|
The U.S. House
of Representatives has passed a bill that would criminalize the status
of millions of non-U.S. citizens, mandate that lawful immigrants
convicted of minor crimes be deported, require all employers in the U.S.
to use a costly and unreliable electronic system to verify the
employment eligibility of all workers, and fundamentally disrupt our
society and economy.
The House approved the Border Protection,
Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 (HR 4437) on
Dec. 16, 2005, by a vote of 239 to 182. Voting in favor of the bill
were 203 Republicans and 36 Democrats; voting against were 164
Democrats, 17 Republicans, and 1 independent. House Judiciary Committee
Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI) had introduced the bill on
Dec. 8, 2005, and his committee approved it less than two days later.
The bill reached the House floor a scant eight days after its
introduction.
The bill would provide no road to lawful
status for the millions of undocumented noncitizens already in the U.S.,
nor does it address the crucial need for comprehensive immigration
reform -- reform that addresses the fact that, as long as there is no
viable legal alternative, people will continue to enter the U.S.
illegally to reunite with family here and to fill jobs that most U.S.
citizens eschew.
Though the House has now passed its
immigration bill, the Senate is not expected to act on immigration
legislation until February 2006. Once the Senate has passed an
immigration bill, the House and Senate bills will have to be reconciled
by a conference committee.
HR 4437 emerged from the House Judiciary
Committee with provisions that would have a detrimental effect on
citizens and documented and undocumented noncitizens alike, because it
would:
-
Make unlawful presence in the U.S. a crime
-- a shortcut to authorizing state and local police to enforce
federal immigration law.
-
Make conviction of unlawful presence in the
U.S. an aggravated felony, which could make millions of undocumented
immigrants permanently ineligible for any legalization program.
-
Expand detention of non-U.S. citizens in
removal proceedings.
-
Expand the definition of criminal "alien
smuggling" in such a way that anyone who assists an undocumented
person to live or remain in the U.S. could be charged with a
criminal offense.
-
Require the expedited removal of
noncitizens (except for Mexicans, Canadians, and Cubans) apprehended
within 100 miles of the border within 14 days of their arrival in
the U.S.
-
Gut due process protections and access to
judicial review for immigrants.
-
Create a phone and Internet-based
employment eligibility verification system (EEVS) that not only all
employers would be required to use, but also those who recruit or
refer individuals for employment, including labor agencies and
nonprofit groups.
As passed by the House, the bill includes not
only these provisions, but additional draconian ones that were added by
amendments adopted when the bill was debated on the House floor. Among
the amendments that the House Rules Committee refused to authorize a
vote on were one offered by Reps. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) and Howard Berman
(D-CA) that would have incorporated portions of the Secure America and
Orderly Immigration Act (HR 2330/S. 1033), including the Essential
Worker Visa Program, Adjustment of Status for Undocumented Immigrants,
and Family Unity and Backlog Reduction provisions, into HR 4437. The
Rules Committee also disallowed provisions denying citizenship to the
U.S.-born children of undocumented persons and denying admission to the
U.S. to pregnant women who come here to give birth.
The amendments
that were adopted on the House floor include provisions that would:
-
Dramatically expand passport and document
fraud provisions and penalties, expand mandatory detention to apply
to more categories of immigrants, broaden the aggravated felony
definition, and create new grounds of inadmissibility and
deportability.
-
Require the construction of a fence along
the U.S.-Mexico border.
-
Authorize state and local police to enforce
federal immigration law.
-
Withhold funds from state and local
governments deemed to have policies preventing their cooperation
with federal immigration law enforcement.
-
Enter certain immigration information into
the National Crime Information Center database.
-
Prohibit the use of Border Patrol uniforms
made in Mexico.
-
Eliminate the diversity visa program.
-
Require that foreign embassies be notified
when citizens of the countries they represent have renounced their
allegiance to foreign countries and sworn allegiance to the U.S.
-
Delay indefinitely applications for
adjustment of status or other immigration benefits if fraud by the
applicant is alleged.
Sensenbrenner himself
offered an amendment to soften the committee-approved provision that
would make unlawful presence in the U.S. a felony for purposes of
criminal law and an aggravated felony for purposes of immigration law.
His amendment, which was defeated, would have made unlawful presence a
misdemeanor.
An early version of Sensenbrenner's manager's
amendment contained a "sense of Congress" statement that a necessary
part of securing the international land and maritime border of the U.S.
entails creation of a secure legal channel by which the foreign workers
needed to keep the U.S. economy growing may enter and leave the
country. After some Republican representatives objected to this
provision, it was eliminated from the final version of the manager's
amendment.
On Dec. 15, the White House issued a
"Statement of Administration Policy" that urged passage of the bill.
The following is a summary of HR 4437's major
provisions:
Title I largely deals with development of
border control strategy.
Among other things, it would require the
secretary of the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) to take steps to
achieve "operational control" of the entire land and maritime border of
the U.S. It would require the secretary to develop a comprehensive plan
for the systematic surveillance of the borders and a national strategy
for border security. The secretary also would have to report to
Congress on the implementation of border security agreements with Mexico
and Canada, the "One Face at the Border" initiative (the DHS initiative
to institute a unified border inspection process, one that does not
separate immigration, customs, and agricultural inspection functions),
the impact of the airspace security mission in the National Capital
Region, the progress toward tracking the movements and activities of
gang members who travel between Central America and the U.S., and the
implementation of a radiation detection program at ports of entry.
The bill would require that fingerprint
databases maintained by different federal agencies be integrated and
that ten fingerprints (rather than just two) be collected for each
person whose fingerprints are required. It calls for improvement of
two-way communication capabilities among federal, state, and local
agencies and residents in remote areas. It also calls for more
personnel to staff ports of entry, as well as more human-canine teams
for drug and other detection work. Subject to appropriations, the DHS
would be required to reimburse property owners for private property
damaged by unlawful entry of noncitizens on a U.S. government
right-of-way. The DHS secretary also would be required to collect data
regarding unauthorized noncitizens who receive medical care after being
encountered or taken into custody by the Border Patrol.
This section includes a "sense of Congress"
statement that every tool should be used to enforce immigration laws.
It also would require that Border Patrol uniforms be made in the U.S.
and impose requirements for implementation of the United States Visitor
and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program at all land
border ports of entry (US-VISIT is the automated system the DHS is
developing to keep track of visitors' and immigrants' entries into and
departures from the U.S.). It would prohibit the granting of adjustment
of status (to permanent residence) or any other immigration relief to a
noncitizen applicant until security checks on the applicant are
completed and any fraud the applicant is suspected of is fully
investigated and found to be unsubstantiated.
Title II -- Combating Alien Smuggling and Illegal
Entry and Presence
Title II would expand the definition of
"aggravated felony" in the main immigration statute, the Immigration and
Nationality Act.
First, the aggravated felony definition would
be expanded to include all "smuggling offenses." In making smuggling
offenses an aggravated felony, the bill would expand the types of acts
that are considered "smuggling" offenses under INA section 274. These
would include illegal activities a person engages in with knowledge or
in reckless disregard of the fact that another individual is not
lawfully allowed to enter, remain, or reside in the U.S. Such
"smuggling"-related activities would include harboring, shielding, or
transporting an undocumented person, as well as assisting or encouraging
such a person to reside in the U.S.
Second, all illegal entry and reentry offenses
carrying a prison sentence of one year or more would be deemed
aggravated felonies. Employers who knowingly hired at least 10 workers
knowing that they were undocumented would be liable for a fine and
imprisonment of not more than 5 years. In addition, the definition of
"aggravated felony" would be expanded to include "soliciting, aiding,
abetting, counseling, commanding, inducing, procuring or an attempt
or conspiracy to commit" any of the many offenses described in INA sec.
101(a)(43), the provision that defines "aggravated felony" (HR 4437
would add the italicized words).
The bill also would criminalize certain acts
that currently are not considered crimes and would provide that certain
offenses carry stiffer criminal sentences. For example, if the bill's
provisions were to become law, it not only would be a federal crime to
be unlawfully present in the U.S., but that crime would also be
considered an aggravated felony for immigration purposes. It also would
impose upon individuals who help certain noncitizens to enter the U.S.
the same sentences that the noncitizens themselves would receive and
would add "smuggling" offenses to the list of crimes that, if committed
with a firearm, would result in sentence enhancements.
Whereas now persons who are found to have made
false claims of U.S. citizenship are barred from admission to the U.S.
and from being granted permanent residence, HR 4437 would expand those
bars to persons who make false claims of U.S. nationality. In addition,
the bill would place harsh restrictions on the availability of voluntary
departure as a form of immigration relief. It would reduce the maximum
allowable time for departure from 120 days to 60 days (or 45 days if
granted at the conclusion of removal proceedings) and would require
that, in exchange for being granted voluntary departure, a person must
waive all rights to appeal his or her immigration case. If the person
were to later file an appeal, that appeal would invalidate the grant of
voluntary departure and the person would be deemed not to have departed
the U.S. in a timely fashion. The bill would require that all persons
receiving a voluntary departure grant post a bond or demonstrate serious
financial hardship. Should the person fail to depart within the granted
time, he or she would be subject to a $3,000 fine, would be ineligible
for certain forms of relief for 10 years, and would be unable to file a
motion to reopen removal proceedings (except in order to apply for
withholding of removal or relief under the Convention Against Torture,
or CAT). Finally, this bill would prevent any court from extending or
granting a stay of the voluntary departure period.
The bill would impose additional rules
restricting motions to reopen or reconsider a removal decision and would
impose barriers for reopening a case when the DHS wishes to remove a
noncitizen to a country that was not considered as a possible "country
of removal" during the person's removal proceedings.
This title also would dramatically expand the
category of passport and document fraud offenses and reduce the level of
intent (by the person charged with such an offense) required for
conviction. It would authorize the forfeiture of property by persons
convicted of such crimes and its seizure by the government. It would
even make omission of a material fact (e.g., when filling out an
application for a government document) a basis for criminal charges for
falsely making a document. The bill would make no exceptions to these
provisions for refugees or victims of violence or duress.
Title II also would expand mandatory detention
of noncitizens by creating a statutory presumption requiring mandatory
detention if the detained person is undocumented, subject to a final
order of removal, or has committed certain felony offenses. As already
mentioned, it would expand the definition of "aggravated felony," and it
would create new grounds of inadmissibility and deportability.
The bill incorporates portions of the CLEAR
Act (HR 3137) by asserting the inherent authority of states and
political subdivisions to investigate, identify, apprehend, arrest, and
detain or transfer to federal custody non-U.S. citizens encountered in
the U.S. It would require that an immigration law training manual and
pocket guide be prepared by the DHS for use by state and local law
enforcement officers, but that it need not be carried by them; and that
DHS make immigration law enforcement training available to local
authorities, but that such training not be a prerequisite for exercising
this "inherent" authority. The bill would expand the Institutional
Removal Program and authorize that noncitizens be kept in detention
after they complete criminal sentences. It would require that funds
appropriated to reimburse states for incarcerating noncitizens be
withheld from any state that has a policy prohibiting law enforcement
officers from cooperating with federal immigration law enforcement.
Title III -- Border Security Cooperation and
Enforcement
Title III would require the secretaries of
Homeland Security and Defense to develop a joint strategic plan to use
Dept. of Defense equipment to assist with DHS surveillance activities at
U.S. land and maritime borders. Both would be required to report on the
plan to Congress six months after its implementation. The act provides
that nothing in it should be construed as altering the prohibition under
the Posse Comitatus Act on using the Army or Air Force to enforce civil
and criminal laws of the U.S. except as expressly authorized by Congress
or the Constitution.
Under this title, the secretaries of DHS and
the Interior also would be required to evaluate border security
vulnerabilities on land adjacent to the border (land under the
jurisdiction of the Dept. of the Interior). Specifically, they would be
required to evaluate vulnerability to entry of terrorists, unauthorized
noncitizens, and drugs and other contraband. The DHS would be required
to then provide appropriate assistance on that land to address such
vulnerabilities.
The bill also provides for withholding federal
funds under any law enforcement grant programs if any person, agency, or
government entity is found to be in violation of section 642 of the
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996,
which prohibits localities from restricting officials from sending
information about the immigration status of an individual to the DHS.
The bill also would create a "Red Zone Defense Border Intelligence Pilot
Program" along the southwest border.
Title IV would require that noncitizens
attempting to enter the U.S. illegally be detained until either they are
removed from the U.S. or a final decision admitting them has been
issued. The only exceptions would be for noncitizens who are permitted
to withdraw an application for admission into the U.S. or are paroled
into the U.S. "for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public
benefit." The mandatory detention provision would not apply to "any
alien who is a native or citizen of a country in the Western Hemisphere
with whose government the United States does not have full diplomatic
relations" -- namely, to any national of Cuba. This exception for Cubans
corresponds to an exception for Cubans from being subject to expedited
removal at ports of entry.
To provide detention space for the massive
increase in detainees that would result if this provision were to become
law, the bill calls for the use of all facilities operated or contracted
by the DHS and all possible options to increase detention facilities,
including temporary facilities, state and local jails, private spaces,
and "secure alternatives to detention." "Secure alternatives to
detention" are not defined.
This title also would authorize the DHS to
enter into contracts with private entities to transport noncitizens from
the border to detention facilities and other locations.
Title IV would also give the DHS secretary
authority, after consultation with the secretary of State, to deny
admission to any noncitizen from a country that has not accepted or
unreasonably delayed accepting its citizens who have been ordered
removed from the U.S. This would apply even to noncitizens who have
been granted visas.
The bill also would require the DHS to apply
expedited removal to noncitizens from countries other than Mexico and
Canada who have not been admitted or paroled into the U.S. and who are
apprehended within 100 miles of a land border within 14 days of the time
they entered the U.S. Once again, Cubans would be exempted from this
provision. This expansion of expedited removal would deny many
noncitizens even the limited due process protections that currently
exist for people in their situation.
Under this title, the comptroller general
would be required to submit a report to Congress on deaths of detainees
in immigration custody. The DHS also would be required to report to
Congress on apprehensions and deportations.
Finally, the bill would authorize that certain
information be added to the National Crime Information Center database,
including information on individuals with final orders of removal,
voluntary departure agreements, visa overstays, as well as on
individuals whose visas have been revoked.
Title V would require the DHS secretary to
coordinate border security efforts among agencies within the DHS and to
identify and remedy any failure of coordination or integration. It also
would establish within the DHS an Office of Air and Marine Operations,
whose mission it would be to prevent "the entry of terrorists, other
unlawful aliens, instruments of terror, narcotics, and other contraband
into the United States" and to help other agencies do the same. The
bill also would transfer functions of the Customs Patrol Officers unit
of the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation to the DHS.
The bill would bar individuals deportable for
engaging in "terrorism" from applying for and receiving withholding of
removal. The bar would apply retroactively to all such individuals,
whether they are in removal, deportation, or exclusion proceedings.
For individuals under removal orders who
cannot be removed to their native country, the bill would create a new
category of "dangerous aliens" and would allow the government to detain
them indefinitely. This section of the bill is expressly intended to
invalidate the Supreme Court's decisions in Zadvydas v. Davis,
533 U.S. 678 (2001), and Clark v. Martinez, 125 S. Ct. 716
(2005), by allowing the government to indefinitely detain certain
noncitizens, in violation of the U.S. Constitution's Due Process Clause.
The bill also would increase criminal
penalties and set mandatory minimum sentences for individuals with final
removal orders who are convicted of willfully failing to depart the
country.
In addition, the bill would create new grounds
of inadmissibility for those who are convicted of the following types of
offenses: misusing Social Security cards; fraud in connection with ID
documents; aggravated felonies; unlawfully procuring citizenship; and
domestic violence-related offenses such as stalking, child abuse,
neglect or abandonment, or having violated a restraining order. The
bill would make persons with such convictions ineligible for a waiver of
inadmissibility.
The bill also would create a new deportation
ground for those convicted of a single offense of driving while
intoxicated or refusing to take a breathalyzer test in violation of
state law.
The bill also would make inadmissible and
deportable any person who participates in a group that the U.S. attorney
general designates as a "criminal street gang." Under the bill, such a
person would be ineligible for asylum, withholding of removal, or
temporary protected status.
In an attempt to keep criminal noncitizens out
of the country, the bill would authorize the DHS to use expedited
removal against individuals who are inadmissible to the U.S. based on
criminal grounds. It also would bar refugees and asylees who have been
convicted of an aggravated felony from becoming lawful permanent
residents. Furthermore, the bill would further limit who may qualify
for U.S. citizenship by:
-
Amending the definition of "good moral
character" to exclude all individuals who are inadmissible based on
terrorism or security-related reasons;
-
Barring naturalization to those individuals
deemed removable based on terrorist or national security grounds;
-
Precluding individuals in removal
proceedings from naturalizing;
-
Preventing judicial review of the DHS's
determination that an applicant lacks good moral character;
-
Effectively eliminating the right of a
naturalization applicant whose case has been pending for over 120
days following his or her interview to seek relief in federal court;
-
Allowing the DHS to consider the
applicant's entire life history, not merely the relevant statutory
period, for good moral character determinations; and
-
Barring individuals with aggravated felony
convictions from establishing good moral character, even if they
were convicted before Nov. 29, 1990.
The bill also would amend the
"sexual abuse of
a minor" subsection of the "aggravated felony" definition by allowing
the age of the victim to be established through either evidence in the
conviction record or extrinsic evidence not in the conviction record.
The bill also would amend the definition of "conviction" such that any
post-conviction relief (e.g., expungement of a conviction) would have no
mitigating effect on the negative immigration consequences flowing from
the conviction.
Under HR 4437, the federal government would be
authorized to reimburse local sheriffs in counties on the southern
border who detain, house, and transport noncitizens unlawfully present
in the U.S. Those individuals in local custody on immigration
violations would be deemed to be in federal custody. This section
would, in effect, authorize local sheriffs to enforce federal
immigration law.
Under the bill, U.S. attorneys would be
required to verify the immigration status of criminal defendants, and
federal courts would be required to modify their databases to reflect
defendants' unlawful status and other related information.
The bill also would establish enhanced
penalties for crimes of violence or drug trafficking when they are
committed by undocumented persons.
Title VII of the bill would make two
main changes to the current I‑9 employment eligibility verification
process. It would create a mandatory employment eligibility
verification system (EEVS) that would make use of toll-free telephone
lines and other toll-free electronic media through which workers'
identities and employment authorization could be verified by the DHS,
and that would apply not only to employers but also to those who recruit
or refer individuals for employment, including labor service agencies
and nonprofit groups. This means that temporary worker agencies, day
laborer sites, worker centers, and other similar job placement or
referral programs (including job fairs and websites such as
monster.com) would have to comply with a process similar to the
current I‑9 process before referring workers to a job. While the
original bill would have required union hiring halls also to verify the
employment authorization of individuals they refer or dispatch to jobs,
certain unions were able to persuade Sensenbrenner to exclude them from
this provision through his manager's amendment.
Besides requiring that the government correct
and update inaccurate records that would make the EEVS unworkable,
HR 4437 includes no procedures, funds, or safeguards for ensuring
that this requirement is carried out. If workers are unjustly fired due
to errors in the EEVS, a provision of the bill would prevent them from
filing class action lawsuits against the government or the employer to
redress this injustice. Instead, they would be allowed only to file a
claim against the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
Within two years of the bill's enactment,
employers would be required to verify the employment eligibility of new
hires via the EEVS. They would also be required to verify the
employment eligibility of current employees. In the first two years
after this provision's enactment, employers would be allowed to verify
current workers' employment authorization on a voluntary basis at any
time. Mandatory verification would be required three years from
enactment for all employees of federal, state, or local governments,
including for all workers at a federal, state, or local government
building, military base, nuclear energy site, weapons site, airport, or
other critical infrastructure. Participation in the system for all
other employers would be mandatory six years after this provision's
enactment.
The bill also would require that the Social
Security Administration issue a report within nine months of the bill's
enactment regarding the creation of a new Social Security card made of a
durable plastic that includes an encrypted and machine-readable
electronic identification strip and a digital photograph. All workers
would have to obtain this new Social Security card before they could
obtain new employment. These cards would be issued to every individual
who is authorized to work in the U.S. Employers, referrers, and
recruiters would be required to demand that all new hires present the
plastic Social Security card when going through the employment
eligibility verification process.
In addition,
employers, referrers, and recruiters would be required to document on
the employment eligibility verification form the person's Social
Security number (SSN) if the person claims to have been issued an SSN.
If the person is a not a U.S. citizen, the employer, referrer, or
recruiter would be required to document the person's alien number,
regardless of which documents the person used to establish his or her
identity and work authorization. Employers, referrers, and recruiters
would be required to retain the form and make it available for
inspection to the DHS, the Dept. of Labor, or the Office of Special
Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices.
Another manager's
amendment included in the final version of the bill would preempt states
and local governments from requiring businesses (such as Home Depot), as
a condition of doing business, to provide a shelter for day laborers or
do anything that facilitates hiring of day laborers.
Title VIII would further reduce the already
limited access to the federal courts available to noncitizens seeking
review of their removal orders or challenging the manner in which they
have been ordered removed.
The bill would authorize the Board of
Immigration Appeals to order immigrants removed. In effect, this would
allow the BIA to reverse immigration judge decisions finding immigrants
not removable without having to remand the case to the IJ to issue a
final order of removal. In addition, no federal court -- district or
appellate -- would be able to review the revocation of a nonimmigrant
visa (e.g., a student visa or guest worker visa). This change in law
would apply retroactively to make visa revocations that have already
occurred nonreviewable.
The bill would expand reinstatement, the
process by which a final order of removal is reinstated when the
immigrant against whom it was issued reenters the country illegally.
Under the bill, reinstatement would not require a hearing before an
immigration judge and would apply regardless of the date of the issuance
of the final order of removal or the date of illegal reentry. These
changes appear to be designed to reverse appellate court decisions that
have found that the reinstatement statute does not apply to pre-Apr. 1,
1997, reentries and that a reinstatement order must be issued by an
immigration judge. The bill also clarifies that the bar on all forms of
discretionary relief imposed by current law on immigrants subject to
reinstatement would apply "regardless of when application for such
relief was filed." It would severely limit court challenges to the
validity of this reformed version of reinstatement and its
implementation, as well as to individual reinstatement orders. All
these changes would apply retroactively to all reinstatement orders
issued on or after Apr. 1, 1997.
In addition, the bill would change the
statutory standard that applicants for withholding of removal must meet
by requiring immigrants to prove that their life or freedom would be
threatened if they were removed from the U.S. and that their race,
religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or
political opinion "would be at least one central reason for such
threat." This change would restrict the withholding of removal
statute in the same manner as the asylum statute was amended by the REAL
ID Act. (For a description of this section of the REAL ID Act, see
"REAL
ID Act Enacted: Imposes Rigid Driver's License Requirements,"
Immigrants' Rights Update, June 30, 2005, p. 2.) The intent
of these changes is to negate circuit court precedent under which asylum
applicants can establish eligibility for asylum or withholding even when
they face persecution based on multiple grounds if removed, so long as
one of reasons for the persecution is a protected ground. This change
would apply retroactively to all withholding of removal petitions filed
on or after May 22, 2005.
The bill also includes a vast court-stripping
proposal that would severely restrict immigrants' access to federal
courts. If enacted, this section would create a truncated, one-judge
screening process for petitions for review of removal orders, in which
the judge would have to certify the case for review within 60 days.
Critically, the judge's decision to issue (or not to issue) a
certificate would not be reviewable by any other circuit judge or court
by any process. If the judge failed to make a decision on the
certificate of reviewability within this time period, the petition for
review would be automatically denied and any stay of removal would be
dissolved without further action required by the court or the
government.
The court-stripping provisions contained in
Title VII are only the latest in a series of such legislative and
administrative efforts undertaken in the past decade with regard to
immigration claims. Congress passed legislation in 1996 and again in
2005 limiting access to the federal courts for review of many
immigration decisions. Currently, immigrants who challenge their
removal only have one real chance to get federal court review -- through
the federal courts of appeal -- and even this review is often limited in
scope. In 2002, former Attorney General John Ashcroft exacerbated the
effect of restrictions on judicial review of removal orders by reducing
the number of BIA panel members from 23 to 11. He also restricted
administrative review of removal orders by instituting a "streamlining
process" whereby most appeals filed with the BIA are reviewed by only
one BIA member, who often affirms the decision that was appealed without
issuing an opinion explaining the affirmance.
The bill also would bar the issuance of
nonimmigrant visas unless the noncitizens receiving such visas waive
their right to review or appeal any determination of their
inadmissibility made at the port of entry or to contest their removal.
Under current law only tourists who enter the U.S. under the visa waiver
program must make such waivers of their rights. Under this section, a
significantly larger number of noncitizens would be forced to waive
their basic rights in order to enter the country legally, as
nonimmigrant visas cover a wide range of temporary visitors, including
students, fiancés/fiancées, and spouses of U.S. citizens entering on K‑3
visas.
Title IX would require that a pilot program be
established that would test the use of automated systems for
prescreening of passengers on foreign flights.
This title calls for reinforced fencing along
certain areas of the U.S.-Mexico border. It also calls for a study
assessing the feasibility of building a state-of-the-art barrier along
the U.S.-Canada border.
Title XI would eliminate the diversity visa
program.
Title XII would codify in law the oath of
allegiance. Because the oath is currently contained in the Code of
Federal Regulations, it only has regulatory authority supporting it.
The bill would invest the oath with the authority of law. Without any
regard for the effect on asylees and refugees and their families, this
title would also require that foreign embassies be notified when
citizens of the country they represent renounce allegiance to that
country and swear allegiance to the U.S.
This title provides for an Office of Security
and Investigations within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to
investigate internal corruption on the part of the agency's employees,
as well as immigration benefits fraud. It would require that no
adjustment of status or other immigration benefit may be approved unless
any suspected fraud relating to the application for the benefit has been
fully investigated and found to be unsubstantiated. This provision
would leave noncitizens suspected of fraud in limbo, awaiting a ruling
of "unsubstantiated." Under this title, an additional $10 fee would be
charged to applicants for adjustment of status, extension of status, or
an immigrant or nonimmigrant visa, to pay for investigations of internal
corruption and benefits fraud.
By
Joan Friedland, NILC
immigration policy attorney,
Monica Guizar, NILC
employment policy attorney,
and
Karen Tumlin, NILC Skadden
Fellow
friedland@nilc-dc.org;
guizar@nilc.org; tumlin@nilc.org
|
