Keep Up on All the Amendments to the Gang of Eight Immigration Bill with ILCM

Right now, the Federal Senate Judiciary Committee is conducting the mark up process for the Gang of Eight's proposed immigration bill. This process is vital to shaping what sweeping changes will be enacted by this historic legislation and you can watch a live stream of it by clicking here. Both of Minnesota's Senators are on this committee, meaning your calls and emails will address key players in this debate.

Help us work to protect and improve the bipartisan Senate bill. During the Judiciary Committee mark-up, ILCM will be reporting on which Senators are trying to derail the bill. We need to play both offense and defense during mark-up to ensure that our priorities are protected and bad amendments cannot undermine the legislation.

Read below for a comprehensive list of the amendments that need your action:

 

Positive Amendments
Please ask your Senators to support the below amendments:

Pathway to Citizenship

Hirono #5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13: Allows U.S. citizens to continue sponsoring their siblings and married children over 31, raises the cut-off date for married kids to 39 instead of 31, and improves the likelihood for these family members to be reunited, especially when their U.S. citizen family member has not used the family visa system before or would experience hardship.

Hirono #12, 14, 16, 17: Allows individuals to pay fines in installments, allows individuals with registered provisional immigrant (RPI) status to sponsor their spouse and children outside of the U.S., provides access to health care for individuals with RPI status, children and pregnant women, and allows states to provide health care to DREAMers, agricultural workers, and some individuals with RPI status.

Enforcement

Blumenthal #14: Makes much-needed changes to current immigration laws to reflect common sense and proportionality. The amendment ensures that only dispositions that are intended to be convictions in the criminal law context are treated as such in immigration proceedings. Sentences that criminal court judges have deliberately suspended, after evaluating the facts, witnesses, and all of the individual circumstances, should not cause deportation. Many long-term legal residents with extensive ties to the U.S. face lifetime separation from their families and communities due to these laws.

Hirono’s Racial Profiling Amendment (EAS3375) to Section 3305: The language of the current bill attempts to protect against racial profiling but omits religion and national origin as illegal profiling categories. This means that the bill, as it is currently constructed, provides zero protection for Latino Americans suspected of immigration violations at or near the border, Sikh American travelers encountering TSA screeners, and American Muslims returning from overseas travel and subjected to questioning about their religious practices and political views. Hirono’s amendment would prohibit profiling on the basis of religion or national origin

Feinstein Amendment #10: Establishes a grant program to improve transportation and infrastructure at border crossings.

Feinstein Amendment #11: Reduces the definition of the Southwest Border Region from the area within 100 miles of the Southern border to 25 miles, significantly reducing the area in which border agents can operate drone and video surveillance that threatens our privacy.

Leahy Amendment #4: Places limitations on construction of new border fencing by requiring DHS to consult with relevant agencies and border communities, requiring DHS to identify what environmental and other laws they seek to waive and why, and expanding the allowable use of funds to include port-of-entry infrastructure.

Health Care

Hirono Amendment #15: Restores Medicaid for citizens of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau—collectively known as Compact of Free Association migrants or “COFA migrants.” The U.S. has a unique relationship with COFA migrants as many resettled in the U.S. due to radiation fallout as a result of dozens of U.S. nuclear tests conducted on the islands after WWII and were given a special migration status. They have given up their homelands and livelihoods to live in healthier, nuclear-free environments and should be included Medicaid. 

Labor

Blumenthal Amendments #3,4,&5: These three amendments strengthen regulations against employers who commit recruiting abuse or human trafficking offenses by ensuring clear job descriptions and salary requirements be provided to workers and Department of Labor consultation in human trafficking cases.

Children

Blumenthal #2: Prohibits children and other vulnerable populations in immigration detention from being held in solitary confinement.

Feinstein #5: Creates a pilot program under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPRA) to deter, detect, and prevent child trafficking by utilizing the services of independent child welfare professionals to assist CBP in the screening of children.

Franken #7: “HELP Separated Children Act” improves immigration enforcement policies to protect child well-being and promote family unity by ensuring that parents’ are able to make decisions regarding their child’s care at the time of apprehension, while in detention, and prior and following removal.

Coons #10: Allows DREAMers and other work-authorized immigrants to take advantage of their education and skills by ensuring that they have access to the professional, commercial, and business licenses that they need to participate fully in the workforce.

Coons #13: Puts additional protections in place for immigration enforcement activities at sensitive locations, including schools, hospitals, churches, community centers to help mitigate the adverse impact of immigration enforcement on children and families

Hirono #22: “Child Trafficking Victims Protection Act” provides additional services and protections for unaccompanied minors in CBP custody, including providing adequate medical care and conducting screening upon apprehension

 

Negative Amendments
Please ask your Senators to oppose the below amendments:

Pathway to Citizenship

Cornyn Amendment #5: Completely guts important confidentiality language in the Senate bill leaving millions of aspiring citizens vulnerable if they come forward to apply for Registered Provisional Immigrant (RPI) status.

Grassley Amendment #13/Lee #12: Limits the evidence RPIs can use to prove past employment to satisfy the work requirement.  This would make it harder for RPIs to adjust status to lawful permanent residents.

Flake #4: Creates wasteful administrative burden by requiring Health and Human Services to conduct audits on benefits immigrants are not to allowed to use.

Sessions #35: Attempts to overrule the Supreme Court’s decision in Arizona v. United States (invalidating parts of Arizona’s SB 1070), allowing states and localities to engage in immigration enforcement that leads to racial profiling and deportation.

Enforcement

Grassley Amendment #41: eliminates programs which screen and inform detained migrants who need appointed counsel. Approximately 84% of detained immigrants appear before the courts without an attorney and immigration judges are regularly presiding over cases presented by respondents who are ill-informed and unprepared to make educated decisions about their cases. This amendment perpetuates sub-standard access to justice based solely on a person's immigration status. 

Grassley Amendment #43: Deports any immigrant suspected of gang membership without giving the accused a chance to challenge these charges. This amendment will lead to racial profiling, the increased targeting of youth, and the further separation of families. 

Grassley Amendment #51: Eliminates the requirement that the Department of Homeland Security expand secure alternatives to detention. Mandatory detention is excessive and expensive. Alternatives to mandatory detention are the humane way to deal with immigrants who are only guilty of minor immigration violations such as unauthorized entry. 

Grassley Amendment #53: Perpetuates the indefinite detention—or potentially lifelong—detention of immigrants who cannot be deported. This amendment violates our fundamental commitments to due process and human rights.

Sessions Amendment #12: Raises bond minimums to $5,000 for non-Mexicans and non-Canadians, including arriving asylum seekers, who are apprehended 100 miles of the border or who are considered to be a flight risk. Mandatory bond amounts, as provided in this amendment, neither make our communities safer nor are they the most effective tool to ensure court appearances. Bond determinations should be based on individual assessments of risk of flight or to public safety rather than one’s country of origin. 

Sessions Amendment #37: Strikes requirement for Department of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to issue use-of-force policy. 

Sessions Amendment #38: Strikes requirement for CBP to specify training requirements for its agents. 

Cruz Amendment #1 and Cornyn Amendment #1: Calls for a dramatic increase in Border Patrol agents (Cruz calls for 40,000 more and Cornyn calls for 5,000 more, on top of the 20,000 that are already at the southern border); adds more border enforcement triggers that must be met before immigrants can get on the pathway to citizenship; calls for increased prosecutions in all border sectors; and calls for more border fencing. 

Racial Profiling

Graham #3: Creates additional immigration screening for immigrants from specific countries and encourages racial profiling based on national origin. It parallels the discredited NSEERS program, and would likely target people from predominantly Muslim countries.  Read the Rights Working Group summary of Graham 3 by clicking here.

Sessions #32: Allows state and local police to always be able to investigate, question, and arrest noncitizens for immigration violations. Universalizes 287(g) agreements and removes federal oversight.  This amendment would punish states or localities with strong detainer policies. Read the Rights Working Group summary of Sessions 32 by clicking here.

Sessions #34: This is an attempt to overrule Supreme Court’s decision on SB 1070 as it allows states and local jurisdictions to create their own anti-immigrant laws, like Arizona and Alabama. Read the Rights Working Group summary of Sessions 34 by clicking here.

Sessions #35: Mandates that all immigration status information stored in national criminal database.  Read the Rights Working Group summary of Sessions 35 by clicking here.

Labor

Grassley Amendment #73: Requires all W visa applicants to have health insurance not subsidized by the U.S. The W visa is a new visa category created for this bill that allows “low-skill” immigrant workers to have a status that does not tie them to a single employer and lessens the chance of workplace abuse. By requiring a low income labor force to already be paying for private health insurance to qualify for low paying jobs, Senator Grassley undermines the intent of the W visa and prevents employers from being able to hire the workers they need.

Children

Grassley #26: Strikes section 3405, removing protections for stateless children in the United States, putting an already a vulnerable population at greater risk.

Grassley #40: Weakens provisions that grant legal representation to unaccompanied minors, and only requires counsel to represent an unaccompanied alien child with a serious mental disability.

Sessions #10: Alters the public charge test to require the consideration of health and nutrition assistance benefits and prevents individuals, including children, from adjusting to LPR status if they have used Medicaid or SNAP.

Sessions #31: Denies the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to families with children during the entire RPI period, restricting it until families become LPRs or U.S. citizens, meaning children could be denied access to the EITC, a proven anti-poverty tool, for a minimum of 10 years.

Sessions #30: Restricts access to the Child Tax Credit (CTC) by excluding those that file with an Independent Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) number, directly harming children in immigrant families, many of whom are U.S. citizen children.

Please call Senator Klobuchar at (202)-224-3244. You can email the Senator by clicking here.

Also, please call Senator Franken at (202) 224-5641. You can email the Senator by clicking here.

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Star Tribune: Minnesota Senate boosts undocumented students' college dreams

MPR: Senate backs Minn. tuition for immigrants' kids

WCCO-TV: Senate Backs Minn. Tuition for Immigrants' Kids

Fox-9: May Day immigration reform rally held as Prosperity Act passes

KARE-11: Minn. Senate passes Dream Act for immigrant students

KSTP: Senate Backs Minn. Tuition for Immigrants' Kids

Pioneer Press: State Senate passes 'Minnesota Dream Act' for students here illegally

Worthington Daily Globe: Minnesota senators pass immigrant education bill

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Check out more pictures of the event here

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Download fliers in English y en Español

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A guest reported that they lost an XL Burberry coat that night. If you accidentally went home with the wrong coat or have any idea of its whereabouts, please email communications@ilcm.org so we can return it to its rightful owner.

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