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
H.R. ___
American Dream Employment Act
This bill would allow beneficiaries of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) to work as congressional staff for the House of Representatives or the Senate.
Sponsored by Representative Ann Kirkpatrick (D – Arizona) (16 cosponsors – 16 Democrats)
1/17/2019 Introduced in the House by Representative Kirkpatrick
H.R. 623
DREAMer House Employment Act of 2019
This bill would allow beneficiaries of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) to be employed by an office of a Member of the House of Representatives.
Sponsored by Representative Juan Vargas (D – California) (5 cosponsors – 5 Democrats)
1/16/2019 Introduced in the House by Representative Vargas
1/16/2019 Referred to the House Committee on House Administration
H.R. 641
Agricultural Worker Program Act
This bill would provide a path to citizenship for certain farmworkers and protect them from deportation. Companion legislation has been introduced in the Senate by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California).
Sponsored by Representative Zoe Lofgren (D – California) (58 cosponsors – 58 Democrats)
1/17/2019 Introduced in the House by Representative Lofgren
H.R. 590
Freedom of Religion Act
This bill seeks to ensure immigrants are not denied entry to the United States, or other immigration benefits, based on their religion.
Sponsored by Representative Don Beyer (D – Virginia) (124 cosponsors – 124 Democrats)
1/16/2019 Introduced in the House by Representative Beyer
1/16/2019 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary
H.R. 586
The Fix the Immigration Loopholes Act
This bill would require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to keep children and parents apprehended at the border together in family detention while the parent’s unlawful entry cases are pending and would require the Department of Health and Human Services to provide DHS with background check information regarding sponsors and family members of unaccompanied children. The bill also would increase penalties for asylum claims that are deemed to be frivolous or fraudulent.
Sponsored by Representative Doug Collins (R – Georgia) (1 cosponsor – 1 Republican)
1/16/2019 Introduced in the House by Representative Collins
1/16/2019 Referred to the House Committees on the Judiciary and Foreign Affairs
H.R. 549
Venezuela TPS Act of 2019
This bill would allow Venezuelan nationals to become eligible for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in the United States.
Sponsored by Representative Darren Soto (D – Florida) (4 cosponsors – 1 Republican, 3 Democrats)
1/15/2019 Introduced in the House by Representative Soto
1/15/2019 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary
H.R. 523
To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to render overstaying a visa a criminal offense
This bill would criminalize unlawful presence of those who overstay a visa, amending the Immigration and Nationality Act to make overstaying a visa a criminal offense.
Sponsored by Representative Lloyd Smucker (R – Pennsylvania) (0 cosponsors)
1/11/2019 Introduced in the House by Representative Smucker
1/11/2019 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary
S. __
Agricultural Worker Program Act
This bill would provide a path to citizenship for certain farmworkers and protect them from deportation. H.R. 641 is the companion bill in the House.
Sponsored by Senator Feinstein (D – California) (10 cosponsors – 10 Democrats)
1/17/2019 Introduced in the Senate by Senator Feinstein
LEGISLATIVE FLOOR CALENDAR
The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives will be in session the week of Monday, January 21, 2019.
UPCOMING HEARINGS AND MARKUPS
There are no immigration- or workforce-related hearings scheduled for the week of Monday, January 21, 2019.
THEMES IN WASHINGTON THIS WEEK
Federal
Government Shutdown Hits Four-Week Mark with No End in Sight
As of January 18, the partial shutdown of the federal government extended to four weeks with no sign of a deal to end the impasse. With President Trump continuing to demand for $5.7 billion to begin building new physical barriers to begin fulfilling his promise of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and Democrats continuing to insist that Trump reopen the government before negotiating border security and immigration policy, a deal to reopen the government remains elusive.
House Democrats continued to pass bills to reopen the government without additional wall funding, passing a series of spending bills that House and Senate negotiators agreed to in 2018. As the Democratic-controlled House managed to pass several short-term spending bills, the Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) continued to deny Senate votes on the House bills a floor vote, continuing to insist that he will not bring up any government funding bill that the White House will not support. Democrats have demanded Senate votes on the funding bills to place Senators on the record and to demonstrate sufficient support to override a presidential veto. McConnell has rejected pursuing an override and reiterated his support for a border wall.
A handful of preliminary efforts to break the impasse were attempted, without success. After floating the notion of using emergency powers to circumvent Congress and build a wall, President Trump appeared to move away from that approach, stating on January 14 that has was “not looking to call a national emergency.” Trump also rejected a proposal from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) to pass a three-week continuing resolution to reopen the government as Congress negotiates border security and immigration. In the evening on January 14, Trump invited a group of moderate and newly-elected Democrats to a White House lunch the following day to discuss border security in an effort to bypass Democratic leaders, but the invitees declined to attend. The following day, the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, which includes a group of moderate Democrats (including some invited the previous day) met with Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and cabinet secretaries to discuss a potential deal, but limited progress was made.
Simultaneously, a bipartisan group of Senators started conversations to break the current deadlock, through an effort to draft a bipartisan letter to Trump pledging to work on a border security package after reopening the government. That effort failed when the letter organizers, who included Sens. Graham, Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona) and Chris Coons (D-Delaware), were unable to obtain 20 the signatures of 20 Senators from each party, which would be enough to suggest a veto-proof majority existed. The proposal would be a combination of border security enhancements and protections for young immigrants, who were brought to the U.S. without authorization as kids, and individuals with Temporary Protected Status (TPS). However, the Senate Majority Leader McConnell warned that he won’t bring any bill to the floor without the President’s signature.
Tensions boiled over midweek as Speaker Pelosi sent a letter to Trump on January 16 requesting that he delay the State of the Union address, deliver it from the Oval Office, or present it in writing due to the extensive security presence required by the speech. In response, on January 17, Trump denied Pelosi and a delegation of congressional Democrats access to a military plane scheduled to take them to visit NATO officials in Brussels and U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
In the meantime, the shutdown’s impact regular government operations continues to take its toll. Approximately 800,000 federal workers did not receive their first scheduled paycheck of 2019, and thousands of essential security workers, including Border Patrol officers and other DHS employees worked for no pay. Immigration courts were forced to cancel over 42,700 hearings, with an additional 20,000 cancellations expected per week until the government opens again.
A POLITICO/Morning consult poll showed that 54 percent of voters blame President Trump or congressional Republicans for the shutdown, while 33 percent blame congressional Democrats.
Pentagon Extends Deployment of Troops at the Border through September
The Pentagon announced on January 14 that it is extending the deployment of active-duty troops at the Southern border through September 2019. The Pentagon said the troops assistance would continue at the request of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and focus on mobile surveillance and placing concertina wire between ports of entry. The troop deployment, which started in late October 2018, had previously been scheduled to end on December 15, 2018.
Approximately 4,500 active-duty troops and National Guard forces are currently on the Southern border, but it is unclear if the number is expected to change through September. The troops were first sent to the border after a request from President Trump and DHS in response to a caravan of Central American migrants, including women and children, coming to the U.S., many to request asylum. However, consistent with federal law, troops at the border are mainly limited to support roles.
New U.S.-Bound Caravan Departing from Honduras Crosses Guatemala
The first 500 migrants in a new caravan traveling toward the U.S. have crossed through Guatemala and reached the Guatemala-Mexico border. The group was formed by about 800 Hondurans who departed the city of San Pedro Sula, Honduras on January 14 and have been joined by others from El Salvador as they move northward. It is estimated that a total of 2,000 migrants are traveling with the group both on foot and in vehicles. Migrants have cited gang violence and lack of economic and educational opportunity as reasons for leaving. When this latest group reaches the border, they will join other migrants awaiting processing of their asylum applications. Almost 50 percent of immigrants apprehended at the Southern border in 2016 came from Honduras, El Salvador, or Guatemala, as compared to only 10 percent in 2016—a testament to the worsening conditions of gang violence and dire poverty in these three countries.
Tornillo Shelter for Immigrant Minors Releases All Children; Homestead Detention Facility Expands
As of January 11, the Tornillo detention Camp near El Paso, Texas has released all its detained children to appropriate sponsors or transferred to other facilities. The tent camp that the Trump administration opened in June 2018 will now shut down. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) stated that total of almost 6,200 children have been placed in Tornillo since its opening. The camp had expanded rapidly, originally including 400 beds, 500 beds in August and roughly 4,000 beds in September. In November, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) reported that the facility failed to complete background checks on all staff members and that it didn’t employ adequate numbers of mental health professionals.
In the meantime, the administration reportedly plans to nearly double the capacity of the largest U.S. detention center for unaccompanied immigrant children in Homestead, Florida. The number of children in the facility is supposed to increase from 1,350 to 2,350. Immigration advocates claim the expansion is a sign that instead of ending the detention of children, the administration is simply changing its location.
Reports: Trump Administration Separated Thousands More Children than Previously Reported; Sought to Use Family Separation as Deterrent
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report on January 17 showing there have been thousands more immigrant children who were separated from their parents at the U.S. border than the Trump administration had previously acknowledged. The report reveals immigration authorities had been splitting families long before the zero-tolerance policy was formally implemented in April 2018, which required criminal prosecution of all adult migrants who arrived at the ports of entry without proper immigration documents. NBC News reported 1,995 children were separated from their families while the zero-tolerance policy was in place, from April 19 to May 21, 2018. Before the policy was implemented, U.S. immigration policies permitted immigration officers to split families only in limited circumstances. The OIG report found that it was unclear exactly how many families were impacted by these policies because the HHS failed to implement an adequate tracking system.
Shortly after OIG issued its report, NBC News reported that the Trump Administration considered a plan to explicitly separate migrant children from their parents in 2017, contrary to the Trump Administration’s previous statements denying the existence of an official family separation policy. NBC News obtained a draft of this plan from Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon), who received it from a government whistleblower. The draft plan, dated December 16, 2017, articulates policy suggestions by Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) staff. The explicit policy goal, stated numerous times in the draft’s comments, would be to deter families from attempting to cross the Mexico-U.S. border to seek asylum. The draft includes policies that were subsequently been implemented, such as requiring background checks for potential sponsors of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs), and ones that currently might be under consideration, including redefining the term UAC. The draft plan also examined increasing the use of expedited removal for families and repatriating separated children without providing them the due process protections provided to UACs. The draft plan makes no mention of reunification of families after separation.
Democratic leaders released statements responding to the OIG’s report and condemned the Trump administration’s policy while calling for reunification of children with their families. In addition, Senator Merkley requested that the FBI open an investigation to determine whether DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielson perjured herself when she testified under oath before Congress that the administration did not have a policy of family separation.
Legal
Federal Judge Blocks Trump Administration from Adding Citizenship Question to 2020 Census
On January 15, New York federal judge Jesse Furman blocked the Trump administration’s proposal to include a citizenship question in the 2020 census, ruling that Commerce Department Secretary Wilbur Ross’ plan to include the question was “unlawful.” The Justice Department had defended the citizenship question as necessary for complying with the Voting Rights Act. Federal judges in California and Maryland are also challenging the question, which has not been included in the census since 1950.
Pointing to emails and other evidence obtained during litigation, Furman pointed to evidence that indicated the request to include the citizenship question originated with Ross, contradicting the administration’s explanation. Furman also found that Ross and the Commerce Department failed to adhere to statutory requirements to “acquire and use” data from administrative records before adding additional “direct inquiries” to the Census and to report new Census questions to Congress at least three years before the Census begins. Furman also determined that the decision to include the question was not supported by evidence and was arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.
Furman explained that including a citizenship question would undercount millions of people, particularly non-citizens and Latinos, which would “translate into a loss of political power and funds, among other harms.” Advocates—including the ACLU and immigrant rights groups—believe it would discourage undocumented immigrants from participating in the census out of fear of deportation, stripping them of federal funds and congressional representation, which are largely determined by census data for the following 10-year period.
The ruling is expected to be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and, potentially, the U.S. Supreme Court. In a related matter, the Supreme Court will consider next month whether Secretary Ross and other federal officials can be required to provide testimony in a deposition under oath regarding their decision to add the question.
GOVERNMENT REPORTS
HHS Office of Inspector General: Separated Children Placed in Office of Refugee Resettlement Care (January 17, 2019)
This report examines the administration’s practices around family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border. After analysis of HHS internal data, review of court filings and other public documents, and multiple interviews with HHS senior leadership, agency officials, and staff, the report finds that even prior to the formal announcement of the zero-tolerance policy, ORR staff observed a steep increase in the number of separated children referred to the agency’s care.
SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM RESOURCES
Immigrants as Economic Contributors: Immigrants Fill the Temporary Needs of American Employers
This paper is part of a series examining immigrants’ various roles in our economy. It highlights research on immigrants employed as temporary workers, who fill the labor needs of U.S. employers that experience temporary and seasonal spikes in business, or who cannot find other ways to fill longer-term labor needs with the native-born workforce.
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act Safeguards Children
This blog explains Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) and how it protects UACs. It discusses the latest proposals to change TVPRA and how would such modifications hurt UACs.
Red States Will Feel Impact of Census Citizenship Question
This article discusses the impact the citizenship question is likely to have on conservative-leaning “red” states, including its impact congressional representation and federal funding.
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*This Bulletin is not intended to be comprehensive. Please contact Zuzana Cepla, National Immigration Forum Policy and Advocacy Associate, with comments and suggestions of additional items to be included. Zuzana can be reached at zcepla@immigrationforum.org. Thank you.