Legislative Bulletin

 

 

Hello all,

The National Immigration Forum's Legislative Bulletin for Friday, April
1, 2022, is now posted.

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

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All the best,

Arturo 

**LEGISLATIVE BULLETIN - Friday, April 1, 2022**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. 3936

**Asset Seizure for Ukraine Reconstruction Act**

The bill would allow the President of the United States to confiscate
any property or accounts subject to the jurisdiction of the United
States and valued over $5,000,000 of any foreign person whose wealth,
according to credible information, is derived in part through corruption
linked to or political support for the regime of Russian President
Vladimir Putin. The confiscated money would be used to support Ukrainian
refugees and refugee resettlement in neighboring countries and in the
United States. This is a companion bill of H.R. 6930
.

Sponsored by Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) (1

cosponsor- 1 Republican, 0 Democrats)

03/28/2022 Introduced in the Senate by Senator Bennet

03/28/2022 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary

H.R. 7212

**Safe Sponsor Act of 2022**

The bill would require unaccompanied immigrant children to be placed
only with U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. The bill would
also require a bond of at least $1,500, to be paid by the proposed
custodian, in assurance that the unaccompanied alien child will attend,
as necessary, each legal proceeding with respect to their immigration
status.

Sponsored by Representative Fred Keller (R-Pennsylvania) (4

cosponsors- 4 Republicans, 0 Democrats)

03/24/2022 Introduced in the House by Representative Keller

03/24/2022 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary

H.R. 7239

**Essential Workers for Economic Advancement Act**

The bill would create a new "H-2C" nonimmigrant visa category for
non-agricultural, low-skilled workers. The bill would create an initial
ceiling of 65,000 visas for primarily construction, hospitality, and
hospital workers.

Sponsored by Representative Lloyd Smucker (R-Pennsylvania) (0

cosponsors)

03/28/2022 Introduced in the House by Representative Smucker

03/28/2022 Referred to the House Committees on Ways and Means, Oversight
and Reform, and the Judiciary

H.R. 7257

**Humanitarian Standards for Individuals in Customs and Border
Protection Custody Act**

The bill would develop guidelines and protocols for the provision of
health screenings and appropriate medical care for individuals in the
custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The bill would also
require CBP to guarantee access to water, food, hygiene, and sanitary
equipment to all immigrant detainees.

Sponsored by Representative Raul Ruiz (D-California) (0

cosponsors)

03/28/2022 Introduced in the House by Representative Ruiz

03/28/2022 Referred to the House Committees on Homeland Security and the
Judiciary

H.R. 7260

**Comprehensive Southern Border Strategy Act**

The bill would require the Department of Homeland Security to submit to
Congress a comprehensive southern border strategy.

Sponsored by Representative Kim Young (R-California) (1

cosponsor- 1 Republican, 0 Democrats)

03/29/2022 Introduced in the House by Representative Young

03/29/2022 Referred to the House Committee on Homeland Security

H.R. 7287

**To amend the Anti-Border Corruption Act of 2010 to authorize certain
polygraph waiver authority**

Sponsored by Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) (8

cosponsors- 7 Republicans, 1 Democrat)

03/30/2022 Introduced in the House by Representative Crenshaw

03/30/2022 Referred to the House Committee on Homeland Security

**LEGISLATIVE FLOOR CALENDAR**

The U.S. Senate will be in session the week of Monday, April 4, 2022.

The U.S. House of Representatives will be in session from Monday, April
4, through Thursday, April 7, 2022.

**UPCOMING HEARINGS AND MARKUPS**

Hearing: Examining Title 42 and the Need to Restore Asylum at the Border

**Date:**Wednesday, April 6, 2022, at 2:00 pm E.T. (House Committee on
Homeland Security)

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

**Witnesses:**

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Senior Policy Counsel, American Immigration
Council

Kennji Kizuka, Associate Director, Research and Analysis, Refugee
Protection, Human Rights First

Adam Richards, Associate Professor, George Washington University School
of Medicine and Physicians for Human Rights Board Member

Sheriff Mark Dannels, Cochise County, Arizona

**THEMES IN WASHINGTON THIS WEEK**

****Federal****

****Biden Administration Plans to Stop Title 42 Border Expulsions in
May****On April 1, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
announced it would no longer authorize the use of Title 42 at the border
on May 23. Title 42 is a pandemic-era order that both the Trump and
Biden administrations have used since March 2020 to rapidly expel
arriving migrants without providing them the opportunity to seek asylum.
Since its implementation two years ago, immigration officials have
expelled more than 1.7 million

people using the rule.

Advocacy groups and international organizations have widely criticized

the policy. They argue

that deportations under Title 42 are inconsistent with international
norms and fail to uphold the fundamental human rights of migrants.
Moreover, a recent Human Rights First report

revealed that at least 9,886 
migrants
expelled at the U.S.-Mexico border under Title 42 had been victims of
kidnapping, torture, rape, and other violent attacks. Title 42 has also
been subject to multiple legal challenges, resulting in a March 4
decision

in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled the administration
cannot expel migrant families under Title 42 without first allowing them
to seek protection under U.S. law.

The potential wind-down appears to coincide with the timeline for a new
asylum rule
the Biden
administration announced last week and reports that the Biden
administration will start vaccinating

undocumented migrants without proof of vaccination who are apprehended
by border officials but not expelled under Title 42. Also, on March 30,
the Department of Homeland Security released

a fact sheet on its preparations for potential increases in migration,
including the construction of new border processing facilities.

On March 29, in response to the rumors about the possible end of Title
42, twenty-two Republican lawmakers from Texas sent a letter

urging the Biden administration to keep using Title 42 until "the number
of apprehensions along the southwest border drops to a manageable
level."

****President Biden's FY 2023 Budget Proposal Highlights
Immigration-Related Funding****On March 28, President Biden released

his budget proposal for fiscal year 2023 to fund the federal government
from October 1, 2022, through September 30, 2023. The proposal includes
billions
of dollars for immigration-related agencies, including $15.3 billion for
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), $8 billion for Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE), $765 million for U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services (USCIS), and $1.4 billion for the Department of
Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which is in
charge of America's immigration courts.

The budget proposal includes

$309 million for new border security technology and $527 million to fund
ICE's alternatives to detention (ATD) programming. The proposal also
cuts

funding for the number of ICE immigration detention beds - limiting
them to 25,000.

In the section of the budget proposal justifying

some of the funding amounts, the administration revealed new information
about the effectiveness of current border security policies. The budget
revealed

that CBP effectively interdicted an estimated 82.6% of attempted
irregular entrants and that on 96.9% of occasions it quickly reached
sites where technology had detected unlawful entrants.

****Biden Administration Will Discontinue Use or Reduce Rapacity of Four
ICE Detention Centers****On March 25, the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) announced

that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would discontinue use or
reduce capacity in four immigrant detention centers. In the
announcement, ICE outlined its plans to discontinue

the use of the Etowah County Detention Center in Alabama due to its
"long history of serious deficiencies identified during facility
inspections", limit the use of the Glades County Detention Center in
Florida due to "persistent and ongoing concerns related to the provision
of medical care at the facility", reduce the number of beds at the Winn
Correctional Center in Louisiana due to recent staffing constraints, and
transition the Alamance County Detention Facility in North Carolina from
long-term detention to an under 72-hour custody facility.

In the announcement, ICE Acting Director Tae Johnson highlighted

that the agency "will continue to review other immigration detention
centers and monitor the quality of treatment of detained individuals,
the conditions of detention, and other factors relevant to the continued
operation of each facility."

The announcement came only nine days after the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) recommended

the immediate relocation of all U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) detainees located at the Torrance County Detention Facility in
Estancia, New Mexico, citing

staffing shortages that have led to "excessive and avoidable unsanitary
conditions."

****Biden Administration Will Make Available an Additional 35,000 H-2B
Visas for the Second Half of FY 2022****On March 31, the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) announced 
the
forthcoming publication of a joint temporary final rule to make
available an additional 35,000 H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker
visas for the second half of fiscal year (FY) 2022. These visas will be
set aside for U.S. employers seeking to employ additional workers on or
after April 1, 2022, through September 30, 2022. Of the 35,000 visas,
23,500 will be available to returning H-2B workers, and 11,500 will
be reserved for nationals of Haiti, El Salvador, Guatemala, and
Honduras.

The H-2B program 
permits
employers to temporarily hire noncitizens to perform nonagricultural
temporary labor or services in the United States. Employers
seeking H-2B workers must certify there are not enough U.S. workers
who are able, willing, qualified, and available to do the temporary work
for which they seek a prospective foreign worker. In addition, they must
certify that employing H-2B workers will not adversely affect the
wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.

In the announcement of the policy, Secretary of Homeland Security
Alejandro Mayorkas stated
 that
"additional H-2B visas will help to support American businesses and
expand legal pathways for workers seeking to come to the United States."
Secretary Mayorkas also said
 that
DHS would apply greater scrutiny to those employers who have a record of
violating obligations to their workers and the H-2B program.

****Biden Administration Announces New Actions to Reduce USCIS
Backlogs****On March 29, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
(USCIS) - the federal agency that processes green cards, visas, and
employment authorization documents for immigrants - announced

three measures aimed at reducing the agency's pending caseload. The
measures

consist of expanding the categories of applicants who can pay extra fees
to have their immigration petitions adjudicated more quickly, proposing
a new rule that would provide relief to immigrants waiting for work
permit renewals, and setting new processing time goals.

The announcement came amid pressure to reduce USCIS's backlog. According
to recent reports , pending
employment authorization applications have increased from 676,000 in
March 2020 to 1.5 million as of December 2021, and citizenship
application-processing times increased from an average of nine months in
2019 to approximately a full year. Additionally, there are

** **313,852 pending Temporary Protected Status applications, 432,341
pending applications for asylum, and 789,426 pending green card
applications.

****Legal****

****Court Settlement Requires ICE to Consider Detainees' Financial
Capacity to Pay Bond****On March 29, a U.S. District Court approved

a settlement agreement that requires U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) and Southern California immigration judges to consider
the detainees' financial circumstances and ability to pay a bond before
setting unreasonable bond amounts.

The agreement stems from the case Hernandez v. Garland
,
a class-action lawsuit filed in 2016 by the American Civil Liberties
Union against ICE and California judges for failing to consider the
financial resources of detainees before setting a bond. Prior to the
settlement, the federal government was not required to consider the
ability to pay when setting bonds for those facing deportation. As a
result, "many immigrants remained incarcerated for months or even years
simply because they could not afford the bond," the ACLU said

in a statement.

One of the defendants was an immigrant

from Honduras arrested by ICE in 2012 and detained in the Santa Ana Jail
while his application for asylum was being decided. Bail was set at
$3,000, but he had no means to pay that bond so he remained in detention
for four years.

****Local****

****Maryland Legislature Expands Access to Medicaid for Undocumented
Pregnant People****On March 31, Maryland's legislature voted 33-14
- a
veto-proof majority - to advance bill HB 1080
,
or the Healthy Babies Equity Act, which expands Medicaid to pregnant
people regardless of immigration status. The bill, which has yet to be
signed into law by Governor Larry Hogan, would require the Maryland
Medical Assistance Program to provide comprehensive medical care and
other health care services to noncitizen pregnant women until their
children turn one year old.

**GOVERNMENT REPORTS**There were no immigration-related government
reports the week of Monday, March 28, 2022.

**SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM RESOURCES****Analysis:
Immigration Provisions in the America COMPETES Act**
This
analysis highlights the immigration-related provisions currently being
considered in negotiations around the America COMPETES Act bill. The
resource provides some background and context, summarizes the
provisions, and describes how they would bolster U.S. competitiveness.

**Why Businesses Should Support Immigration Reform**
This
paper argues that reforming the U.S. immigration system is an economic
imperative. Businesses benefit from needed immigration reforms to
provide permanent solutions for Dreamers, the agricultural workforce,
and other essential workers. These reforms can help address ongoing
labor shortages, fill job openings in key sectors dependent on immigrant
labor, strengthen the U.S. economy, and address long-term demographic
shortfalls.

**Biometrics at the Border**
This
paper explores the U.S. system for tracking entries, exits, and visa
overstays, and discusses why - although it has been federally mandated
for 26 years - we have been unable to fully implement a comprehensive
entry/exit tracking system. The paper also describes some of the pros
and cons of biometric data collection and issues a series of
recommendations for the entry/exit system moving forward.

* * *

*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.

 

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