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News and updates

Will We See More Appropriations and Senate “COVID 4.0” This Week?

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After adopting a four-bill spending package for FY2021 last week, the House is currently scheduled to take up an even larger seven-bill “minibus” later this week, H.R. 7617.The legislation combines the FY2021 Defense, Commerce-Justice-Science, Energy and Water Development, Labor-HHS-Education, Financial Services-General Government, Homeland Security, and Transportation-HUD measures.  As we noted last week, the Senate has yet to move on even a single spending bill.

Meanwhile, over the on the Senate side of the Capitol, we may finally see this week a set of proposals that represents the Senate Republican wish list for a “COVID 4.0” relief package.  The Senate Republican leadership had hoped to unveil something last week but could not work out differences among themselves and with the White House.  The goal is to unveil a proposal this week so that they can start negotiating with the Democratic House, which passed the the HEROES Act in May as its marker for negotiations.  There is pressure to act as quickly as possible as a number of benefits from the CARES Act are scheduled to expire very soon, including expanded unemployment benefits.

First Batch of Spending Bills Clears House Floor

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As expected, the House cleared its first package of FY2021 spending bills earlier this afternoon.  The four-bill batch, H. R. 7608, combines four separate pieces of legislation:  State-Foreign Operations; Agriculture; Interior and Environment; and Military Construction- Veterans Affairs.  It was adopted by a vote of 224 to 189.  A summary of H. R. 7608 is available here.

Next week, the House is currently scheduled to take up a second “minibus”, made up of seven appropriations bills:  Defense; Labor-HHS-Education; Commerce-Justice-Science; Homeland Security; Financial Services-General Government; Energy and Water; and Transportation-HUD.  That would leave the Legislative Branch measure as the only one of the 12 that will not have been taken up by the full chamber by the end of next week.

On the other side of the Hill, the Senate has yet to act on any of its bills, and with negotiations around the next COVID-relief bill expected to take up all of the time before the August recess, it is not expected do so until September at the earliest.

What We’re Reading this Week (July 20th-24th)

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Below is a selection of articles the Federal Relations team read this week.

Rep. John Lewis: On the 17th, Congressman John Lewis passed away. He was a well-known civil rights activist and had a long and successful career in the US House of Representatives.

Federal Law Enforcement in US Cities: Citizens and local leadership of several major cities, most notably Portland, have expressed outrage at unidentified federal law enforcement being deployed to quell protests, including officers from DHS and DoJ. The Administration has indicated that further units could be deployed. Read more.

China Relations: The State Department announced on Wednesday that the US will order China to close its Consulate General in Houston in order to protect US intellectual property and the privacy of US citizens. The US accused China of espionage and attempting to interfere in American internal affairs. China called the move an “unprecedented escalation”, and in turn, will close the US Consulate in Chengdu. More at Politico.

US Detains Chinese Researcher: Federal law enforcement has detained Juan Tang, a researcher at UC Davis, who is accused of lying on her US visa application regarding her prior Chinese military service and Communist Party affiliation. She is believed to have been taking shelter at the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco since she first met with investigators last month. More at Bloomberg.

Michael Cohen: A federal judge ruled that Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney, was improperly taken into custody earlier this month. The judge ruled that the US Government acted in a “retaliatory” manner following the release of his tell-all book. More at CNN.

USCIS Furloughs: US Citizenship and Immigration Services was set to furlough more than 13,000 employees until Congress intervened and found new revenue estimates which would leave USCIS with a budget surplus. Furloughs are now delayed another month. Revenue shortfalls with USCIS are expected to be addressed in subsequent stimulus packages. More here.

CDC Changes Course on Schools: New guidance from CDC strongly recommends reopening schools in fall, claiming that children are less likely to become sick from COVID-19 or spread it, and that they will suffer from being out of the classroom. However, the guidelines do recommend reevaluating if their is uncontrolled community transmission. More at CNN.

ICE Clarifies Rules for Autumn 2020

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The ICE Student Exchange and Visitor Program has published an updated FAQ clarifying certain issues of concern for Autumn 2020. The FAQ explains that F and M students, and schools certified by SEVP, should continue to abide by the guidance published in March. The document has additional information for DSOs.

Summary:

ICE has clarified that international students who were enrolled in a US institution as of March 9th, 2020, may be issued an I-20 and retain their non-immigrant status even if their classes are entirely online. These students may remain in the US if they are already here. If they have subsequently left the country, they are likely eligible to return to the US on their existing student visa. Travel may be subject to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Visa eligibility for travel to the US is determined by the Department of State, not ICE.

However, initial students, who were not enrolled in a US institution as of March 9th, 2020, may not be issued an I-20 if their classes are entirely online. Thus, they cannot obtain an F-1 Visa for travel to the US if they are taking entirely online classes.

Spending Bills Move to the House Floor

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After a flurry of activities in subcommittee and full committee the last two weeks, the vast majority of FY2021 spending bills is scheduled to move to the House floor this week and next for consideration by the full chamber.  Rather than considering them individually, the bills will be grouped into two different “minibus” legislative packages.

The first grouping of bills, H.R 7608, is made up of four pieces of legislation and it is slated for consideration later this week:  State-Foreign Operations; Agriculture; Interior; and, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs.  A summary of the package, prepared by the House Democratic staff, is available here.

The second batch, H.R. 7617, is currently scheduled for floor action next week.  This second minibus pulls together seven of the eight remaining spending measures:  Defense; Commerce-Justice-Science; Energy and Water; Financial Services; Homeland Security; Labor-HHS-Education; and, Transportation-Housing.  A summary of the different parts of the large bill is available here.

Should these packages pass, only the Legislative Branch would remain unapproved in the House by the end of next week.