WASHINGTON–After a three-day government shutdown, the fate of 690,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) beneficiaries still hangs in the balance. House Republicans are hoping to leverage this uncertainty by proposing a far-right immigration bill.
The bill, Securing America’s Future Act, drafted by Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of Homeland Security Committee, would do some of the following:
– End the diversity visa lottery program, which grants green cards to individuals who are from countries with
low immigration rates
– End chain migration (the process by which legal immigrants sponsor non-nuclear family members)
– Grant DACA recipients a three-year renewable legal status to work and travel abroad
– Authorize construction of a wall along the southern border
– Return unaccompanied minors to their countries of origin
– Reduce immigration levels by about 25 percent
Congress voted to end a three-day government shutdown on Monday after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said it was his intention to take up immigration legislation that would address the plight of young immigrants called “Dreamers” who were brought to this country illegally as children. President Donald Trump has ordered the end to the Obama administration’s DACA policy that allows these people to remain in the country and work, attend college or serve in the military unless Congress grants specific legislative authorization by March.
According to the libertarian CATO Institute, the Republican House bill “criminalizes poverty among Dreamers” and “would be the largest policy-driven reduction in legal immigration since the awful, racially motivated acts of the 1920s.”
The bill would require Dreamers to maintain an income of 125 percent above the poverty line or risk deportation. It would also increase the Border Patrol by 25 percent and criminalize illegal immigrants by authorizing a fine and/or six-month imprisonment for a first level offense.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill would authorize expenditure of $22.9 billion of taxpayer dollars over a 4-year period in support of “additional equipment and personnel for the Department of Homeland Security.”
The Chairwoman of the Hispanic Caucus Committee, Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-N.M., said in a statement to the Hill: “The Mass Deportation Act is a farce of a bill. The bill undermines local law enforcement, it hurts farmers, hurts families, guts legal immigration; and aims to rip apart communities through mass deportation, while only providing Dreamers with temporary protections and no pathway to citizenship.”
Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, a Haitian American, in a press release said, “I’m proud of the work we’ve done on this important cause. The USA Act represents a strong bipartisan compromise that would provide a lasting fix for DACA recipients as well as enhanced border security.”
The Trump Administration expressed its support of the bill in a White House press statement: “The President looks forward to advancing legislation that secures the border, ends chain migration, cancels the visa lottery, and addresses the status of the DACA population in a responsible fashion.”
Late Tuesday night, Trump tweeted in support of strict border control in exchange for the safety of DACA recipients:
The CATO Institute asserts “Republicans are essentially asking Democrats to trade the legalization of 700,000 unauthorized immigrants for the criminalization of all others.”
Trump’s imposed DACA deadline is March 5.