Legislative Bulletin

 

 

Hello all,

The National Immigration Forum's Legislative Bulletin for Friday,
February 19, 2021 is now posted.

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

[link removed]

All the best,

Danilo 

**LEGISLATIVE BULLETIN - Friday, February 19, 2021**BILLS INTRODUCED AND
CONSIDERED

LEGISLATIVE FLOOR CALENDAR

UPCOMING HEARINGS AND MARKUPS

THEMES IN WASHINGTON THIS WEEK

GOVERNMENT REPORTS

SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM RESOURCES

**BILLS INTRODUCED AND CONSIDERED****S. 327**

**The Border Business COVID-19 Rescue Act**

The bill would create a loan program through the Small Business
Administration that would be dedicated to assisting small businesses
within 25 miles of the border. The loans provided through the program
would be interest free and designed to cover costs associated with the
COVID-19 pandemic and associated border closures.

Sponsored by Senator Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) (1

cosponsor - 1 Republican, 0 Democrats)

02/12/2021 Introduced in the Senate by Senator Kelly

02/12/2021 Referred to the Senate Committee on Finance

** S. __**

** **

**U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021**

The bill would provide a path to citizenship for the undocumented
population, a border management approach that includes a focus on
addressing root causes of forced migration, a legal immigration reform
platform, a series of humanitarian provisions, and additional
protections for immigrants at the worksite. The House companion bill was
introduced by Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-California).

Sponsored by Senator Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey) (22 cosponsors - 0
Republicans, 22 Democrats)

02/18/2021 Introduced in the Senate by Senator Menendez

**H.R. 977**

**The Lady Liberty Act**

The bill would require the President to set the annual refugee
resettlement goal at a minimum of 125,000 refugees each fiscal year. In
circumstances in which a President does not make a determination, the
refugee goal would assumed to be at 125,000.

Sponsored by Representative Gerald Connolly (D-Va) (56 cosponsors - 56
Democrats, 0 Republicans)

02/11/2021 Introduced in the House by Representative Connolly

02/11/2021 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary

**H.R. ___**

**U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021**

The bill would provide a path to citizenship for the undocumented
population, a border management approach that includes a focus on
addressing root causes of forced migration, a legal immigration reform
platform, a series of humanitarian provisions, and additional
protections for immigrants at the worksite. The Senate companion bill
was introduced by Rep. Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey).

Sponsored by Senator Linda Sanchez (D-California) (80 cosponsors - 0
Republicans, 80 Democrats)

02/18/2021 Introduced in the House by Representative Sanchez

**LEGISLATIVE FLOOR CALENDAR**The U.S. Senate will be in session from
February 22, 2021 to February 26, 2021.

The U.S. House of Representatives will be in session from February 23,
2021 to Friday, February 26, 2021.

**UPCOMING HEARINGS AND MARKUPS****Hearings to Examine the Nomination of
Merrick Garland to be Attorney General**

**Date:** Monday, February 22, 2021 at 9:30 a.m.; Tuesday, February 23,
2021 at 10:00 a.m.;

**Location:** Hart Senate Office Building Room 216

**Witnesses:** Judge Merrick Garland, U.S Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit

**THEMES IN WASHINGTON THIS WEEK**

****Federal****

****Democrats in the House and Senate Introduce Biden's Immigration
Bill****On February 18, Democrats in the House and Senate formerly
introduced

an expansive immigration bill following the framework initially sent

to Congress by President Biden on January 20. The bill, titled the U.S.
Citizenship Act of 2021, was introduced by Representative Linda Sanchez
(D-California) in the House of Representatives and Senator Bob Menendez
(D-New Jersey) In the Senate. Sanchez and Menendez provided additional
details about the legislation in a February 18 news conference.

The bill

would provide an eight-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, a
series of legal immigration reforms, a number of humanitarian
provisions, and additional protections for immigrants at the worksite.

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 eventual 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
attempts to eliminate both the employment-based and family-based green
card backlogs, along with 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 work, diversity, and
family-based immigrant visas that are available annually.

One provision of the U.S. Citizenship Act would replace the term "alien"
in the Immigration and Nationality Act with the term "noncitizen." The
move is part of a broader effort by the Biden administration to use more
inclusive language when talking about immigrants and immigration.
According to a February 16 Axios report
,
the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
signed a memo directing agency officials to use "more inclusive
language" in its communication and outreach efforts.

A White House spokesperson said

Biden is willing to negotiate the substance of the legislation with
interested parties across the political spectrum. According to a
February 17 New York Times report
,
the Biden administration is also supportive of alternative, incremental
approaches to immigration reform that could include consideration of
individual bills that provide pathways to legalization for Dreamers,
undocumented farmworkers, and others, provisions which enjoy

bipartisan

support.

****ICE Announces Interim Enforcement Guidance****On February 18, acting
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director Tae Johnson
issued an interim memorandum

updating interior immigration enforcement guidelines, consistent with
President Biden's January 20 Executive Order on the Revision of Civil
Immigration Enforcement Policies and Priorities
.
Theinterim guidance
,
which is effective immediately, re-prioritizes enforcement efforts to
focus on those who are deemed national security threats, those who
recently crossed the border unlawfully, and those who have been
convicted of aggravated felonies or other violent crimes.

The guidance covers ICE actions regarding interior enforcement
operations, detention, deportations, financial expenditures, and overall
strategy. It is set to remain in effect until Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issues new enforcement
guidelines. According to the Johnson memo, Mayorkas "anticipates issuing
these guidelines in less than 90 days."

DHS Rejects 11th-Hour Deal Between Trump Officials and ICE Union  On
February 16, the Biden Administration struck down
 last-minute
agreements that Trump officials made with the ICE employee union that
would have allowed the union to "indefinitely delay changes to
immigration enforcement policies and practices." The agreement, signed
 the
day before President Biden's inauguration by former Trump
administration DHS official Ken Cuccinelli, would have forced the new
administration to get approval from NIC 118, the over 7,000-member ICE
union, which twice endorsed former President Trump.

According to a whistleblower complaint

filed by the Government Accountability Project, "the agreements grant
NIC 118 extraordinary power and benefits - far more than what DHS
agreed upon with its other employee unions which did not endorse
President Trump." Under federal law, agency heads have the authority to
revoke such agreements within 30 days
from the date they are
executed. If the Biden administration had not revoked it, the agreement
could have blocked the administration from challenging any aspects of
the contract for the next eight years.

Under the agreement signed by Cuccinelli, who served in a series of
non-Senate confirmed acting positions in his tenure at DHS, the ICE
union can appeal the revocation to the Federal Labor Relations
Authority. On February 3, DHS terminated

separate, similar agreements with states and localities that were also
attempts by Cuccinelli to hamstring Biden administration immigration
priorities.

A DHS spokesperson told
 CBS
News that the agreement "was not negotiated in the interest of DHS and
has been disapproved because it is not in accordance with applicable
law."

****U.S. Teams with Mexico and Nongovernmental Organizations to Begin
Processing Asylum Seekers Stuck in Migration Protection Protocols****On
February 19, the Biden administration began

processing migrants that have been caught in the Trump-era Migration
Protection Protocols (MPP). Under the policy, asylum seekers had to
remain in Mexico while awaiting their cases to be heard in U.S.
immigration courts. The new actions only apply to the approximately
25,000 individuals subject to MPP who currently have active cases in
U.S. immigration court.

Those whom the administration has deemed "most vulnerable," including
those who have been the victims of crime while stranded in Mexico under
MPP, were the first deemed eligible

to enter the U.S. for processing. However, DHS secretary Alejandro
Mayorkas said that concerns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic will
limit the number of asylum seekers who can enter at one time.

U.S. officials are getting help

from nongovernmental organizations such as the International
Organization for Migration to help with logistics and COVID-19 testing.
Mexican officials and agents to the U.N. migration agency have also
agreed to assist with informing asylum seekers if their case status has
changed under the evolving policy.

The policy shift comes at a time when nearly a thousand asylum seekers,
some of whom are in MPP, face freezing temperatures

along the U.S.-Mexico border and are in need of shelter. In addition,
the total number of immigrants arriving at the border has continued to
rise. Much of that increase is associated with rising instances of
repeat crossers, but the numbers of arriving families and unaccompanied
children have also risen slightly and are reaching pre-pandemic levels
.

On February 11, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador
cautioned

migrants against "human traffickers, who paint a rosy picture" of the
U.S. border. A White House spokesperson confirmed that a "vast majority"
of individuals arriving at the border would continue to be immediately
expelled under a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rule.

****Lawmakers Urge End to Deportations of Black Migrants****On February
12, members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) urged

the Biden Administration to stop the deportation of Black migrants to
Haiti and a number of African countries, which have continued in recent
weeks even as other deportations slowed down. Almost 800 Haitians have
already been deported in the past two weeks, and immigrant advocacy
groups fear

DHS will follow through on plans to deport over 1,800 Black migrants in
the month of February alone.

Representative Mondaire Jones (D-New York), in coordination with 11
other members of the CBC, released
a
statement demanding that these deportations be stopped, expressing
concerns that "ICE is disparately targeting Black asylum-seekers and
immigrants." The members further argued that the individuals are being
deported to countries facing violence and political instability, made
even more dangerous during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On January 20, the Biden administration issued a 100-day deportation
moratorium
,
but the pause was halted

by a federal judge in Texas. Even when in effect, the moratorium only
applied to those who arrived in the U.S. before November 2020, and many
of those subject to the deportations arrived after this date. Still,
advocates say the court action does not obligate DHS to continue the
deportations of Haitian and African migrants, and DHS retains discretion
to stop them.

****Biden Administration Plans to Increase Resettlement of Refugee
Children****President Biden announced

in a report to Congress that he plans to increase admissions of
Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (URMs), children who have been displaced
without parents or adult family members.

The U.S. is the only country to operate a resettlement program
specifically for URMs and has resettled 13,000 children

since the program's founding in 1980. However, the U.S. admitted
decreasing numbers of URMs under the Trump administration, resettling
101 unaccompanied minors in 2020, compared to 294 in 2015. The U.S. has
resettled zero unaccompanied refugee children so far in fiscal year (FY)
2021 (which began in October), due in part to Trump administration
limits on refugee referrals.

Meanwhile, the number of URMs worldwide has continued to rise, reaching
159,000 in 2019, according to one
U.N. report. Refugee advocates and U.S. resettlement agencies have
advocated

for 1% of all refugee admissions be reserved for URMs moving forward.

The Biden administration also plans to raise the refugee admissions
ceiling for the remainder of  FY 2021, from a historic low of 15,000 to
62,500. In a February 4 executive order
,
Biden announced the intention of raising the ceiling to 125,000
beginning in FY 2022.

****White House Rescinds "Blank Space" Policy That Led to Rising
Rejection Rates for Certain Visa Applications ****The Biden
administration has ended a Trump-era policy that required immigration
officials to reject visa application forms submitted with blank spaces,
even if the blanks were in response to questions that did not apply to
the applicant. A spokesperson for the Biden administration confirmed on
February 12 that USCIS rescinded
 the
policy by updating guidance on their website in late January.

The policy was originally implemented
 by
the Trump administration in late 2019 and applied to asylum applications
and U visas, which are granted to immigrant crime victims who cooperate
with law enforcement or government officials in the investigation or
prosecution of criminal activity. An attorney with the Northwest
Immigrant Rights Project told
 Spectrum
News that at least 12,000 U visas were rejected under the blank space
policy as of spring 2020, and he estimates that thousands of asylum
applications faced a similar challenge. Now, immigrant advocacy
organizations are advocating in court
 for
the administration to recognize the original applications that had their
claims improperly rejected under the policy.

****Legal****

****Federal Judge Halts Asylum Restrictions**

** ****On February 16, a federal court in Oakland, California struck
down

a Trump administration rule that aimed to severely restrict asylum
claims at the U.S. border, arguing that the rule "increases the risk
asylum applicants will be subjected to violence."

The rule, enacted in the final days of the Trump administration, served
as the administration's second attempt 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.

In response, 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. The rule was
temporarily blocked

in January by a separate federal court in California, before it was
enjoined by the court in Oakland.

**GOVERNMENT REPORTS**

**Government Accountability Office (GAO):****IMMIGRATION DETENTION:
Actions Needed to Improve Planning, Documentation, and Oversight of
Detention Facility Contracts**

**; February 12, 2021**In this report, the Government Accountability
Office (GAO) reviewed ICE detention contracts and agreements for Fiscal
Year (FY) 2019. The review found that ICE has not been following
guidelines for acquiring new detention space and has not been
appropriately enforcing the agreements of its contracts. Of the 40
contracts it reviewed, GAO found that 28 did not have proper
documentation from ICE agents explaining the need for the space,
demonstrating outreach to local officials, or showing the reasons the
agency decided to enter into these contracts. GAO further found that
without following the guidelines, ICE cannot be sure that it is making
cost-effective decisions to meet its needs.

**SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM RESOURCES**Fact Sheet:
Unaccompanied Migrant Children (UACs)
This
resource provides information on unaccompanied children arriving at the
border. It describes why these children come alone to the border, the
particular challenges they face, and the legal protections offered to
them.

Fact Sheet: Immigration and Customs Enforcement
This
fact sheet provides an overview of ICE, describing the agency's role
in the immigration system and providing details about its mission,
priorities, and size.

Biden Administration's January/February Executive Actions on
Immigration
This
explainer summarizes several of the Biden administration's executive
actions impacting immigrants from January and February. The explainer
provides summaries of 13 immigration-related memoranda, proclamations,
and executive orders issued in Biden's first weeks in office.

  * * *

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

 

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