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Today, on a bipartisan vote of 13 to 5, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to pass Senate Bill 744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, out of the committee and on to the Senate floor for a full vote in the coming days.

The Senate committee mark-up spanned three weeks and covered many of the 300 amendments offered on every aspect of the bill. The resulting legislation represents a concerted effort to find a workable and fair immigration policy that makes our nation stronger.

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The Senate Judiciary Committee continues to consider amendments to Title II of the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act’’ (S.744) today. For many, Title II is the bill’s core as it deals with the legalization of the undocumented population already living here and lays out the rules concerning future immigration, among other issues.

One of the explicit goals of S.744 is to curtail future flows of unauthorized immigration by correcting some of the flaws of the current legal immigration system. To that end, it establishes an updated system of legal immigration that, in principle, seeks to match the country’s economic and labor needs while respecting principles of family unification. Evidence shows that changes in unauthorized migration have, to a great extent, followed fluctuations in the economy. In other words, undocumented flows tend to increase during periods of economic growth and decrease during periods of recession. The legal immigration system, on the contrary, has not been aligned with the economic cycle.

Based on this scenario, the bill contemplates mechanisms aimed at absorbing future flows through legal channels. For example, it creates a new nonimmigrant visa for lower-skilled workers called the W visa, which will create stronger channels for lower-skilled workers when the economy is growing. The W visa will be regulated by a new agency based on assessments of shortages in certain occupations. In addition, S.744 proposes changes in immigrant visas that will create stronger avenues for lower skilled workers. Specifically, under the new merit based-point system it allocates between 60,000 and 125,000 visas each year to lower skilled immigrants. The bill also raises the cap for employment-based immigrant visas allocated to lower skilled workers.

Aside from employment-based channels, the S.744 additionally removes some obstacles that currently obstruct family reunification. In this regard, it provides mechanisms to clear the backlog of visas that have been pending for 5 years after the petition was filed. It also reclassifies spouses and minor children of legal permanent residents (LPRs) as immediate relatives, which means that these family categories will no longer be subject to annual quotas. These proposed changes would serve as an additional incentive to avoid illegal immigration based on family separation issues.

As these programs are implemented, careful attention to how well the various demand-based calculators are working is essential. We must also carefully monitor the impact of the new system on particular groups. A preliminary analysis of the new merit-based point system, for example, reveals that some categories of people would be put at a disadvantage. Specifically, women, people who work in the informal economy (including those who do unpaid work), individuals with family ties to U.S. citizens with insufficient human capital credentials (i.e., formal education and employment history), middle age and older adults, and applicants from less-developed countries would be counted among those groups.

While there is still a lot of room for improvement, the solutions proposed in the bill are a significant leap forward and offer much stronger mechanisms and incentives for potential immigrants to use legal channels.

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Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee began its fourth day—and likely last week—of the immigration reform bill’s mark-up. After spending most of the day finishing the Title 3 (interior enforcement) amendments, the senators began on the last part of the bill, Title 2 (legalization), which includes the path to citizenship. They considered 50 amendments and approved 30 of them; five were withdrawn.

Over roughly eight hours of debate, the committee agreed to strong due process changes to S. 744, including providing immigrants in removal proceedings the right to access a copy of their A files. And they approved amendments from Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) that will help DREAMers who want to join the military or go to college.  For the most part, efforts to strip the bill of protections for asylum seekers, victims of domestic violence and trafficking were voted down.  Notably, an amendment to make three drunk driving convictions an aggravated felony (similar to an amendment adopted by the Judiciary Committee last year during the VAWA debate) offered by Senator Grassley passed 17 to 1, with Senator Leahy as the sole dissenting vote.  When the Senators finally reached Title II, after the dinner break, the Gang of 8 continued to keep a tight grip on the framework of legalization, protecting it from many amendments that would have made it more difficult for undocumented immigrants to qualify for the program,

Here are the amendments that the committee passed:

• Leahy 3: To provide work authorization for immigrants who are eligible for status as VAWA self-petitioners or for T or U visas while applications for such status or visas are pending
• Hatch 7: To terminate certain preferential treatment in immigration of Amerasians
• Graham 2: To provide for information sharing for visa overstays
• Klobuchar 2: To add elder abuse to the list of predicate crimes for U Visas
• Franken 8: To provide for the transfer of responsibility for trafficking protections
• Graham 1: To provide for termination of asylum or refugee status in cases of country return
• Coons 5: To provide immigrants in removal proceedings the right to receive a complete copy of certain immigration documents
• Hatch 6: To require the Secretary of Transportation to establish a pilot program for  mandatory biometric exit data system at airports in the United States with the highest volume of international air travel
• Feinstein 4: To require background checks to be conducted on all refugees and asylees before they are granted such status
• Coons 8: To ensure asylum applicants receive work authorization within 180 days of filing applications for asylum
• Feinstein 5: To establish a pilot program to deter, detect, and prevent child trafficking
• Franken 7: To protect children affected by immigration enforcement actions
• Lee 16: To preserve the criminal offense of knowing use of a fraudulent immigration document
• Coons 6: To require federal agencies with responsibility for detained aliens to maintain records on those aliens
• Blumenthal 2: To protect immigrant detainees from unnecessary or inhumane solitary confinement
• Lee 17: To make attempted misuse of a passport a criminal offense
• Blumenthal 3: To ensure effective enforcement of protections against trafficking and abuse involving workers recruited abroad
• Blumenthal 4: To revise the requirements relating to regulations on protections against trafficking and abuse in the recruitment of workers abroad
• Blumenthal 5: To improve the authorities relating to protections against trafficking and abuse involving workers recruited abroad
• Hatch 2: To impose enhanced penalties for certain drug offenses that take place on federal property
• Hirono 22: To provide for enhanced protections for vulnerable unaccompanied alien children and female detainees
• Grassley 44: To amend the definition of aggravated felony to include three drunk driving convictions
• Blumenthal 8: To clarify the use of immigration enforcement authorities of the Department of Homeland Security at sensitive locations
• Coons 10: To provide that individuals authorized to be employed in the United States may not be denied professional, commercial, or business licenses on the basis of immigration status
• Blumenthal 12: To permit registered provisional immigrants who have honorably served in the Armed Forces and meet certain other conditions to become naturalized United States citizens
• Graham 3: To require additional security screening for certain aliens
• Hirono 21: To ensure that DREAMers qualify for certain types of federal financial aid to cover the cost of higher education
• Hirono 12: To permit the entirety of the penalty payable in connection with application for registered provisional immigrant status to be paid in installments

• Feinstein 3: To provide for the admission to the United States of certain Tibetans

• Coons 12: To deny safe haven to foreign human rights violators

Tomorrow, the committee will continue discussing amendments to Title 2, which is expected to be the most contentious portion. And there are still amendments to the H-1B sections that had been delayed from last week. It will be a long week for the senators— Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) told the committee members Monday night that he is hopeful they can finish before Friday, and to do that, they will meet late into the night each day this week.

Continue reading »]]> On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee began its mark-up of Title III of S.744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act. When the mark-up continues on Monday, Senators are likely to vote on amendments addressing immigration courts. These amendments will be crucial in determining whether the full Senate receives a bill that provides due process protections to immigrants in removal proceedings.

S.744 would make significant improvements to an immigration court system that, for far too long, has failed to provide thousands of noncitizens with a meaningful opportunity to be heard. Currently, immigrants are deported without ever seeing a courtroom or after their cases receive only perfunctory review. Vulnerable noncitizens go before a judge without access to an attorney or necessary evidence. And, each year, thousands of noncitizens are detained throughout the immigration court process – often far from family, the evidence and witnesses they need for their case, and legal services – without being afforded an opportunity to ask for bail. This is a system that falls far short of the American values of due process and fundamental fairness.

S.744 contains key provisions that would improve the immigration court system by directing additional resources to the immigration courts, providing counsel for some noncitizens, enhancing review of removal decisions, and reigning in the overblown detention regime. In so doing, S.744 would help ensure that noncitizens get a fair hearing. However, next week, these important reforms may face attack from a variety of amendments, which would return the system to the status quo or even make things worse:

• Gutting the bill’s program to provide counsel for certain vulnerable immigrants, including children and people with serious mental disabilities;
• Expanding the already overbroad and wasteful immigration detention system and eliminating a cost-effective program that allows DHS to use secure alternatives to detention, like ankle monitors;
• Making it more difficult to get bond hearings and reasonable bond;
• Eliminating provisions to ensure that noncitizens who give up their right to a full hearing do so voluntarily and with an understanding of their rights and options;
• Cutting the bill’s expansion of Legal Orientation Programs (LOP), leaving many detained immigrants without even basic information about their rights and the immigration court process;
• Rolling back the bill’s expansion of immigration judges and staff for immigration courts and the BIA, leaving no way to address the system’s lengthy backlog; and
• Eliminating the bill’s guarantee of 3-judge panels from the BIA.

In addition, Senators are likely to offer amendments that would further ensure immigrants have access to fair hearings. For example, the Judiciary Committee will likely consider an amendment that would provide noncitizens facing removal with automatic access to their immigration records. The Committee also may consider an amendment that would help ensure that people who are able to demonstrate compelling reasons for not appearing for their hearing are not ordered deported and would prevent immigrants from being deported for crimes that were not cause for deportation at the time they were committed. Votes on these amendments will be key in determining whether future immigrants will have a meaningful opportunity to be heard when facing deportation.

Continue reading »]]> Yesterday was day 3 of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s mark-up on S. 744, the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill. While it wasn’t as exciting as the first two days—no dramatic speeches or vocal disagreement—several important votes were taken to modify the mandatory E-verify program, adding and subtracting protections, safeguards, and reporting requirements. This lack of drama was a good thing, however, because there was far less posturing and far more legislating going on.

Another reason for the more technical tone of the debate was the subject matter at hand. E-verify has been the subject of years of heated conversations and votes, so it might have surprised people that the tone was so civil and pragmatic this time around. There is broad consensus among lawmakers, however, that the E-verify program—despite concerns over accuracy, privacy, and civil rights—is a necessary tool for interior enforcement. The fight now stands over whether mandatory E-verify on its own is sufficient to deter illegal immigration. For many supporters of immigration reform, E-verify has been perceived as just another type of “enforcement first” tactic unless it was coupled with legalization and fixes to the way immigrant workers are admitted into the U.S. Because the E-verify program under debate now is part of a comprehensive reform plan, the broader arguments against it are beginning to melt away. What remains are serious questions about the best way to implement a program that protects everyone’s interests. That is what the senators largely focused on yesterday.

But the importance of having a debate on the substance of the issue—what is the capacity to handle millions of employers’ inquiries, how quickly can the government build the system, how do you protect against errors and potential job losses if an error is made, how do you protect privacy and Social Security numbers—these are the kinds of questions we want lawmakers to be talking about. The big news on E-Verify really is that there was enough consensus to actually legislate—something that has become rare in Congress these days.

Even more striking was how Senator Grassley repeatedly talked about the inevitability of immigration reform.  Although he consistently argued for tougher enforcement mechanisms throughout the bill, he said more than once “when this bill becomes law.” Not “if” but “when.”  The assumption that a bill that includes both legalization and E-verify will pass is an important and dramatic development in its own quiet way.

That’s not to say that the next week of mark-up—possibly four full days and into the night, which is a huge time commitment for 18 senators to make—will be easy. The upcoming debates on the remainder of Title III will be on tough issues that would further criminalize and penalize immigrants.  There will also be efforts to eliminate many of the important due process protections added to the law in Title III.  After that, Title II, which encompasses both legalization and changes to legal immigration, including family issues and a new merit-based point system, will be tough.

If we are lucky, however, the civility and substantive discussion will continue. There is no smooth sailing on immigration, and despite Senator Grassley’s encouraging words, no one should take passage of a bill for granted. But it is OK to take a moment to realize that immigration policy is finally getting its day in Congress. Less drama and more substance is something everyone can agree is a strong step in the right direction.

Picture Courtesy of C-Span.

Continue reading »]]> For the third day of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s mark-up of the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act,” committee members continued to work through Title Four (specifically regarding the W visa program) and began debating Title Three (about interior enforcement). The senators considered 21 amendments and passed 11 of them with mostly bipartisan support. Four amendments were withdrawn. The adopted changes included Sen. Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) amendment to protect children’s social security numbers from identity theft and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-RI) proposal to help immigrant entrepreneurs. And they approved multiple changes to the E-Verify language in the Senate immigration bill to both strengthen the program and help small businesses comply with the new regulations.

Here are the amendments the Senate committee approved on Thursday:

• Hirono 4: To provide for the eligibility of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region for designation for participation in the visa waiver program for certain visitors to the United States
• Leahy 2: To permanently authorize and improve the EB-5 Visa Program
• Schumer 5 with second degree: To modify the W nonimmigrant visa program
• Whitehouse 1 with second degree:  To provide for qualified startup accelerators with respect to nonimmigrant INVEST visas, and for other purposes
• Franken 2 with second degree: To enhance the accuracy of the E–Verify System
• Grassley 31: To require the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to produce a detailed weekly report that contains information about individuals for whom a nonconfirmation was received through the Employment Verification System
• Coons 1: To require the Secretary to develop protocols to notify individuals that a query for the individual has been processed through the Employment Verification System and to submit other queries
• Grassley 38: To establish a program that allows parents to limit the use of their children’s social security numbers to prevent identity theft
• Franken 4 with second degree: To provide for the establishment of the Office of the Small Business and Employee Advocate
• Blumenthal 18: To prohibit withholding of employment records as an unfair immigration-related employment practice
• Grassley 36: To require that an attestation as to an individual’s identity for purposes of work authorization under section 274A of the Immigration and Nationality Act be made by the individual’s parent or legal guardian

Senate Judiciary Committee members will pick up with the remaining Title Three amendments as well as some remaining amendments about H-1B visas starting on Monday. And still to come is debate about amendments to Title Two, which includes legalization for undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States. Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said at the end of Thursday’s hearing that the committee will continue the mark-up through next week.

Photo Courtesy of C-Span.

Continue reading »]]> The Senate Judiciary Committee returns to its task of marking up S. 744 tomorrow, taking up, among other things, possible amendments to the W visa program for new nonimmigrant workers. This new program, blessed by both business and labor, is an effort to acknowledge the need for a more flexible system for meeting the demand for workers in certain occupations and industries that require less-skilled workers. At Tuesday’s hearing, several Senators challenged the idea that the American workforce needed to be supplemented with immigrant labor, but the evidence is overwhelming that there is both a need and an economic benefit to having a flexible and responsive program in place to bring in new workers where they are most needed.

Less-skilled immigrant workers allow, for example, native-born farmers to expand agricultural production and allow contractors and craftsmen to build more homes and infrastructure. This, in turn, helps to further expand employment opportunities and incomes for U.S. citizens. As people migrate to the U.S. to fill such service economy roles, they become part of a growing proportion within certain industries. Because of this, there are several benefits to consumers who would otherwise be paying much more for the same services. The relative low costs of those services allow consumers to spend more broadly.

Contrary to many of the myths out there, this impact on growth also leads to additional and often higher-paying jobs for the native-born population. Because immigrants and natives tend to have different levels of education, work in different occupations, and possess different skills, the jobs they perform are frequently interdependent and complementary. This increases the productivity of natives, which increases their wages.  Furthermore, the addition of immigrant workers to the labor force stimulates investment as new restaurants and stores open, and new homes are built, among other activities. This increases the demand for labor, which exerts upward pressure on wages. An economic analysis from 1990 to 2006 shows that immigration led to increased wages of native-born workers by 0.6 percent overall and for specific education levels. Furthermore, an Economic Policy Institute (EPI) analysis shows that from 1994 to 2007 immigration increased wages of native-born workers by 0.4 percent overall and for particular education levels. EPI also found that the wages of male native-born workers with less than a high school education were largely unaffected by immigration over this time period.

There will always be legitimate debate about the best way to make a program work, and the W visa program will be no different. Amendments and challenges to the program that are premised on the idea that immigrant workers harm the wages or well-being of native born workers, however, miss the mark because they just aren’t grounded in the facts.

Photo Courtesy of Thomas Huston.

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On the second day of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s mark-up of S. 744, the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act,” the senators tackled most of the amendments to Title IV after finishing debate on a few border security amendments. The fourth section addresses the majority of non-immigrant temporary visas including those for high and less- skilled immigrant workers, entrepreneurship and innovation programs, as well as a range of miscellaneous visitor visas.

The committee members debated 29 amendments. Of the ones considered, the senators approved 15 amendments with mostly bipartisan support, and four were withdrawn. The committee continued to reject changes that would alter the spirit of the Gang of Eight’s bill, while agreeing to ones that help fill gaps in the measure, like Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) amendment to add about 10,000 temporary visas for African and Caribbean immigrants. And by a vote of 17-1, they overwhelmingly rejected Sen. Jeff Sessions’ (R-AL) amendment to cap the number of legal immigrants at 33 million over 10 years.

The amendments that the Senate Judiciary Committee adopted on Tuesday include:

• Feinstein 11: To modify the extent of the Southwest border region for purposes of border security
• Coons 2: To limit dangerous deportation practices, like nighttime deportations
• Schumer 1: Makes technical fixes to many parts of the bill
• Whitehouse 6: To modify provisions related to complaints against H1-B employers
• Grassley 58: To require additional information in Internet job postings for nonimmigrant employment in connection with the issuance of H-1B visas
• Hatch 9: To increase the labor certification fee from $500 to $1,000 and to use these fees to fund science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education and training in the United States
• Schumer 3: To make certain nationals of countries that benefit from the African Growth and Opportunity Act or the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act eligible for E nonimmigrant visas
• Klobuchar 3: To require a pilot program to conduct interviews for certain nonimmigrant visas using secure remote conferencing technology
• Sessions 13: To require aliens who may be a threat to national security to submit to an in person interview with a consular officer when applying for a visa
• Hirono 15: To permit Medicaid coverage for citizens of the Freely Associated States who are living in the United States
• Grassley 69: To improve student and exchange visitor visa programs
• Schumer 4: To permit aliens with proficiency in certain foreign languages to qualify as J nonimmigrants
• Klobuchar 1: To provide immigration status for certain battered spouses and children
• Grassley 77: To require the Secretary to implement the transmission of data from the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System to databases used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection
• Hirono 2: To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to permit nonimmigrant alien crewman to land temporarily in Hawaii

The Senate committee’s mark-up of the immigration reform bill will resume on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. At the end of Tuesday’s meeting, Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said the senators will finish the last few Title IV amendments at that time before starting on Title III, including E-Verify.

Photo by Talk Radio News Service

Continue reading »]]> While widespread research documents a critical need for skilled workers in the United States to maintain and strengthen our innovation industry, myths exist in opposition to programs designed to help alleviate that shortage. In particular, the H-1B visa program for high-skilled foreign-born workers, primarily used for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, is a routine recipient of critical ire. As the Senate Judiciary Committee discusses H-1B reforms in Title IV of S.744, here we dispel some of the common myths associated with the H-1B high-skilled visa program.

In the short-term, there is a need to attract and retain foreign talent to fill science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) labor market gaps. Over the long-term, we must focus on strengthening STEM education at all education levels in the United States to ensure an adequate future supply of STEM workers.  Specifically, as innovation and technology use increase, many more companies beyond STEM-defined fields are part of a broader competition for STEM competencies.

Fact: High-skilled foreign-born workers supplement the native-born workforce and employers request H-1B visas for hard-to-fill jobs.

The metropolitan areas and occupations in which employers most request H-1B visas correspond to places and jobs where there is the greatest demand for skilled workers. In particular, a 2013 study shows that in the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the United States, 46 percent of job openings requiring significant STEM knowledge go unfilled for one month or longer. Furthermore, STEM employers report thousands of unfilled positions. In 2010, despite the ongoing recession, San Francisco and San Jose, California, had 25 and 19 job openings for every computer graduate, respectively.

Fact: H-1B workers often have a positive impact on wages nationally and locally.

Despite rhetoric to the contrary, a one percent increase in the foreign-born STEM worker share of total employment in a city over a decade increased the wages of STEM and non-STEM native-born college-educated workers by 4 to 6 percent. Additionally, for occupations with the most H-1B requests, wage growth in recent years has been much higher than the national average. And in the metropolitan areas with the largest number of H-1B requests, the average wages for STEM occupations with H-1B requests are extremely high.

Fact: Employers across America, from large companies to small businesses, request H-1B workers to alleviate gaps in their workforce with low levels of fraud.

The H-1B visa program already contains important safeguards to protect the U.S. workforce, and U.S. employers generally do not abuse the program. Program safeguards require employers to pay H-1B workers the prevailing wage or actual wage paid to U.S. workers, whichever is higher, and by requiring that H-1B workers receive the same benefits. In general employers do not currently abuse the H-1B program, as shown by the low level of fraud referrals (1 percent of around 30,000 audited H-1B visas in 2010).

Fact: H-1B workers are hired mostly in STEM and innovation industry occupations, which have low unemployment and large multiplier effects, leading to the creation of more jobs.

Long-term research shows that innovation industry multiplier effects lead to broader job creation in the communities where innovation jobs cluster. Indeed, an analysis of 11 million American workers in 320 metropolitan areas shows that each new high-tech job in a metropolitan area creates five additional long-term local jobs outside of the high-tech sector across the skills spectrum. In many U.S. metropolitan areas, the innovation economy, and the high-skilled jobs related to it, drive prosperity for the broader region’s population.

In summary, STEM skills are critical to America’s innovation industry nationally and locally. As such, the H-1B program contributes to meeting the need for STEM talent by filling gaps in the high-skill labor market. The challenge, therefore, is to strike the right balance between worker protections, enforcement, and program efficiency.

Continue reading »]]> As the Senate continues to shepherd a comprehensive immigration reform bill through the legislative process (day two of mark-up in the Senate Judiciary Committee begins tomorrow), it becomes clear how many issues are at stake in reform and how interconnected they are. It’s also overwhelming at times. That’s why the American Immigration Council is attempting to divide the issues into smaller discussions on our wiki, ThinkImmigration.org. 

A few of the current conversations ask for your thoughts around the U.S. relationship with Mexico, changes being suggested to family immigration and ways can we improve the immigration court system:

• Relations between Mexico and the United States are often reduced to just two issues: border security and unauthorized immigration. Lawmakers and commentators who call for the construction of a fence along all 2,000 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, for instance, tend to portray Mexico as if it were a hostile nation with which we are at war; a source of law-breaking migrants, dangerous smugglers, illegal drugs, and little else. However, the reality of the U.S.-Mexico relationship is far more complex than this caricature suggests.  How do you see it? Share your views here.
• Some members and advocates hope to strengthen to ability of U.S. citizens to reunite with their older married children or their brother and sisters.  The Senate bill proposes eliminating the brother and sister category, and restricting petitions for adult married children to individuals over 31. How should the Senate bill define family? Share your views here.
• Although it does not provide as far-reaching an overhaul of the immigration courts as many would like, the bill does contain some important provisions specific to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), the adjudicatory body that reviews thousands of decisions by the nation’s immigration courts each year.  Over the past fifteen years, the BIA has adopted various “streamlining” measures, including the elimination of three-judge panels in a large number of cases and the issuance of summary opinions that provide little or no analysis (including the notorious “affirmance without opinion” or “AWO”).  As a result, the quality of the decisions, as well as the integrity of the system, has suffered tremendously. What more should be done with respect to the BIA? Share your views here.

There is no doubt that the Senate bill will provide sweeping changes and necessary upgrades to our Nation’s immigration laws. However, without the input of the public and those impacted by the changes, it’s hard to know what unintended consequences could be brought. So share your ideas and experiences with us at ThinkImmigration.org.