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Category: Immigration

Federal Update

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Congress has just two weeks before the July 4th recess week to tackle several major legislative issues. This week, the House will try to pass a five-year farm bill that contains controversial dairy policies and cuts to food stamps. It will also revive the abortion debate over a bill to ban certain abortions. In the Senate, appropriators will decide allocation levels for their twelve FY14 spending bills, and the full Senate will look for a compromise on border security that could improve prospects for immigration reform legislation (S 744).

Both the House and Senate will also continue to debate the best way to deal with student loan interest rates and the rates for subsidized Stafford student loans is scheduled to increase from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1st. There are several proposals out there but none that have the support necessary to get approval in both chambers.

Immigration, Defense Authorization, and FY14 Appropriations — Oh My!

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Today in the Senate: The chamber meets this morning to continue debating a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws (S 744).

Today in the House: The chamber is scheduled to begin general debate on a $638.4 billion defense authorization bill (HR 1960) for FY14 that includes funding and/or language for three of UW’s requests: (1) $15 million for awards to academic medical institutions for reconstructive transplants; (2) $15 million for Navy research vessels (to help with the RV Tommy Thompson); and (3) language promoting the National Marine Renewable Energy Centers for ocean renewable energy demonstration activities at or near DOD facilities (tidal energy).

FY14 Appropriations Update: Senate Republican appropriators appear ready to oppose any measures written by Democrats that exceed the discretionary spending cap set by the 2011 deficit reduction law. Next week, they will likely reject a plan from Appropriations Chairwoman Mikulski (D-MD) that would divide up $1.058 trillion among the committee’s dozen annual bills. The Senate plan is about $91 billion higher than the overall level set by House Republicans. Ironically, both plans would trigger a new round of across-the-board spending reductions under sequester because they violate the caps set by the 2011 law (PL 111-25). But the House GOP plan busts the caps in defense and other security measures while the Senate is expected to bust the caps in both defense and non-defense (domestic) bills. All of this is leading to a big fight on spending, which will certainly culminate in a continuing resolution (CR) before the federal fiscal year ends September 30th.

Appropriations, Sequestration, and Immigration

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The Senate is in session today at 2:00pm but there will be no votes today. The House will be back in session at noon Tuesday.

Appropriations: The House GOP plans to begin drafting their FY2014 spending bills to adhere to the roughly $967 billion spending cap set by recent budget law, which also reflects the sequester. The Senate Democrats, on the other hand, appear ready to ignore the sequester and instead mark up their FY2014 bills under a $1.058 trillion cap.

The House Appropriations Committee is expected to start the FY2014 process with two relatively non-controversial bills: Military Construction & Veterans Affairs and Defense. The Senate Appropriations Committee has not yet scheduled any FY2014 markups, but has a full slate of budget hearings planned with administration officials this week.

Sequestration:  The sequester was designed to be so bad that lawmakers would never allow it to happen. But it did happen and now many members of Congress are looking to protect their favorite federal programs from some or all of the effects of sequestration. After easing some pain for the FAA a couple of weeks ago, the shortlist for the next round of possible sequester saves includes cancer patients, medical researchers, hungry seniors, poor people, and pre-schoolers.

There are already more than a dozen pieces of stand-alone legislation introduced to address agencies, programs and accounts hit by sequestration. Whether any one proposal has a shot at becoming law requires a confluence of events. It needs bipartisan support and at least some semblance of a spending offset to cover the costs. And public outcry from the Americans across the country helps as well.

Here’s a small sample of other sequester fixes also waiting in the wings: Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) would exempt the NIH; Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-WA) would ensure that civilian Pentagon employees who get furloughed don’t lose access to classified information; the New York delegation is trying to protect September 11th health and compensation programs; Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-MS) wants to prevent furloughs for members of the National Guard who work full time as uniformed civilians maintaining equipment; Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) hopes to save the TIGER transportation grant program; Reps. Betty McCollum (D-MN) and Tom Cole (R-OK) have a bill to exempt the Indian Health Service fund; Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Mark Udall (D-CO) are releasing a new version of legislation this week that would give agency heads more flexibility in how they implement the budget cuts.

We expect this sort of legislation to consume much of the public debate in Congress throughout the summer and fall.

Immigration: The Senate Judiciary Committee will resume their work on a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws (S 744) Tuesday and Thursday with members of the chamber’s so-called gang of eight focused on which of hundreds of amendments filed could be potential deal-breakers. The committee chairman has said he hopes to finish the markup before Congress breaks for Memorial Day recess in two weeks.

Senate Begins Mark Up of Immigration Bill

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The Senate Judiciary Committee is beginning to mark up the immigration bill today in the opening act of what will likely be a long, contentious fight over amendments. The “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act” (S 744) is the immigration reform proposal developed by the so-called “gang of eight.”

Among other things, the bill would expand the annual cap of H-1B visas to 110,000 from the existing cap of 65,000, raise the number of visas for foreign graduates with advanced degrees from U.S. universities that are exempt from the annual cap, and create a 13-year path to citizenship for nearly 11 million immigrants. No undocumented worker, however, would be eligible for citizenship until the border is considered secure.

The Office of Federal Relations has been actively engaged with Congressional members on issues related to visas and pathways to citizenship for our students (Dreamers).

Watch the Senate Committee mark up live.

Senate Releases Immigration Reform Bill

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Senate negotiators have reached an agreement on a bill to make the most substantive changes to immigration laws in nearly three decades. The “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013” would affect visas for high-tech workers, create a new “W-visa” program to attract low-skilled workers, and require businesses to implement new electronic-verification requirements to check the immigration status of their employees.

The bill will also create what is certain to be a controversial pathway to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants to become permanent legal residents a decade after they register with the government. Immigrants would pay a $2,000 fine, pass a background check, have a job, and wait 10 years before applying for a green card. Three years after that, they could apply to become U.S. citizens. Dream Act youth can obtain green cards in five years and citizenship immediately thereafter.

In exchange for the “pathway to citizenship” for many immigrants, conservatives demanded language in the bill that would call for billions of dollars to be spent on tightened security at the U.S.-Mexico border with a goal of apprehending 90 percent of those crossing the border in “high-risk” areas. But the whole process is contingent, at several points over a decade, on the government meeting certain border-security benchmarks.