexico to the U.S. "I think it's
too early to tell, to give a definitive take, on what has actually
happened with the dynamics on the border between the United States and
in terms of general migration flows within the continent."

****Legal ****

**Biden Asylum Restrictions Face Legal Challenge; Judge May Rule Within
a Week**On July 19, at a hearing
<[link removed]>
for a legal challenge surrounding the Biden administration's
"Circumvention of Lawful Pathways" rule, U.S. District Judge Jon S.
Tigar in the Northern District of California said he would decide
whether new asylum restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border violate the
law within a week.  

As soon as the Title 42 public health order ended, the Biden
administration imposed a new federal regulation
<[link removed]>
at the border, which has now made migrants ineligible for asylum unless
they meet limited and often unviable exceptions. 

Because international and domestic law grants migrants the right to seek
asylum regardless of how they entered the U.S., activists argue that it
is unlawful to turn away those asking for refuge at the border simply
because they do not follow federal officials' preferred pathways to
reach American soil. 

For his part, Tigar has acknowledged the similarities between this
current legal challenge and previous cases under the Trump
administration. In 2018, he temporarily blocked a Trump-era policy that
denied asylum to migrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border
irregularly. 

"I read somewhere that 2023 was going to be a big year for sequels,"
Tigar joked at Wednesday's hearing. He has said that - if his
decision ultimately blocks the Biden administration's new rule - he
will wait to enforce it for two weeks at the federal government's
behest, to give officials time to appeal. 

**BILLS INTRODUCED AND CONSIDERED**It can be challenging to keep up with
the constant barrage of proposed legislation in Congress. So, every
week, we round up new bills. This list includes federal legislative
proposals that have recently been introduced and that are relevant to
immigration policy. 

Please follow this link
<[link removed]>
to find new relevant bills, as well as proposed legislation from past
weeks. 

**LEGISLATIVE FLOOR CALENDAR** The U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of
Representatives will be in session from Tuesday, July 25 to Friday, July
28, 2023.

**UPCOMING HEARINGS AND MARKUPS**Here, we round up congressional
hearings and markups happening in the field or in Washington. 

**Business Meeting**
<[link removed]>

**Date:**Wednesday, July 26, 2023 at 9:00 a.m. EST (Senate Committee on
Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs)

**Location:**Senate Dirksen Building, SD-562, Washington, D.C.

**Related Items:**PN441
<[link removed]>, S.1253
<[link removed]>, S.1332
<[link removed]>, S.1444
<[link removed]>, S.1524
<[link removed]>, S.1973
<[link removed]>, S.2032
<[link removed]>, S.2073
<[link removed]>, S.2219
<[link removed]>, S.2248
<[link removed]>, S.2251
<[link removed]>, S.2256
<[link removed]>, S.2260
<[link removed]>, S.2270
<[link removed]>, S.2272
<[link removed]>, S.2278
<[link removed]>, S.2283
<[link removed]>, S.2286
<[link removed]>, S.2289
<[link removed]>, S.2291
<[link removed]>, S.2292
<[link removed]>, S.2293
<[link removed]>

**Oversight of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security**
<[link removed]>

**Date:**Wednesday, July 26, 2023 at 10:00 a.m. EST (House Judiciary
Committee)

**Location:**2141 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C.

**Witnesses: **

**The Honorable Alejandro Mayorkas,**Secretary, U.S. Department of
Homeland Security

**Stopping the Exploitation of Migrant Children: Oversight of HHS'
Office of Refugee Resettlement**
<[link removed]>

**Date:** Wednesday, July 26, 2023 at 10:00 a.m. EST (House Committee on
Energy & Commerce)

**Location:**2123 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C.

**Witnesses:**

**The Honorable Xavier Becerra,**Secretary, Department of Health and
human Services

**HFAC Markup on Various Measures**
<[link removed]>

**Date:**Wednesday, July 26, 2023 at 10:00 a.m. EST (House Foreign
Affairs Committee)

**Location:**U.S. Capitol, HVC-210, Washington, D.C.

**Related Items:**H.R.1456
<[link removed]>, H.R.4691
<[link removed]>, H.R.4725
<[link removed]>, H.R.4716
<[link removed]>, H.R.4715
<[link removed]>, H.R.1776
<[link removed]>, H.R.
4517 <[link removed]>,
H.R.3152 <[link removed]>,
H.Res.578
<[link removed]>,
H.R.4619 <[link removed]>

**The Real Cost of an Open Border: How Americans Are Paying the Price**
<[link removed]>

**Date:**Wednesday, July 26, 2023 at 2:00 p.m. EST (House Homeland
Security Committee) 

**Location:**310 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, D.C.

**Witnesses:**TBA

**A Failure to Plan: Examining the Biden Administration's Preparation
for the Afghanistan Withdrawal**
<[link removed]>

**Date:**Thursday, July 27, 2023 at 10:00 a.m. EST (House Foreign
Affairs Committee)

**Location:**HVC-210, Washington, D.C.

**Witnesses: **

**Colonel (Ret.) Seth Krummrich,** Vice President, Global Guardian

**Command Sergeant Major Jacob Smith,**4-31 Infantry, 2nd BCT, 10th
Mountain Division

**Full Committee Markup of Fiscal Year 2024 Defense, Interior and
Environment, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Homeland
Security Appropriations Acts**
<[link removed]>

**Date:**Thursday, July 27, 2023 at 10:30 a.m. EST (Senate
Appropriations Committee)

**Location:**Dirksen Senate Office Building 106, Washington, D.C.

**GOVERNMENT REPORTS**Reports by bodies such as the U.S. Government
Accountability Office, the Congressional Research Service, and the
Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General provide
invaluable information on immigration policy and practice. Here, we give
brief summaries of new immigration-related reports, with links to the
resources themselves in case you want to learn more. 

**Congressional Research Service (CRS);****The Department of Homeland
Security's "Metering" Policy: Legal Issues**
<[link removed]>

**; Updated July 17, 2023**This report details the "metering" policy at
the U.S.-Mexico border, with a focus on arguments as to whether it
violates existing statutory, constitutional, and international law. It
also considers recent litigation challenging the practice. 

**U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO);****Award and Management
of Barrier Construction Contracts**
<[link removed]>

**; Published July 18, 2023**This testimony explores the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers (USACE)'s contract obligations and awards for barriers at
the U.S.-Mexico border, including how much of the barrier system had
been completed by January 2021. 

**SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM RESOURCES**The Forum is
constantly publishing new policy-focused resources that engage with some
of the most topical issues around immigration today. Here are a few that
are particularly relevant this week: 

**Bill Summary: The Afghan Adjustment Act**
<[link removed]>The
bill - which got a bipartisan intro in the House and Senate this week
- would provide a path to permanence for Afghan evacuees (and some
others). The bill also establishes rigorous vetting and criminal
inadmissibility requirements to access this new path and it includes
provisions that would improve and expand pathways to protection for
those left behind and at risk in Afghanistan.

**Q&A: What to Know About the Biden Administration's New Asylum
Restrictions**
<[link removed]>This
explainer provides an overview of the "Circumvention of Lawful Pathways"
rule. It explains in simple terms what the rule does, how it will affect
asylum seekers, and where it will interact with other border enforcement
policies post-Title 42.

**Essential Workers for Economic Advancement Act: Bill Summary**
<[link removed]>This
bill summary details the Essential Workers for Economic Advancement Act
(H.R. 3734
<[link removed]>),
introduced by Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pennsylvania) and co-sponsored by
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas). This bipartisan bill would create a new
"H-2C" nonimmigrant visa for individuals coming to the United States to
work in nonagricultural, less-skilled positions.

* * * *This Bulletin is not intended to be comprehensive. Please contact
Alexandra Villarreal, Policy and Advocacy Associate at the National
Immigration Forum, with comments and suggestions of additional items to
be included. Alexandra can be reached at
[email protected]. Thank you.

 

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