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

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.

Federal

Harris, Trump Include Immigration in Final Pitches to American People

Over the last week, presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have laid out their visions for the future of the United States in high-profile events portrayed as their closing arguments for why they should be elected to the nation’s highest office.

On October 27, Trump hosted a marathon rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden that quickly descended into controversy after crude, racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic remarks by some of his allies who took to the podium.

"Their closing argument last night was clear to the rest of the world. It’s about hate, it’s about division, it’s about dividing us," responded Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who is running as Harris’s vice presidential nominee.

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe compared Puerto Rico to "a floating island of garbage," while also making hurtful and damaging claims about Latinos. Businessman Grant Cardone said that Harris "and her pimp handlers will destroy our country." And long-time Trump adviser Stephen Miller announced that "America is for Americans — and Americans only."

Backlash to these comments — especially the disparaging language toward Puerto Ricans, who are U.S. citizens — was swift and fervent, even among some in Trump's own party.

"This joke bombed for a reason. It’s not funny, and it’s not true," said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida), referencing Hinchcliffe’s insults toward Puerto Rico.

Notably, Trump himself has compared a different population — immigrants — to trash in the past, when he likened the U.S. to "a garbage can for the world." And, despite widespread scrutiny of Sunday’s rally, he has called the event a "lovefest."

Trump also added an event to his calendar at his Mar-a-Lago club on Monday, where he played a video casting undocumented immigrants as murderers and called border security "the single biggest issue" the country is facing.

Meanwhile, Harris made her closing argument to around 75,000 people at the Ellipse park in Washington, D.C., where part of her message included support for an "earned path" to citizenship for Dreamers and farmworkers.

Regardless of next week’s outcome, the U.S. asylum system will likely change dramatically, as both parties have called for increased restrictions to the right to seek protection, reports the New York Times.

"No matter who wins or loses the White House, this underlying consensus that we have to restrict asylum access is going to remain in the cards for the foreseeable future," said Cris Ramón of Unidos US. "This is going to be the default policy position."

Yet, if Trump reclaims the Oval Office, he and his allies plan to go even further. They are already eyeing ways to limit other forms of legal immigration, including by gutting refugee resettlement, banning travel from some Muslim-majority countries, revising the public charge rule, and potentially pausing acceptance of new applications for certain forms of immigration relief, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Legal

SCOTUS Greenlights Virginia Voter Purge

On October 30, the Supreme Court allowed Virginia to remove around 1,600 suspected noncitizens from its voter registration rolls. Opponents of the decision say it contradicts a federal law prohibiting states from making systematic changes to voter rolls within 90 days of a federal election. The Supreme Court, which was divided in its decision, did not explain its reasoning.

Virginia’s purge reflects Republican concerns about noncitizens participating in U.S. elections. In reality, noncitizen voting is extremely rare. Moreover, state voter roll purging often results in eligible voters wrongfully losing their registration, and some local policies pose obstacles to those who attempt to re-register.

In Virginia, the state flagged registered voters for removal based on driver’s license applications that suggested they might not be U.S. citizens. However, the state did not verify the purged voters’ citizenship status, and some were removed because of "outdated or erroneous" information.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) called the Supreme Court decision a "victory for common sense and election fairness," while the Biden administration said, "Everyone agrees that States can and should remove ineligible voters, including noncitizens, from their voter rolls. The only question in this case is when and how they may do so."

Elsewhere, in Texas, Trump supporter and U.S. citizen Mary Howard-Elley was among thousands of people removed from the voter rolls, allegedly because they were noncitizens. She was one of ten U.S. citizens whom journalists identified as having been wrongly removed in a purge.

"I just hope they don’t do this to anybody else ever again because it’s not fair," Howard-Elley said.

Lawsuit: ICE Kept Over $300 Million in Bonds From Immigrants and Their Families

On October 29, attorneys filed a lawsuit claiming that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has wrongfully kept over $300 million owed to tens of thousands of friends and family members who once posted bond for their immigrant loved ones so they could continue with their removal proceedings outside of detention.

According to ICE policy, people who posted bond for their family or friend have the right to have their money returned after the related immigration case ends. But ICE hasn't been returning these bond payments — which are often thousands of dollars each — to what will likely be tens of thousands of class members in the lawsuit.

"They have taken thousands of dollars from hardworking immigrant families who deserve to have their money returned," said Deepak Gupta, an attorney from one of the law firms involved in the case. "We want ICE to fix this system, we want the court to declare that ICE is violating its legal obligations under the contract so that this doesn’t happen to other families again in the future."

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 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 are not expected to be in session from Monday, November 4 through Friday, November 8, 2024.

UPCOMING HEARINGS AND MARKUPS

Here, we round up congressional hearings and markups happening in the field or in Washington. 

There are no relevant hearings or markups announced for the week of Monday, November 4, 2024.

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); What Is Affirmative Asylum?; Published October 24, 2024

This report explores the affirmative asylum process, including through data around grants by nationality and basis of claim.

DHS Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG); DHS Did Not Justify Its Decision to Cancel Its Cost-Saving Talent Development and Training Acquisition Program; Published October 29, 2024

This report looks at the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) decision to cancel acquisition of a new learning management system before it had been fully implemented.

U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO); Federal Research Centers: DHS Actions Could Reduce the Potential for Unnecessary Overlap among Its R&D Projects; Published October 30, 2024

This report considers the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) use of Federally Funded Research and Development Centers for its research and development activities.

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:

The Myths and Truths of Noncitizen Voting in the United States

Noncitizens have been barred from voting in federal elections since 1924. This blog post explains the history of restrictions on noncitizen voting in the United States.

Texas v U.S.: How One State Is Reshaping Federal Authority Over Immigration

This landing page hosts three white papers that together provide an overview of the ongoing conflict between Texas and the Biden administration, highlighting some of the most impactful battles along the many fronts where the state has challenged the federal government’s power over immigration.

Dreamers in the United States: An Overview of the Dreamer Community and Proposed Legislation

Dreamers are undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. They grew up and have lived in the U.S. for most of their lives. Many Dreamers have attended school and obtained postsecondary degrees, worked and contributed to the U.S. economy, and started families with U.S. citizen spouses and children.

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*This Bulletin is not intended to be comprehensive. Please contact Alexandra Villarreal, Senior 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.

Legislative Bulletin