Legislative Bulletin

 

 

Hello all,

The National Immigration Forum's Legislative Bulletin for Friday,
October 22, 2021 is now posted.

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

[link removed]

All the best,

Arturo 

**LEGISLATIVE BULLETIN - Friday, October 22, 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. 2989

**DHS Blue Campaign Enhancement Act**

The bill would develop online, interactive training videos and other
web-based training opportunities for federal, state, local, tribal, and
territorial law enforcement officers to tackle human trafficking. The
bill would also create a campaign advisory board formed by members of
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE), among others.

Sponsored by Senator Gary Peters (D-Michigan) (1

cosponsor- 1 Republican, 0 Democrats)

10/18/2021 Introduced in the Senate by Senator Peters

10/18/2021 Referred to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs

S. 2990

**Denying Earnings to the Military Oligarchy in Cuba and Restricting
Activities of the Cuban Intelligence Apparatus Act (DEMOCRACIA Act)**

The bill would prohibit the issuance of any type of visas to individuals
engaged in providing financial, material, or technological support to
the Government of Cuba. This is a companion bill of H.R. 5557
.

Sponsored by Senator Rick Scott (R-Florida) (4

cosponsors- 4 Republicans, 0 Democrats)

10/18/2021 Introduced in the Senate by Senator Scott

10/18/2021 Referred to the Senate Committees on Foreign Affairs,
Judiciary, and Rules.

S. 2991

**Countering Human Trafficking Act of 2021**

The bill would make permanent the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Center for Countering Human Trafficking (CCHT), a pilot program that was
started in October 2020. CCHT would operate within ICE Homeland Security
Investigations (HSI). The bill would also allow the CCHT to modernize
their systems and operations to support worldwide investigations on
human trafficking and forced labor in supply chains. Finally, the bill
would expand national public awareness and law enforcement training
initiatives to boost counter-trafficking efforts.

Sponsored by Senator Gary Peters (D-Michigan) (1

cosponsor- 1 Republican, 0 Democrats)

10/18/2021 Introduced in the Senate by Senator Peters

10/18/2021 Referred to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs

S. 3002

**Stop the Surge of Unsafe Rio Grande Encampments (SURGE) Act of 2021**

The bill would create processing facilities in Rhode Island,
Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Delaware, California, and Vermont
and relocate unauthorized migrants apprehended in South Texas to the
newly established facilities.

Sponsored by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) (0

cosponsors)

10/19/2021 Introduced in the Senate by Senator Cruz

10/19/2021 Referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary

H.R. 5618

**Reimagining Asylum Processing Act**

The bill would establish Humanitarian Processing Centers (HPC) for
asylum seekers along the southern border of the United States. HPCs
would provide orientation about the asylum-seeking process, legal
counsel and other materials to prepare for a credible fear interview
(CFI), referrals to community-based case management programs,
interpreters, and medical screening.

Sponsored by Representative Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) (0

cosponsors)

10/19/2021 Introduced in the House by Representative Escobar

10/19/2021 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary

H.R. 5636

**Kerrie Orozco First Responders Act**

The bill would allow immediate relatives of first responders who die in
the line of duty to continue to process their immigration applications
in a timely manner.

Sponsored by Representative Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) (4

cosponsors- 3 Democrats, 1 Republican)

10/20/2021 Introduced in the House by Representative Bacon

10/20/2021 Referred to the House Committees on the Judiciary

LEGISLATIVE FLOOR CALENDARThe U.S. Senate will be in session the week of
October 25, 2021.

The U.S. House of Representatives will be in session from Monday,
October 25, through Thursday, October 28, 2021.

**UPCOMING HEARINGS AND MARKUPS**There are no immigration-related
hearings scheduled for the week of October 25, 2021.

THEMES IN WASHINGTON THIS WEEK

****Federal****

****Border Apprehensions Decline in September as High Fiscal Year Total
Revealed****According to multiple

reports

on October 20, preliminary data from Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
show that the overall number of migrant apprehensions at the Southwest
border in Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 has risen to over 1.7 million, the
highest fiscal year total in decades. The high fiscal year totals belie
a second straight month of declining apprehensions, as the leaked data

for September indicates an approximate 8% drop in apprehensions from the
numbers seen in August and a 10% drop from July. Prior to this August
and September, overall apprehensions had increased in every single month
since March 2020.

The high number of migrants who were apprehended at the border in FY
2021 does not necessarily indicate an unheralded number of unique
unauthorized border crossers. The fiscal year was characterized by
extremely high recidivism, as the rate of repeat crossers regularly
surpassed

25%, close to triple what it was in FY 2018 and FY 2019. In addition, as
a greater number of migrants have chosen to simply turn themselves in to
seek legal protection and as Border Patrol implements modern
surveillance technologies, the proportion of CBP-estimated "got aways"
- who are not listed in apprehension statistics - has declined
significantly
.

Of the 1.7 million apprehended in FY 2021, over 1 million

were immediately expelled under Title 42, a Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) protocol that has given CBP the authority to
summarily deport unauthorized border crossers, even those who are
attempting to make a legal claim for asylum or other protection. The
Biden administration has faced significant

criticism

in recent weeks for continuing to use Title 42 to conduct mass
deportation flights to Haiti after the Department of Homeland Security
had previously written

in August that "Haiti is grappling with a deteriorating political
crisis, violence, and a staggering increase in human rights abuses."

While overall border numbers have declined in recent months, arrivals
from the Caribbean and South America have been rising. U.S. officials
are reportedly tracking

a large caravan of Haitian, Venezuelan, and Cuban migrants currently
gathered in South Mexico and planning to travel north to the U.S.-Mexico
border. According to an October 18 report
,
the Department of Homeland Security is engaging in new initiatives to
better track the movement of migrants in South and Central America,
including the use of social media tracking and surveillance drones.

****Biden Administration Engages with Latin American Countries to Slow
Migration to the U.S.****On October 20, Secretary of State Antony
Blinken participated

in the Regional Migration Ministerial meeting hosted in Bogota by
Colombia's President Iván Duque to discuss strategies to counter
irregular hemispheric migration. In the meeting - where seventeen
countries from the hemisphere were represented - Blinken highlighted

that irregular migration is a shared problem that cannot be solved by
one country alone. He appealed to the rest of the countries in the
Americas to present a united front to tackle the challenges that
irregular migration poses.

Blinken warned

that under current conditions, mass migration is poised to increase in
much of the region. He urged all countries to address the root causes of
migration, and called on states to take specific and concrete steps to
slow down the numbers of irregular migration so that the situation as a
whole can become safer, more orderly, and more humane.

On October 19, President Biden's Special Envoy for Climate, John
Kerry, met

near the Mexico-Guatemala border with Mexican President Andres Manuel
López Obrador to discuss a plan to tackle the root causes of migration
and climate change. López Obrador introduced Secretary Kerry to
**Sembrando Vida**
,
a program that the Mexican government has undertaken to plant trees,
support the goal to eliminate deforestation, create sustainable jobs in
the agricultural sector, and create opportunities for would-be migrants
in their communities of origin.

****USCIS Updates Policy Regarding Visa Applications for Victims of
Trafficking****On October 20, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
(USCIS) issued new guidance

regarding the adjudication and granting of T visa status to qualified
applicants. T Visas grant

nonimmigrant victims of sex or labor trafficking up to four years of
legal status in the U.S., work authorization, some federal and state
benefits, and an eventual pathway to legal permanent residence. Law
enforcement and other "certifying agencies" must assert that prospective
T Visa applicants have cooperated in the investigation of the
trafficking to the extent that they were able.

The new guidance is the first of its kind from USCIS, and it serves to
clarify misunderstandings or confusion

that certifying agencies may have relating to eligibility requirements,
burdens of proof, and quality of evidence in T Visa cases. It also
provides guidance on how USCIS investigates and corroborates claims of
sex trafficking and involuntary servitude.

The guidance aligns with the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) new
"victim-centered" approach that it will start to implement throughout
all its agencies. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated
,
"Safeguarding, supporting, and respecting victims of human
trafficking is not just the right thing to do. It also enables law
enforcement to better detect, investigate, and prosecute
perpetrators of human trafficking." The new guidance comes on the
one-year anniversary of the creation of DHS's Center for Countering
Human Trafficking (CCHT) which is
tasked with

the prosecution of human traffickers and the protection of their
victims.

****Legal****

****Court Orders Biden Administration to Issue 9,095 Reserved 2020
Diversity Visas****On October 13, a judge in the U.S. District Court for
the District of Columbia ordered
 the
Biden Administration, once again, to process the 9,095 diversity visas
that had been reserved from Fiscal Year (FY) 2020. The ruling comes
after an extended process that started in 2020 when former President
Donald Trump temporarily banned noncitizens from moving to the U.S. on
new immigrant visas. The ban forced the State Department to suspend the
adjudication of visas for recipients subject to the immigration ban. The
suspension caused approximately 40,000 of the 55,000 available diversity
visas for FY 2020 to remain unissued by the September 30, 2020 deadline.
On that date, the same District judge ordered the U.S. State Department
to reserve 9,095 diversity visas for future processing pending the final
resolution of the case. Nearly a year later, on August 17, the court
ordered

the administration to issue those reserved visas.

After the court's order, however, the Biden administration asked the
court to suspend the requirement to issue the reserved visas until FY
2023. They argued

that the delay of processing was necessary for the following reasons: 1)
the State Department's Visa Office is currently focusing on efforts
surrounding Afghani applicants for the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV), 2)
the Department does not have adequate information systems or groundwork
to process diversity visas applications after the conclusion of a Fiscal
Year, and 3) the Department does not have the capacity
to resume processing
2020 diversity visa applications. Nevertheless, in his most
recent ruling
,
the judge did not accept these considerations and ordered, once again,
to issue the 9,095 reserved 2020 diversity visas.

The Diversity Visa Immigrant Program 
is
designed to allow additional immigration opportunities to people from
countries with relatively low rates of immigration to the U.S. Accessing
a diversity visa is a multi-step process, which consists first of
entering a computerized lottery which selects 55,000 individuals each
year, and then a lengthy application, interview, and visa issuance stage
before lottery winners can finally receive their green cards.

****Biden Administration Eliminates Trump-era Case Quotas for
Immigration Judges****On October 19, the Department of Justice (DOJ)
ended

the case quota system that required immigration judges to close at least
700 cases per year to get a "satisfactory" rating.

Since the implementation of the quota system in 2018 under the Trump
administration, the immigration judges union had complained

that the quotas valued expediency over due process and was not an
appropriate metric to evaluate judges. The union had also argued that
the quotas were a threat to the judicial independence of immigration
judges.

Immigration groups and lawyers had also warned

that quotas would exacerbate the case backlog by encouraging individuals
to appeal their decisions by implying that the judge did not provide
them adequate time to make their case. The backlog did increase from
700,000 cases in 2018 to 1.5 million cases in 2021.

The DOJ, after canceling the quota system, announced

that "the agency is in the process of developing new performance
measures that will accurately reflect the workload of an immigration
judge. These new performance measures will focus on balance and equity
for the various types of docket assignments, and we look forward to
sharing them with you shortly."

****States & Local****

****Utah's Gov. Cox Creates Afghan Community Fund to Help Evacuees in
the State****On October 18, Utah's Governor Spencer Cox announced

the launch of an Afghan Community Fund to help the 756 Afghan evacuees
expected to be resettled in the state. The Afghan Community Fund -
which tops $275,000 - is a public-private partnership that will
support Afghan evacuees in critical areas such as legal support, health
care, education, housing, food, and special needs for women and
children. The majority of Afghans slated to come to Utah were granted
humanitarian parole

to enter the United States. They are currently at several military bases
receiving thorough medical and security screenings, preparing to be
resettled.

According to a recently publicized letter

from the Pentagon to Congress, 44% of the 53,000 Afghan evacuees housed
temporarily at eight U.S. military bases are children. They were
evacuated from Afghanistan during the U.S. withdrawal from the country
in August, which is said to be the largest air-lift operation in U.S.
history, evacuating more than 124,000 people in a matter of weeks. Out
of the total population of people who were evacuated, "85% were Afghans
eligible for an SIV or P1 or P2 refugee status and their family members,
7% were U.S. citizens, 5% were lawful permanent residents, and 3% held
some sort of U.S. visa," the letter

states.

****Nominations & Personnel****

****Senate Finance Committee Holds Confirmation Hearing for CBP
Nominee****On October 19, Chris Magnus, Police Chief of Tuscon, Arizona,
testified

before the Senate Finance Committee on his nomination to be the next
Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). During the
hearing, Chief Magnus stated that he would enforce immigration laws in a
way that seeks to better balance border security with humane treatment
of migrants in federal custody. If confirmed, Magnus said that he would
take a nonpartisan approach to immigration enforcement and would improve
the training of CBP personnel. He also highlighted

his personal connection to immigration, noting that his father was a
Norwegian immigrant, his mother the child of German immigrants, and his
husband, an immigrant from Hong Kong.

CBP has not had a Senate-confirmed leader

since 2019. If Chief Magnus's nomination clears the Finance Committee,
he will still need to be confirmed by the full Senate.

If confirmed, Chief Magnus would be tasked with securing and
protecting U.S. borders, managing and processing arriving migrants and
asylum seekers, and securing the initial transfer of unaccompanied
minors from Border Patrol stations to the Department of Health and Human
Services. Magnus's nomination has drawn support
 from law enforcement
officials around the country.

GOVERNMENT REPORTS

**Congressional Research Service (CRS):****The Department of Homeland
Security's Reported "Metering" Policy: Legal Issues**

**, October 15, 2021**This Legal Sidebar from the Congressional Research
Service focuses on metering, a Trump-era DHS policy that limits the
number of asylum seekers that are processed each day at designated ports
of entry. CRS reports that the policy sought to address an
"unprecedented rise in asylum requests," as well as safety and health
concerns resulting from overcrowding at ports of entry. However,
according to CRS, the policy has led to long wait times and overcrowded
conditions on the Mexican side of the border, and has arguably
incentivized attempts to illegally cross the border between ports of
entry along the U.S. southern border.

**Department of Homeland Security - Office of the Inspector General
(OIG**): **ICE Needs to Improve Its Oversight of Segregation Use in
Detention Facilities**

**, October 13, 2021**This report highlights that U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) failed to comply with segregation reporting
requirements between 2015 and 2019. Segregation is the practice of
isolating detainees from the general population for disciplinary or
administrative reasons. The report reveals that ICE did not ensure that
detention facilities complied with records retention requirements. OIG
reports that ICE's own reporting policy prevents transparency with
Congress and the public about the prevalence of segregation use. Hence,
the report concludes that without adequate oversight, clear policies,
and comprehensive data, ICE does not know the full extent of detention
facilities' use of segregation, which hinders its ability to ensure
compliance with policy and prevent and detect potential misuse of
segregation.

**SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM RESOURCES****Explainer: What's
Happening at the U.S.-Mexico Border**
This
regularly updated explainer breaks down what is happening at the
U.S.-Mexico border, analyzing CBP data on recent apprehensions,
describing the impact and use of Title 42 expulsions as well as the
treatment of arriving UACs, and providing additional context on reports
of increased migration to the U.S. and releases of migrant families into
the interior. The explainer also includes a Facebook live discussion
covering recent developments at the border.

**Explainer: DHS Immigration Enforcement Guidelines**
This
is an explainer on the new DHS immigration enforcement priorities issued
on September 30. The new guidance provides flexibility to DHS personnel,
who are advised to balance aggravating and mitigating factors when
making enforcement determinations.

**Fact Sheet: Unused Green Card Recapture**
This
fact sheet explains, in simple terms, what green card recapture means.
Every year, the U.S. sets aside a specific number of available green
cards for individuals from all around the world. However, over the
years, various administrative complications have left hundreds of
thousands of green cards unissued. To tackle the backlog - and
consequently trigger economic growth - policy analysts and immigration
advocates have suggested recapturing the unused green cards accumulated
over the past three decades, going back to 1992.

* * *

*This Bulletin is not intended to be comprehensive. Please contact
Arturo Castellanos-Canales, National Immigration Forum Policy and
Advocacy Associate, with comments and suggestions of additional items to
be included. Arturo 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

10 G Street NE, Suite 500

Washington, DC 20002

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, 10 G St NE, Suite 500, Washington, D.C. 20002, United States