Bills, Rules & Politics

[alpha0]

First of all, I doubt all the 50 Dem senators will agree.

I dont blame republicans. Sorry to say but dems have no plan on how they will stop another 11 Million from crossing the border, period.

Just because Biden says dont come now, they wont stop coming. There are hundreds of millions of people in world who wants to come to USA at any cost, and if they are lucky to cross the border and if govt follows "catch and release", those people just need to be lucky once.

[Zenzone]

If I were involved in advocacy I would have made an effort to tag EB children onto this bill.

That would be non-controvertial, and in line with this bill's goals.

One has to be realistic and keep making progress inch by inch. Country caps will go when they will go but this to me has a real chance and if we can solve desi people's children's aging out problem, why not. Generally speaking - anybody who has this as a problem - I encourage you to organize and do something to add such provision in HR6 2021-2022.

I thought its already tagged. Am I missing anything here? Remember seeing a mention of it in one of Greg Siskind's tweet.

[Zenzone]

I dont blame republicans. Sorry to say but dems have no plan on how they will stop another 11 Million from crossing the border, period.

Just because Biden says dont come now, they wont stop coming. There are hundreds of millions of people in world who wants to come to USA at any cost, and if they are lucky to cross the border and if govt follows "catch and release", those people just need to be lucky once.

This is the classic fox news anti-immigrant phobic narrative that I can never subscribe to. Laws are important and I think ppl. should come in lawfully no questions about that but the narrative should be a bit more balanced here. Those very same republicans are against all forms of immigration also, period.

[qesehmk]

I thought its already tagged. Am I missing anything here? Remember seeing a mention of it in one of Greg Siskind's tweet.

If so - my bad. I must have missed it. That would be terrific!

[qesehmk]

I thought its already tagged. Am I missing anything here? Remember seeing a mention of it in one of Greg Siskind's tweet.

I just skimmed the bill - HERE IS THE LINK - there is no explicit reference to EB children aging out. However the language may be generic enough to include them.

Others on the forum might be able to better decipher this and tell if this includes EB children too. If it does - your children will be eligible to get a conditional GC independent of your GC!

[vsivarama]

I dont blame republicans. Sorry to say but dems have no plan on how they will stop another 11 Million from crossing the border, period.

Just because Biden says dont come now, they wont stop coming. There are hundreds of millions of people in world who wants to come to USA at any cost, and if they are lucky to cross the border and if govt follows "catch and release", those people just need to be lucky once.

This is where you read between the lines. The core republican strategy is to waste time water down the bill and even then they will not vote for it. The same happened with stimulus, it was brought down from $2000 to $1400 there were stricter income limits and yet no one voted for it (What happened to GOP superstars like Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio who were for 2000 stimulus). Their argument $1.9 was to high and state and local budget was the sticking point. When you read the breakdown State and local was 85 billion of the total bill and more than 50% of the republican voters support the bill. One more example democrats offered money for border wall to DT in return for protection for Dreamers and guess what DT turned it down. Dems are not that great either but I will have to defend them a bit here as in this particular instance they are on the right side of the issue. I can guarantee you one thing, even if democrats gave everything republicans want in terms of border security there won't be any votes (10 votes definitely not) on this bill.

[gs1968]

I just skimmed the bill - HERE IS THE LINK - there is no explicit reference to EB children aging out. However the language may be generic enough to include them.

Others on the forum might be able to better decipher this and tell if this includes EB children too. If it does - your children will be eligible to get a conditional GC independent of your GC!

It is in the very first paragraph of the Bill

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary or the Attorney General shall adjust to the status of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence on a conditional basis, or without the conditional basis as provided in section 104(c)(2), an alien who is inadmissible or deportable from the United States, is subject to a grant of Deferred Enforced Departure, has temporary protected status under section 244 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1254a), or is the son or daughter of an alien admitted as a nonimmigrant under subparagraphs (E)(i), (E)(ii), (H)(i)(b), or (L) of section 101(a)(15) of such Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)) if—

TBH it is not clear how any of this will be implemented and was a line that was added at the last minute before introduction to meet the April 1 deadline and show some progress. I think their hope is that the Senate will review it and come up with clearer guidelines. I also think that one of the reasons Rep.Lofgren has not introduced an HR 1044 equivalent is because one of her main motivations to doing so (based on her floor speeches) is to help aging out children and this Bill does that

[qesehmk]

It is in the very first paragraph of the Bill

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary or the Attorney General shall adjust to the status of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence on a conditional basis, or without the conditional basis as provided in section 104(c)(2), an alien who is inadmissible or deportable from the United States, is subject to a grant of Deferred Enforced Departure, has temporary protected status under section 244 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1254a), or is the son or daughter of an alien admitted as a nonimmigrant under subparagraphs (E)(i), (E)(ii), (H)(i)(b), or (L) of section 101(a)(15) of such Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)) if—

TBH it is not clear how any of this will be implemented and was a line that was added at the last minute before introduction to meet the April 1 deadline and show some progress. I think their hope is that the Senate will review it and come up with clearer guidelines. I also think that one of the reasons Rep.Lofgren has not introduced an HR 1044 equivalent is because one of her main motivations to doing so (based on her floor speeches) is to help aging out children and this Bill does that

I suspected this but honestly I have not checked the language. Too greek for me. But if you think it does address it then that's really a good news.

Zoe Lofgren is THE original champion of country cap removal. CCR was the original intent - aging out children was additional benefit. So I am sure, she will pick it up after HR6 is successful - which I think it should.

[alpha0]

This is where you read between the lines. The core republican strategy is to waste time water down the bill and even then they will not vote for it. The same happened with stimulus, it was brought down from $2000 to $1400 there were stricter income limits and yet no one voted for it (What happened to GOP superstars like Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio who were for 2000 stimulus). Their argument $1.9 was to high and state and local budget was the sticking point. When you read the breakdown State and local was 85 billion of the total bill and more than 50% of the republican voters support the bill. One more example democrats offered money for border wall to DT in return for protection for Dreamers and guess what DT turned it down. Dems are not that great either but I will have to defend them a bit here as in this particular instance they are on the right side of the issue. I can guarantee you one thing, even if democrats gave everything republicans want in terms of border security there won't be any votes (10 votes definitely not) on this bill.

Let's keep politics aside, but what is plan to create disincentive for new undocumented to come to USA. USA will not be able to absorb all those who wants to come here, we all know that. There is no try to create simple and effective e-verify system and punish employers who knowingly hire undocumented. Unless they remove that incentive, this migration will continue for decades.

Immigration bill discussion you were talking about, democrats also increased eligible population from 1 Milloin to 4 Million and it was also one of the reasons those negotiations failed (infact both sides wanted those negotiations to fail). Same with 1.9 T, when DJT offered that thru Mnuchin, dems rejected it because they did not want Trump to get benefit of that in election.

[Zenzone]

Let's keep politics aside, but what is plan to create disincentive for new undocumented to come to USA. USA will not be able to absorb all those who wants to come here, we all know that. There is no try to create simple and effective e-verify system and punish employers who knowingly hire undocumented. Unless they remove that incentive, this migration will continue for decades.

Immigration bill discussion you were talking about, democrats also increased eligible population from 1 Milloin to 4 Million and it was also one of the reasons those negotiations failed (infact both sides wanted those negotiations to fail). Same with 1.9 T, when DJT offered that thru Mnuchin, dems rejected it because they did not want Trump to get benefit of that in election.

Some of your points are valid but if you have two pick b/w lesser of two evils the verdict is pretty clear here (at least for me!).

[qesehmk]

alpha - don't get caught into legal illegal immigrant discussion. If money can move legally everywhere then so should people be. That's how I think and that's what I profess. Think about it.

I have lived in southwest too and I can tell you first hand that Arizona Texas California were all Mexican territories, until one fine day US declared unilaterally that it belongs to US. So many people including white people don't see this quite as much legal vs illegal issue.

[vsivarama]

Let's keep politics aside, but what is plan to create disincentive for new undocumented to come to USA. USA will not be able to absorb all those who wants to come here, we all know that. There is no try to create simple and effective e-verify system and punish employers who knowingly hire undocumented. Unless they remove that incentive, this migration will continue for decades.

I absolutely love your post and thinking and looks like you and I have a lot of common ground here. I am for mandatory e-verify for the businesses. Why do you want to create an incentive to break the law for anyone. Especially when legal immigrants are waiting for decades even after doing everything by the rule of law and undocumented folks do not have any harder pathway to citizenship. In fact it might be easier. But here is where the politics come in as you cannot separate politics from the immigration issue or else you would have had some reform a decade or so back. R's say they want mandatory e-verify, but in fact if they get that included a lot of their donors get affected and so as an insurance premium they want to make it harder for folks to seek asylum and may even add extra provisions for family based immigration just to make it a non starter. Their fear is, if D's agreed to e-verify R's donor base will stop funding them. But here is the kicker, even if D's hypothetically agree (which they will not) to all their demands let me tell you how many R's will vote in favor. Less than 10! That's the politics side of it.

Immigration bill discussion you were talking about, democrats also increased eligible population from 1 Milloin to 4 Million and it was also one of the reasons those negotiations failed (infact both sides wanted those negotiations to fail). Same with 1.9 T, when DJT offered that thru Mnuchin, dems rejected it because they did not want Trump to get benefit of that in election.

Again a very fair and good point. I did not agree with NP as I felt she played games during the negotiations. Guess what, the voters took notice and now they have a smaller majority in the house. There could still be a case if you wanted to make one, you could say that Ds wanted 3.2T which they then cut it to 2.4T which was further cut down to 1.9T and so they bailed. You and I know that the reason they did not pass was because D's did not want DJT to get the credit before an election. It would have been savvier to pass the bill and let it fail in senate as Mitch was against it. What also makes it different from the current scenario is that the opposition party was fighting (even if it were for optics) to give more relief to the American people while the party in power did not care even though it was in their best interest. Now the optics are different as the R's come across as the party that would rather want the American people to suffer than make JB look good. So the R's took it on themselves to obstruct JB but in the process going against their own constituents to vote down the bill. There was lots of hero worship how R's were all in for $2000 check that DJT proposed. But now that they have been caught flat footed they wanted to bail out on flimsiest of reasons. Long story short, when both sides want the negotiations to fail, I want to support the side that's on the right side of history as per my analysis. This time I know D's are serious and not playing games because they are passing piecemeal legislations instead of trying for comprehensive reform.

[vedu]

alpha - don't get caught into legal illegal immigrant discussion. If money can move legally everywhere then so should people be. That's how I think and that's what I profess. Think about it.

Q,

Politics aside, I am coming around to appreciate this point of view more and more. People come to this country legally or illegally against all odds for the better future for their families. As long as they work hard and contribute to this country, they should have the right to live with dignity. Only immigrants (legal or illegal) who should be thrown away are the people who commit crimes and are menace to the society.

Long time back, while growing up in India as a child, I used to notice a peculiar behavior of stray dogs in my lane vs. some nearby lane. They had their territories fixed. They would bark at each other and fight if any dog tried to get into territory of others. We as human beings can definitely do better than that. Of course, good immigration and border security policies are required, but some people will always sneak in no matter how strict the policies are. So, once they are here and have contributed to the society by their hard work, they should be allowed to settle down. That's my two cents!

[alpha0]

alpha - don't get caught into legal illegal immigrant discussion. If money can move legally everywhere then so should people be. That's how I think and that's what I profess. Think about it.

I have lived in southwest too and I can tell you first hand that Arizona Texas California were all Mexican territories, until one fine day US declared unilaterally that it belongs to US. So many people including white people don't see this quite as much legal vs illegal issue.

I don't think money can enter without the permission of destination country. I can understand your analogy in h1b visas but there also as i wrote earlier, if India forces apple to source 75% of items locally so what is wrong if US force Indian IT shops to hire x% locally.

There are 400+ Million people in South America and 130 or so Million in Mexico, question is how do you restrict them from coming to USA in your approach. Would you allow all of them to enter USA if they wish?

[qesehmk]

I don't think money can enter without the permission of destination country. I can understand your analogy in h1b visas but there also as i wrote earlier, if India forces apple to source 75% of items locally so what is wrong if US force Indian IT shops to hire x% locally.

There are 400+ Million people in South America and 130 or so Million in Mexico, question is how do you restrict them from coming to USA in your approach. Would you allow all of them to enter USA if they wish?

I am originally a student of physics - particularly fond of astrophysics. So i have a rather lofty view of how lonely place earth is for all human beings in this entire universe. It just feels very artificial to me that humans can't move across borders easily but money moves so easily. I see immigration and related challenges as a change management problem. I think people should be able to move and prosper everywhere and that the world should open its doors just a bit every day. I know this is too much of an idealistic view. But it is not utopian. If we don't open the world for people, the problems will find their way into advanced societies anyway.

But coming back to Rep vs Dem reality, the rhetoric by GOP is generally a theater. The total number of illegal immigrants coming to US between 1990 and 2007 is only about 9M. That's 300K per year!! US can very easily absorb and in fact will welcome such levels of immigration. Immigration is a major economic imperative and it only helps US. GOP is only engaged in hate and racism. Trump has clearly said he welcomes white immigration (norway) but not otherwise.

To answer you questions about a country requiring to hire or produce local - I think that would be entirely within that country's right. And that absolutely does not negate the benefits of immigration. So yes a country can do that and yet US can easily absorb 300K illegals every year.

[whereismygc]

The house has passed H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act of 2021. This bill allows DACA as well as H1B workers' children path to Green Card as well as citizenship. This has a fair chance in the senate. Do send letters your senators asking for passage of this bill.

[cancer24]

Does it need 60 votes in Senate?

[whereismygc]

Does it need 60 votes in Senate?

It needs 51 votes to pass. But if a senator tried to filibuster it (i.e. tries to go into an infinite loop of discussion thereby blocking a bill), then the senate needs 60 votes to break the filibuster. It remains to be a seen what GOP senators do. Dems are obviously on board.

[whereismygc]

Durbin says he is getting close to getting a vote on DREAM. In other words, there may be enough votes on GOP side to break filibuster.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/21/polit...ntv/index.html

[gs1968]

Durbin says he is getting close to getting a vote on DREAM. In other words, there may be enough votes on GOP side to break filibuster.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/21/polit...ntv/index.html

This is great news although the article content seems less certain than the headline

[qesehmk]

This is great news although the article content seems less certain than the headline

It certainly seems more understated than headline suggests. But if we read between the lines, what Durbin is saying is that unlike GOP senate majority leader McConnell who killed GOP's own S386, Durbin knows that he doesn't have to worry if the bill ever see the light of day on senate agenda.

Durbin will work in the background to get 10 republicans to break any filibuster and while they all don't have to vote for the bill, there could be 10 senators who might detest filibusters. After that all Durbin needs is 1 GOP vote assuming Joe Manchin could very well vote down.

[alpha0]

It certainly seems more understated than headline suggests. But if we read between the lines, what Durbin is saying is that unlike GOP senate majority leader McConnell who killed GOP's own S386, Durbin knows that he doesn't have to worry if the bill ever see the light of day on senate agenda.

Durbin will work in the background to get 10 republicans to break any filibuster and while they all don't have to vote for the bill, there could be 10 senators who might detest filibusters. After that all Durbin needs is 1 GOP vote assuming Joe Manchin could very well vote down.

Let's see how much ransom those 10 demand (for border security or whatever other measures).

On other hand, i feel if republicans filibuster this DACA bill, democrats can use that as an excuse to dilute filibuster.

[qesehmk]

Let's see how much ransom those 10 demand (for border security or whatever other measures).

On other hand, i feel if republicans filibuster this DACA bill, democrats can use that as an excuse to dilute filibuster.

Filibuster is useless anyway and I do think it should be completely scrapped. I am not as optimistic that it will be scrapped over DREAM act.

[idliman]

I hear that Grace Meng's amendement for stopping the spillover for FY 2021 and FY 2022 had passed the committee. I cross checked the amendment and verified that it makes spillover as zero. For people not familiar with INA (d)(2)(C) specifies the spilloever from FB to EB.

(e) For fiscal year 2021 and 2022, the number computed under subsection (c)(3)(C) of section 201 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1151), and the number computed under subsection (d)(2)(C) of such section, are deemed to equal zero.

She also another amendment which will provide visa's for people affected by DT's presedential proclamations. I could not confirm for sure whether it had passed the committee, but the text of the amendement is there. If someone cross checks if it had passed, please share.

Here's the text to the Appropriations Bill for FY 2021.

With democrats controling the house, the Committee version should fly through congress. Don't know what will happen in the Senate.

[usvisas]

Yea..Meng's amendment: https://appropriations.house.gov/sit...ent%20%231.pdf