Legislative Bulletin

 

 

Hello all,

The National Immigration Forum's Legislative Bulletin for Friday, May 7,
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, May 7, 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. 1514**

**A bill to expedite detainee transport to border patrol processing
facilities**

The bill would establish a program under U.S. Customs and Border
Protection that would expedite the transport of immigrant detainees to
Border Patrol processing facilities. As part of the program, the bill
would require at least 300 Border Patrol agents to have a commercial
driver's license with a passenger endorsement, with at least five of
those licensed agents available at each Border Patrol station during
each shift. The bill would further require a minimum number of buses to
be available for detainee transport at several Border Patrol sectors.

Sponsored by Senator Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico) (2

cosponsors - 1 Republican, 1 Democrat)

04/29/2021 Introduced in the Senate by Senator Heinrich

04/29/2021 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary

**S. 1515**

**The Remote Emergency, Medical, Online Training, Telehealth, and EMT
(REMOTE) Act**

The bill would require CBP to make EMT and paramedic training available
free of charge to U.S. Border Patrol agents in each border patrol sector
along the southern border. The bill would also require CBP to credit
agents with work time for any EMT or paramedic training and make any
necessary lodging and per diem available, as well as increase the rate
of pay for those who have been certified.

Sponsored by Senator Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico) (2

cosponsors - 1 Republican, 1 Democrat)

04/29/2021 Introduced in the Senate by Senator Heinrich

04/29/2021 Referred to the House Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs

**H.R. 2923**

**Keeping America's Energy Resources Moving Act of 2021**

The bill would create a new temporary nonimmigrant category for
noncitizens on sea crews who are engaged in transferring liquid cargo
from one ship to another. These "lighter" crews assist larger vessels
involved in the refining and petrochemical industries. Currently crewman
have access to C1/D visas which expire in 29 days, and the bill would
create a new status that would extend up to 180 days.

Sponsored by Representative Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) (5

cosponsors - 4 Republicans, 1 Democrat)

04/30/2021 Introduced in the House by Representative Garcia

04/30/2021 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary

**H.R. 2920**

**The American Families United Act**

The bill would provide the Department of Homeland Security and the
Attorney General with the discretion to stop the deportations of certain
noncitizens based on humanitarian purposes to preserve family unity for
U.S. citizen spouses or parents of U.S. citizen children.

Sponsored by Representative Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) (1

cosponsor - 1 Republicans, 0 Democrats)

04/30/2021 Introduced in the House by Representative Escobar

04/30/2021 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary

**H.R. 2971**

**The Foreign National Firearms Background Check Enhancement Act**

The bill would require noncitizens planning to purchase or possess a
firearm via a hunting license to first petition for a one-year waiver
from the Attorney General.

Sponsored by Representative Charlie Crist (D-Florida) (2

cosponsors - 1 Republican, 1 Democrat)

05/04/2021 Introduced in the House by Representative Crist

05/04/2021 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary

**LEGISLATIVE FLOOR CALENDAR**The U.S. Senate will be in session the
week of May 10, 2021

The U.S. House of Representatives will be in session from Tuesday, May
11, 2021 to Friday, May 14, 2021.

**UPCOMING HEARINGS AND MARKUPS**The Essential Role of Immigrant Workers
in America

**Date**: Wednesday, May 12, 2021 at 2:30 pm ET (Senate Judiciary
Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety)

**Location:**Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226 and Virtual

**Witnesses:**TBD

**U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Resource Management and
Operational Priorities**

**Date:**Thursday, May 13, 2021 at 10:00 am ET (House Committee on
Appropriations)

**Location:**Virtual

**Witnesses:**

Tae Johnson, Acting Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

**DHS Actions to Address Unaccompanied Minors at the Southern Border**

**Date:**Thursday, May 13, 2021 at 10:15 am ET (Senate Homeland Security
and Government Affairs Committee)

**Location:**Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 342 and Virtual

**Witnesses:**

Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security

**A Race Against Time: Deploying Vaccines and Addressing the
Disproportionate Impacts of COVID-19 in Latin America and the
Caribbean**

**Date:**Thursday, May 13, 2021 at 2:00 pm ET (House Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Civilian Security, Migration, and
International Economic Policy)

**Location:**Virtual

**Witnesses:**

Arachu Castro, Ph. D., MPH, Samuel Z. Stone Endowed Chair of Public
Health in Latin America, Tulane University School of Public Health and
Tropical Medicine

Tatiana Bertolucci, Regional Director for Latin America and the
Caribbean, CARE International

R. Evan Ellis, Ph. D., Latin America Research Professor, US Army War
College

**THEMES IN WASHINGTON THIS WEEK**

**Federal**

****Biden Raises Refugee Ceiling to 62,500 in Reversal****On May 3,
President Biden formally raised
 the
refugee resettlement ceiling for fiscal year (FY) 2021 to 62,500 from a
historic low of 15,000. The new cap comes two weeks after the Biden
administration's previous announcement that it would be keeping the
low ceiling set by the Trump administration, then quickly backtracking
 following
intense pushback from lawmakers and advocates. In the May 3
announcement, Biden added
 a
caveat that it is unlikely that the U.S. can accept 62,500 admissions by
the end of the fiscal year due to scaled-back infrastructure after years
of resettlement under the Trump administration and subsequent lack of
funding. "We are working quickly to undo the damage of the last four
years. It will take some time, but that work is already underway" Biden
said in a statement
.

More than 100 of the 325 refugee resettlement offices open in 2016
closed by mid-2019 due to the Trump administration's reductions in
refugee admissions. "Restarting those offices is not something we can do
overnight," said

Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee
Service, one of the nine agencies tasked with resettling refugees, "we
have to hire staff; we have to reengage those communities; we have to
work with State Department to recertify the sites. All those things can
be a months-long process." Despite these challenges, resettlement
agencies have praised the administration's decision to raise the
refugee ceiling. A representative from the International Rescue
Committee said

that, "The way you rebuild capacity is by setting ambitious commitments
that signal to domestic and international stakeholders that U.S.
leadership is back."

****Senate Democrats Mull Reconciliation to Pass Immigration
Reforms****According to a May 3 New York Times report
,
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) is exploring the
possibility of using budget reconciliation to pass immigration reforms.
According to the report, Schumer views the budget maneuver as a backup
plan in the event bipartisan negotiations fall short.

Budget reconciliation bills are passed by a simple majority in the
Senate, and circumvent the Senate's 60-vote filibuster threshold.
However, strict rules limit

what can be passed under reconciliation, and it remains unclear whether
the Senate parliamentarian will allow certain immigration reforms to be
included.

In addition, not all Senate Democrats

have expressed support for the use of reconciliation. Senators Kyrsten
Sinema (D-Arizona) and Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) have both expressed

their support for pursuing bipartisan compromise rather than using
budget reconciliation. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) is leading a
group of Senators in bipartisan discussions that could lead to an
immigration reform package.

****Arrivals Plateau as Administration Finds Both Success and Continued
Challenges in Border Response****According to a May 3 CNN report
,
preliminary data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) appears
to confirm previous

reports

that unauthorized border crossings plateaued in the month of April.
After sharp increases in February and March, the data suggests that CBP
is on pace to encounter approximately 162,000 individuals at the
Southwest border in April, down from 172,000 in March. CBP has not
released official data for April, however, and on May 3 DHS Secretary
Alejandro Mayorkas cautioned

that, "the numbers remain high, whether they are as high as March is yet
undetermined."

A record number of arriving unaccompanied children (UACs) has posed a
particular challenge for the administration's border response,
although that figure also appears

to have leveled off. When children at the border are determined to be
unaccompanied, they are required by law to be transferred within 72
hours from CBP holding cells to Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters.
In February and March, the increase in arriving UACs resulted in ORR
shelters reaching capacity and children getting backed up for far longer
than 72 hours in severely overcrowded
 CBP holding centers, which are not
meant to care for children. To address the influx, the Biden
administration has expanded shelter capacity under ORR by opening at
least 15

emergency facilities. As of May 4, the number of UACs in CBP custody had
fallen to 735, down from a high of more than 5,700 in late March. Over
this span, the average time spent in CBP custody has dropped to below 24
hours, well below the legal limit.

Despite these successes, concerns remain

about conditions in the emergency facilities, which administration
officials have made clear

are only a "short-term solution." Typically, ORR shelters are licensed
for childcare by state agencies and provide a range of educational,
legal, and health services. The emergency intake sites are not
state-licensed, and many are staffed by volunteers who are able to
provide a more limited range of services to the children. Two emergency
sites were shuttered

shortly after opening, reportedly due to understaffing and safety
concerns.

While most arriving unaccompanied children are being processed and moved
to ORR care, hundreds of migrant children

from Mexico have been immediately repatriated under a 2008 law that
calls for unaccompanied children from contiguous countries - Canada
and Mexico - to be immediately returned. The administration has also
continued to rapidly expel most arriving single adults and many families
- even those seeking humanitarian protection - under a pandemic-era
rule called Title 42. However, according to an April 30 report, the
Biden administration is allowing more asylum-seeking families

to enter the U.S. through legal ports of entry at the border, and it
plans to establish more clear exceptions

to Title 42 expulsions for certain vulnerable families.

****Official ICE Deportations Fall as Rapid Expulsions Remain
High****Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 2,962 people
in April, the agency's lowest monthly total

since its establishment in 2003. The number of immigrants in ICE custody
has also fallen to the lowest level in more than a decade, with about
15,000 current detainees, down from a peak of more than 50,000 detained
per day under the Trump administration prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the reduced deportation figures do not include expulsions under
Title 42

that allow CBP to summarily return recently arrived migrants, including
those seeking asylum and humanitarian protection. Approximately 700,000
border-crossers have been expelled under Title 42 since March 2020, but
because of the rapid nature of the process, these are not counted in
official deportation figures. Official deportations fell dramatically in
April 2021 when Title 42 was initially invoked by President Trump, and
the drop has continued since Biden's inauguration.

****DHS Will Suspend Biometric Requirements for Spouses of High-Skilled
Immigrant Workers****According to a May 4 report, the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) is planning to suspend

the fingerprint screening of spouses of certain high-skilled immigrant
workers, namely H-1B specialty occupation and L-1 executive and manager
visa holders. Starting on May 17, DHS will lift

the biometrics requirement for these spouses for two years to prevent
further bottlenecks and delays in the visa renewal process.

This decision comes amid a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of H-1B
and L spouses against the screening requirements, which were introduced
in 2019 by the Trump administration. The plaintiffs had argued that the
rule was unnecessary and only served to delay H-1B and L spouses from
receiving visas. As of May 3, over 123,000 spouses were waiting in the
backlog
.
Prior to DHS's decision to suspend the screening, a group of large
tech companies - including Microsoft, Salesforce, Google, and Twitter
- filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs, arguing that
fingerprint requirements and the ensuing backlogs were causing personal
and financial damage to them and their employees.

Plaintiffs stressed

that in addition to removing the biometric requirement, the government
must invest more resources in efficiently processing visa applications
in order to address the growing backlog.

Separately, on May 7, DHS withdrew

a Trump-era proposed rule

that would have expanded biometric collection of those encountering the
U.S. immigration system, including certain U.S, citizens.

****Biden Administration Returns Military Funds Diverted to Border Wall
and Begins Limited Repairs Along the Border****On April 30, the Biden
administration announced it was undertaking a series of actions related
to the construction of barriers along the Southwest border.

The administration said

that it is returning funds the Trump administration had diverted from
Department of Defense (DOD) pay, pension, and construction projects for
the purpose of constructing border barriers. The Trump administration
diverted a total of approximately $10 billion from DOD accounts for
barrier construction, with an estimated $3.3 billion

left unspent when Biden took office in January 2021.

The Biden administration also announced on April 30 that it would begin
limited construction along the border to address risks associated with
flooding and soil erosion. In late January, CBP had officially notified
its contractors to stop all border barrier construction projects
following President Biden's January 20 executive order
,
which terminated the national emergency declared at the southern border
by the Trump administration and directed the end of all border wall
construction. The rapid freeze in construction had left levee breaches

in some parts of the border in the Rio Grande Valley, leaving
surrounding areas vulnerable to flooding. The Biden administration noted
it would work to resolve these concerns, as well as to address a stretch
of barrier near San Diego with "improper compaction of soil," but
clarified that it does not intend

to extend walling in any part of the border.

The Biden administration has not clarified

what it intends to do with the approximately $1.4 billion in unspent
funds properly allocated by Congress for border barrier construction in
December 2020. The President's January 20 executive order called for
DOD, DHS, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to come up with
a plan by March 21 to redirect the funds, but the administration still
has yet to take public action, drawing criticism

from Republican lawmakers.

****Legal****

****Third Circuit Reverses Opinion Preventing Immigration Judges from
Using Administrative Closure****On May 5, the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Third Circuit ruled

that immigration judges and the Board of Immigration Appeals have
authority to administratively close immigration cases pending before
them. The ruling, issued in **Arcos Sanchez v. Attorney General**
,
rejected former Attorney General Jeff Sessions' 2018 opinion in Matter
of Castro-Tum ,
which held that U.S. immigration law does not allow for the use of
administrative closure. The Third Circuit joins the Fourth and Seventh
Circuit in rejecting Sessions' opinion in Castro-Tum, while the Sixth
Circuit previously ruled

to uphold Sessions' opinion.

Administrative closure is a practice used by immigration judges to
temporarily remove cases from their calendars and delay removal
proceedings. Before Sessions' 2018 opinion, administrative closure was
a common practice used by immigration judges to better manage their
dockets, particularly when a case involved an individual who was
eligible for protection from deportation or who otherwise may have had a
valid claim to legal status. For example, administrative closure was
often used for those in the process of applying for Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals (DACA) or who may have been eligible for a green card
through marriage.

****State and Local****

****San Diego County Votes to Provide Lawyers to Immigrants facing
Removal Proceedings****On May 4, the San Diego Board of Supervisors
approved
 a
pilot program that will provide immigrants facing deportation with
lawyers through the county's public defender's office. The $5 million
program was approved by a 3-2 vote and will furnish legal counsel to
individuals detained at the local Otay Mesa Detention Center free of
charge. Proponents of the program have argued that immigrants without
representation add to court backlogs and increase taxpayer detention
costs during their cases.

Because immigration court proceedings are administrative, not criminal,
the constitutional right to counsel does not extend to immigrants with
cases in immigration court. While those in proceedings may retain
representation at their own expense, the federal government does not
provide them with counsel. Data shows that those who are able to find
legal representation are four times more likely

to win their cases.

**GOVERNMENT REPORTS**

**Office of the Inspector General (OIG):****Violations of ICE Detention
Standards at Pulaski County Jail**

**; April 29, 2021**This report from the Office of the Inspector General
(OIG) outlines various violations of detention standards and COVID-19
procedures at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in
Illinois. After inspecting the Pulaski County Jail, OIG found violations
that threatened the health, safety, and rights of detainees. The
findings include that the center did not enforce the use of face masks
and social distancing to effectively combat the spread of COVID-19,
leading to an outbreak within the facility. The Pulaski Jail also did
not provide detainees with dental services nor were officials performing
routine wellness checks. The facility was also found to be violating
protocol by detaining migrants with significant criminal histories
alongside those with no criminal history.

**SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM RESOURCES****Explainer:
Emergency Shelters and Facilities Housing Unaccompanied Children**
This
explainer describes the different kinds of shelters and facilities that
are currently being used to house unaccompanied children (UACs). The
explainer documents the emergency facilities that have recently been
opened by the Biden administration to address the increase in UACs at
the border.

**Border Security at the Southwest Border: Fact Sheet**
This
fact sheet describes the security infrastructure in place at
the border, the national security threat (or lack thereof) posed by
arriving migrants, and policy proposals for improving border security.

Public Funding for Immigration Legal Services
This
resource provides an overview of various local efforts to provide legal
representation to immigrants in removal proceedings. The resource
examines four different types of immigrant legal service provision
programs, examines the outcomes of each, and makes a series of
recommendations for future programs.

**Bill Summary: American Families United Act**
The
bill would provide protection from deportation for some members of
mixed-status families living in the U.S.

* * *

*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.

 

DONATE

 

**Follow Us**

 

[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]

 

 

 

The

**Only in America** podcast brings you to the people behind our
nation's immigration debate.

 

Listen now on:

 

**iTunes**
,
**Stitcher**
,
**Spotify** ,
and **more.**

 

 

National Immigration Forum

50 F Street NW, Suite 300

Washington, DC 20001

www.immigrationforum.org

 

Unsubscribe from the Legislative Bulletin
or opt-out from all Forum emails.

 

                                               
           
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

National Immigration Forum, 50 F Street NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20001, United States