Legislative Bulletin

 

 

Hello all,

The National Immigration Forum's Legislative Bulletin for Friday,
September 23, 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, September 23, 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. 3157**

**Bridging the Gap for New Americans Act**

The bill would require the Department of Labor to conduct a study
of the factors affecting employment opportunities for immigrants and
refugees who have professional credentials obtained in foreign
countries.

Sponsored by Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) (5
 cosponsors-
3 Republicans, 2 Democrats)

11/03/2021 Introduced in the Senate by Senator Klobuchar

11/03/2021 Referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions.

06/23/2022 Passed the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor,
and Pensions via unanimous consent.

06/23/2022 Passed the Senate without amendment via unanimous consent

09/19/2022 Passed the House of Representatives by a 363-52 vote

S. 4875

**Restoring Law and Order Act**

The bill would establish a federal grant for law enforcement agencies to
increase the detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants who
have committed a crime in the U.S., among other priorities.

Sponsored by Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) (1

cosponsor- 1 Republican, 0 Democrats)

09/15/2022 Introduced in the Senate by Senator Blackburn

09/15/2022 Referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary

S. 4914

**A bill to direct the Secretary of State to designate certain Mexican
drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and to submit a report
to Congress justifying such designations in accordance with section 219
of the Immigration and Nationality Act**

Among various other provisions, the bill would deny the issuance of any
type of visas to people associated with certain Mexican drug cartels.

Sponsored by Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) (1

cosponsor- 1 Republican, 0 Democrats)

09/21/2022 Introduced in the Senate by Senator Blackburn

09/21/2022 Referred to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

H.R. 7338

**Russia Cryptocurrency Transparency Act**

Among various other provisions, the bill would require the Department of
State to submit a report to Congress on the most effective avenues to
provide humanitarian aid to Ukrainian refugees, including possible uses
of cryptocurrencies or other technologies incorporating blockchains.

Sponsored by Representative Gregory Meeks (D-New York) (1

cosponsor- 1 Republican, 0 Democrats)

03/31/2022 Introduced in the House by Representative Meeks

03/31/2022 Referred to the House Committees on Foreign Affairs and
Financial Services

09/20/2022 Passed the House of Representatives

09/21/2022 Received in the Senate and referred to the Committee on
Foreign Relations

H.R. 8813

**Assuring that the Fact-Finding Examination Continues to Track (AFFECT)
Human Rights in Venezuela Act**

Among various other provisions, the bill would authorize the U.S.
President to urge the United Nations to address the humanitarian needs
of Venezuelan refugees and migrants in third countries through direct
assistance.

Sponsored by Representative Albio Sires (D-New Jersey) (13

cosponsors- 9 Democrats, 4 Republicans)

09/13/2022 Introduced in the House by Representative Sires

09/13/2022 Referred to the House Committees on Foreign Affairs

09/14/2022 Ordered to be reported (amended) by voice vote

H.R. 8915

**To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act with respect to the
apprehension and detention of certain aliens**

Sponsored by Representative Madison Cawthorn (R-North Carolina) (0

cosponsors)

09/20/2022 Introduced in the House by Representative Cawthorn

09/20/2022 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary

H.R. 8940

**To require the United States Commissioner of the International
Boundary and Water Commission to negotiate an agreement with Mexico
relating to the number of aliens detained in the United States**

Sponsored by Representative Debbie Lesko (R-Arizona) (2

cosponsors- 2 Republicans, 0 Democrats)

09/21/2022 Introduced in the House by Representative Lesko

09/21/2022 Referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs

H.R. 8943

**To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to permanently bar aliens
who are ordered removed after failing to appear at a removal proceeding,
absent exceptional circumstances, from becoming permanent residents of
the United States**

Sponsored by Representative David Rouzer (R-North Carolina) (4

cosponsors- 4 Republicans, 0 Democrats)

09/21/2022 Introduced in the House by Representative Rouzer

09/21/2022 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary

**LEGISLATIVE FLOOR CALENDAR**

The U.S. Senate will be in session from Tuesday, September 27, through
Friday, September 30, 2022.

The U.S. House of Representatives will be in session from Wednesday,
September 28, through Friday, September 30, 2022.

**UPCOMING HEARINGS AND MARKUPS**There are no immigration-related
hearings scheduled for next week.

**THEMES IN WASHINGTON THIS WEEK**

****Legal****

****Migrants Flown to Martha's Vineyard File Lawsuit Against Florida's
Governor DeSantis; Texas Sheriff Opens Criminal Investigation****On
September 20, the migrants flown

from San Antonio, Texas, to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts filed a
class action lawsuit
against
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and other state officials. The migrants
argue

that Florida's government - who financed the two charter flights that
transported them - gave them misleading information promising cash
assistance, employment services, and housing assistance. The complaint
,
filed in federal court in Boston, also argues that the immigrants were
lied about the flight's final destination. The immigrants were told they
were headed to Boston and Washington, D.C., not Martha's Vineyard. The
lawsuit also alleges

that Florida officials handed them a fake "official-looking brochure"
using language from the Massachusetts Refugee Resettlement Program in
order to "buttress their false oral representations." For all those
reasons, the migrants said they "suffered economic, emotional, and
constitutional harms."

In addition, on September 19, Sheriff Javier Salazar of Bexar County,
which includes San Antonio, Texas, announced

that he had opened a criminal investigation into the flights that
transported the migrants from the Migrant Resource Center in San Antonio
to Martha's Vineyard. In the announcement
,
he said that while it was too early to determine which laws might have
been broken, it was clear that many of the migrants had been misled

and lured under false pretenses by the DeSantis administration in an
effort to score political points.

In addition, multiple reports

highlighted

that cabinet heads and White House officials would meet on September 23
to discuss litigation options to respond to the actions of the governors
of Florida, Texas, and Arizona who have since April been transporting

immigrants from the border to Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago,
and Martha's Vineyard. Thousands of migrants have been transported under
the schemes so far, the vast majority in the country legally to pursue
removal and/or asylum claims in immigration court. Receiving communities
have begun to develop coordinated responses

to help welcome arrivals.

****Federal****

****Congress Passes Bipartisan Bill To Strengthen Professional Migrants'
Access to Work****On September 19, the House of Representatives voted
363-52 to pass the Bridging the
Gap for New Americans Act
.
The bill - introduced in March by Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota)
and approved unanimously in the Senate in June - requires the
Department of Labor to conduct a study of the factors affecting
employment opportunities for immigrants and refugees with professional
credentials obtained in foreign countries, and create policy
recommendations designed to enable new Americans to obtain
skill-appropriate employment. The bill now awaits President Biden's
signature to become law.

The bill is expected to enhance

the labor opportunities for the over 2 million college-educated
immigrants in the United States who are unemployed or underemployed in
jobs that fail to draw on their education and expertise, according

to the Migration Policy Institute (MPI).

****Border Data Shows Slight Increase of Apprehensions in**

**August****On September 19, U.S. Customs and Border Protection
(CBP) reported

that the agency detained 203,597 migrants crossing from Mexico during
the month of August. This marks a slight 1.8% increase

from July's total of 199,976 encounters. Accounting for a high repeat
crossing rate of 22% - the same as last month - unique border
encounters in August stood at 157,921. With the August data included,
over the past eleven months immigrant encounters by U.S. authorities
along the southern border have for the first time surpassed the
threshold of 2 million

in a single fiscal year. Following seasonal patterns of previous years,
migration is expected to increase further in September as the summer
weather cools down.

The use of Title 42 - a pandemic-era policy used to rapidly expel
migrants without providing them a chance to seek protection under U.S.
law - continued to decline overall. 36% of all encounters were
immediately expelled under Title 42 in August, down from over 50% of all
encounters earlier this year and in 2020 and 2021. The decreasing use of
Title 42 is due in part to an increase in arrivals from Venezuela,
Nicaragua, and Cuba, all of which refuse to accept Title 42 expulsions.
Together, migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba accounted for
over one quarter of those encounterd last month, and unique arrivals
from those countries have increased 175% from this point last year.

Particularly Venezuelan migrants comprise an increasing number of
arrivals, with August crossings growing 44% from July and about 400%
since May. Owing to strained U.S.-Venezuela diplomatic relations,
Venezuelans cannot be deported under Title 42. They are also more likely
than average to receive
asylum. Conversely, migration from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and
Honduras declined for the third consecutive month and the four countries
- which have typically made up a large proportion of overall
migration- combined to represent only 36% of unique encounters at the
southern border in August.

The released data also revealed that CBP conducted 1,567 Search and
Rescue efforts along the border in August. Overall this fiscal year, the
agency has conducted over 20,000 Search and Rescue efforts, a
significant increase from past fiscal years.

****Biden Administration Arrests and Indicts Eight Alleged Human
Smugglers****On September 13, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
announced

that one of its operations, Joint Task Force Alpha (JTFA), resulted in
the arrest and indictment

of eight alleged prolific human smugglers in Texas, Louisiana,
Mississippi, and Alabama. In total, JTFA and similar operations have
encompassed 1,300 law enforcement officers in Latin America and resulted
in 5,000 regional arrests and the seizure of over 7,000 kilograms of
drugs since its inception

in 2021.

On September 14, senior officials from DHS, U.S. Border Patrol (USBP),
and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) participated

in the "High-Level International Conference on Border Security in the
Americas" hosted by the International Criminal Police Organization
(INTERPOL). They presented theirstrategy

of broad interagency and international collaboration with Latin America
to reduce human smuggling, transnational crime, and irregular migration.
Deputy DHS Secretary John Tien emphasized the importance of this
strategy, stating

that efforts to address irregular migration and national security in the
Americas "cannot succeed through any single country's individual
policies."

****Biden Administration Publishes Rule Eliminating Regulations That
Hindered Access to Employment Authorization for Asylum Seekers****On
September 21, 2022, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published
a final rule

that restores asylum seekers' ability to work legally in the U.S. while
their asylum applications are pending. In June 2020, two Trump-era
rules, the Timeline Repeal rule

and the Broader Asylum EAD rule
,
made it increasingly difficult for asylum applicants to obtain work
authorization. For example, they were required to wait 365 days before
applying for work authorization instead of the previous 150 days, the
validity period of their work authorization was reduced, and U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) was no longer required to
adjudicate work authorization applications within 30 days.

As a result, many asylum seekers were left without a legal means to work
while their asylum applications moved through the years-long backlog
. But in February 2022, a
U.S. District Court vacated

these rules because then-Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf was unlawfully
installed as Secretary when they were issued. The September 2022 rule
codifies the regulatory language that existed before these Trump-era
rules.

****Biden Administration Announces $170 Million in Humanitarian
Assistance for Rohingya Refugees****On September 22, Secretary of State
Antony Blinken announced

more than $170 million in additional humanitarian assistance for the
Rohingya refugees who have been forcibly displaced

to Bangladesh due to the military coup in Myanmar and security forces'
violence in Rakhine State. According to the most recent report

by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), there are over 980,000
refugees and asylum-seekers from Myanmar in neighboring countries,
mainly in Bangladesh. Moreover, the total number of internally displaced
people (IDPs) within the country recently surpassed 1.1 million -
769,000 of whom have been internally displaced since February 2021.

According to Secretary Blinken, the funds will continue enabling the
provision of food, safe drinking water, health care, protection,
education, shelter, and psychosocial support for Rohingya refugees. The
total assistance of the United States in response to the Rohingya
refugee crisis has reached nearly $1.9 billion

since August 2017. In Fiscal Year 2022, the U.S. has thus far resettled
1,498 refugees from Myanmar.

****USCIS Announces Third Phase of Premium Processing for Certain
Employment-Based Green Card Petitions****On September 15, U.S. Customs
and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced
 the
third phase of premium processing for petitioners who have a pending
green card petition under the EB-1 and EB-2
classifications. Premium processing provides - for an additional fee
- expedited processing for certain categories of applicants by
guaranteeing some adjudicative action on the case within 15 to 45
calendar days.

This phase only applies to applicants who have already filed Form I-140
 under an E13 multinational executive and
manager classification or E21 classification as a member of professions
with advanced degrees or exceptional ability seeking a national interest
waiver. The agency announced that petitioners who wish to request
a premium processing upgrade must file a Request
for Premium Processing Service (Form I-907
).

In the announcement, USCIS highlighted
 that
the expansion of premium processing is part of the agency's efforts to
increase efficiency and reduce burdens to the
overall legal immigration system.

**GOVERNMENT REPORTS**

**Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General
(DHS-OIG); "****U.S. Border Patrol Screened Migrants at the Southwest
Border but Could Strengthen Processes**

**;" September 19, 2022**This OIG report highlights that although U.S.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) followed its screening procedures to
prevent migrants with serious criminal backgrounds from entering the
United States, CBP did not always assign alien registration numbers
(A-numbers) for all arrivals, which is necessary to create files for
arriving immigrants that document their immigration history and include
biographic and biometric data. In addition, the report notes that CBP
does not always properly maintain migrants' files and some of those
files are either lost or mistakenly disposed of.

**Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General
(DHS-OIG); "****ICE and CBP Should Improve Visa Security Program
Screening and Vetting Operations**

**;" September 16, 2022**This OIG report identifies issues involving the
Visa Security Program (VSP) processes and systems. The report highlights
that although U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) use a screening system that
compares 36 data points in each application, CBP does not keep detailed
records of this screening. As a result, it is not possible to verify if
CBP fully screens every application. The report also notes that some
analysts do not sufficiently support their conclusions in the
applications that they review. Finally, the report also notes that CBP
has failed to track the costs associated with the VSP.

**SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM RESOURCES****Fact Sheet:
Undocumented Immigrants and Federal Health Care Benefits**
The
fact sheet explains what health care benefits undocumented immigrants
are eligible for and how much federal and state governments spend on
these benefits. The fact sheet highlights that undocumented immigrants
- who have limited access to the U.S. healthcare system - consume
only a small fraction of total health expenditures, contributing far
more through federal, state, and local taxes.

FAQ: Transporting Migrants From the Border to Other States
In
recent weeks, stories of governors from states on the U.S. southern
border transporting migrants by bus or plane to other states has
dominated the news. This explainer compiles some answers to some of the
most frequently asked questions to help you better understand the nuance
and context behind these news stories.

**The Current State of DACA: Challenges Await in Litigation and Rulemaking**
This
explainer describes the current state of the Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, discussing the ongoing attempts to
scale back or
end the program in the courts and the current administration's
attempts to preserve the program.

* * *

*This Bulletin is not intended to be comprehensive. Please contact
Arturo Castellanos-Canales, National Immigration Forum Senior 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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