Thursday, February 24, 2005
SAFER Act Extreme Answer to Immigration Reform?
US Congressional Rep's are jockeying for position in anticipation of President Bush's immigration reform proposal. The extreme nature of some of the legislation make it clear that some compromise is in order at some point. Efforts to restrict immigration generally are being tied into concerns to "make America safe from terrorism." Some of the proposals really only pay lip service to that fight
The restrictionist side is represented at this point, by the Real ID Bill HR 418, (Rep. Sensenbrenner) that was recently passed by the House of Representatives, which would require States to deny driver's licenses to undocumented aliens by requiring controls on the issuance of licenses if they are to be recognized as adequate identification in a number of essential areas. The bill also makes it much harder to prove eligibility for asylum in the US.
Also, the SAFER Act HR 688(Rep Garrett) recently reintroduced in the House reworks the Immigration & Nationality Act in a number of key areas, some changes are quite extreme. I have not seen an analysis of this bill yet, so I'll focus here on some of its more interesting aspects:
Makes the non-displacement attestation for H-1B's required of all employers (only applies to H-1B dependent employers currently)
Imposes an additional $100 anti fraud fee for all applications, immigrant or non-immigrant, with only a few exceptions.
Requires Permanent Residents to register annually, commencing on the first anniversary date after obtaining residency.
All aliens who are not fingerprinted or photographed at the time of visa application must register and be fingerprinted within 30 days of entry if staying in the US for more than 30 days.
In addition to any other requirements to register, SAFER Act requires all aliens in the US to register with Homeland Security every three months, commencing 60 days after the date of entry into the US.
Allows consuls to require "visa term compliance bonds" as a condition of granting a non-immigrant visa. The compliance bond premium may be forfeited under certain conditions such as:
The visa holder changes address without giving USCIS and the bond issuer 60 days notice, or
the visa holder changes schools, jobs or occupations without the written permission of both USCIS and the bond issuer, or the visa holder fails to report to USCIS at least annually (not clear if the other requirements to report count in this case.)
If the visa holder violates any conditions of the visa or the visa bond, the USCIS can order the visa cancelled and the visa holder arrested.
Here is an interesting provision: "At anytime before (my emphasis) a breach of any of the conditions of the bond, the surety or bail agent may surrender the principal (the visa holder)...to any office" of DHS charged with immigration enforcement or border protection. Sec 304(c) (6)(a). This appears to allow bounty hunters to bring a visa holder suspected of a possible visa breach to haul that person into USCIS.
In fact, together with the Sensenbrenner bill, the SAFER bill seems to be attempting to initiate a new era of bounty hunting. So, an immigration bond can be fulfilled if the bounty hunter turns the alien into the authorities under certain conditions (it says nothing about dead or alive.)
In the work authorization area, the bill makes it unlawful to claim any kind of deduction or benefit from activities resulting from unlawful employment AND gives any individual a right of action to sue on behalf of the US, to recover the value of the benefit. The individual would then be entitled to 25% of the amount recovered.
There is a lot more in the SAFER Bill: Temporarily suspending most visa, adjustment of status processing, etc., while the Directorate of Border and Transportation Security gets its house in order. In removal proceedings, preventing immigration judges from granting continuances to allow an alien to become eligible for relief, or granting an illegal entrant a motion for a change of venue to another location, restrictions on habeus corpus, and so on with the usual anti-immigration favorites.
At this point the bill is still in raw proposed form. The coming weeks will see how much of this gets passed to the Senate to be thrown into the legislative mix.
gf
The restrictionist side is represented at this point, by the Real ID Bill HR 418, (Rep. Sensenbrenner) that was recently passed by the House of Representatives, which would require States to deny driver's licenses to undocumented aliens by requiring controls on the issuance of licenses if they are to be recognized as adequate identification in a number of essential areas. The bill also makes it much harder to prove eligibility for asylum in the US.
Also, the SAFER Act HR 688(Rep Garrett) recently reintroduced in the House reworks the Immigration & Nationality Act in a number of key areas, some changes are quite extreme. I have not seen an analysis of this bill yet, so I'll focus here on some of its more interesting aspects:
Makes the non-displacement attestation for H-1B's required of all employers (only applies to H-1B dependent employers currently)
Imposes an additional $100 anti fraud fee for all applications, immigrant or non-immigrant, with only a few exceptions.
Requires Permanent Residents to register annually, commencing on the first anniversary date after obtaining residency.
All aliens who are not fingerprinted or photographed at the time of visa application must register and be fingerprinted within 30 days of entry if staying in the US for more than 30 days.
In addition to any other requirements to register, SAFER Act requires all aliens in the US to register with Homeland Security every three months, commencing 60 days after the date of entry into the US.
Allows consuls to require "visa term compliance bonds" as a condition of granting a non-immigrant visa. The compliance bond premium may be forfeited under certain conditions such as:
The visa holder changes address without giving USCIS and the bond issuer 60 days notice, or
the visa holder changes schools, jobs or occupations without the written permission of both USCIS and the bond issuer, or the visa holder fails to report to USCIS at least annually (not clear if the other requirements to report count in this case.)
If the visa holder violates any conditions of the visa or the visa bond, the USCIS can order the visa cancelled and the visa holder arrested.
Here is an interesting provision: "At anytime before (my emphasis) a breach of any of the conditions of the bond, the surety or bail agent may surrender the principal (the visa holder)...to any office" of DHS charged with immigration enforcement or border protection. Sec 304(c) (6)(a). This appears to allow bounty hunters to bring a visa holder suspected of a possible visa breach to haul that person into USCIS.
In fact, together with the Sensenbrenner bill, the SAFER bill seems to be attempting to initiate a new era of bounty hunting. So, an immigration bond can be fulfilled if the bounty hunter turns the alien into the authorities under certain conditions (it says nothing about dead or alive.)
In the work authorization area, the bill makes it unlawful to claim any kind of deduction or benefit from activities resulting from unlawful employment AND gives any individual a right of action to sue on behalf of the US, to recover the value of the benefit. The individual would then be entitled to 25% of the amount recovered.
There is a lot more in the SAFER Bill: Temporarily suspending most visa, adjustment of status processing, etc., while the Directorate of Border and Transportation Security gets its house in order. In removal proceedings, preventing immigration judges from granting continuances to allow an alien to become eligible for relief, or granting an illegal entrant a motion for a change of venue to another location, restrictions on habeus corpus, and so on with the usual anti-immigration favorites.
At this point the bill is still in raw proposed form. The coming weeks will see how much of this gets passed to the Senate to be thrown into the legislative mix.
gf
