GOP leaders promise to whip hard-line immigration bill

[Swordsmyth]

Conservative House members say they got a promise from leadership to pursue a separate hard-line Republican-only immigration bill in exchange for their votes to pass government funding Thursday night -- a measure that several Republicans doubt could pass the House, let alone the Senate.The bill is a proposal from key committee and subcommittee chairs Bob Goodlatte, Raul Labrador, Mike McCaul and Martha McSally that includes a large number of hard-line immigration provisions that Democrats and some Republicans have said are nonstarters.

Labrador told CNN after votes Thursday that the commitment to members of the House Freedom Caucus was "to actually whip (the bill) and to work on it like they did on all the other important bills we've done this year." While there was no clear timeline for a floor vote, Labrador said that "should" be the goal.
"if people want to vote against it, they can explain to their constituents why they're voting against a bill like this," Labrador said.
The immigration bill includes a number of controversial pieces, including mandatory worker verification, cracking down on sanctuary cities, changing asylum thresholds and cutting legal immigration to the US by 25%. The bill offers Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients indefinitely renewable three-year work permits but no pathway to citizenship.

More at: http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/18/politics/goodlatte-hardline-bill-freedom-caucus-deal/index.html

A bad trade.

[timosman]

https://cis.org/Report/Do-States-Have-Say-Refugee-Resettlement-Program


Tennessee lawsuit highlights federal overreach

By Don Barnett on January 24, 2018

The State of Tennessee filed a lawsuit against the federal government in March 2017 claiming that the refugee resettlement program was an imposition by Washington over which the state had no control.1 (https://www.thomasmore.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/TN-Complaint-3.13.17.pdf) The lawsuit is pending, but it highlights a deep problem with how the refugee resettlement program has evolved since the passage of the Refugee Act in 1980.

This Backgrounder traces the history of the federal-state relationship regarding refugees, identifies flaws, and proposes solutions. Among the findings:


Repealing regulation 45 CFR 400.301 could have the immediate effect of allowing states to withdraw from the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) and end initial resettlement activities in the state.2 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/45/400.301)
Today, states that withdraw from the program find the program continues in the state with the potential to operate on a larger scale than before withdrawal and with no state participation.
As implemented, states have a limited and ill-defined role in the federal USRAP.
Congress has shirked its responsibility to fully fund the refugee resettlement program.
The federal government has shifted much of the fiscal burden of refugee resettlement to states. Three years of reimbursement for the state portion of welfare programs used by refugees in the state, such as Medicaid, TANF and SSI, was authorized by the 1980 Refugee Act. This support was ended entirely.
The Act authorized Refugee Medical Assistance (RMA) and Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA) for three years for refugees who do not qualify for cash welfare and Medicaid. This support was gradually scaled back; today RCA and RMA are available for only eight months.
This cost shift to the states means the federal government is, in effect, using state funds to operate a federal program. In cases where a state asks to withdraw from the program, continuation of the program means the state has lost its ability to control its own budget and is deprived of its sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment.
Consultation among "stakeholders" about where refugees are to be settled is ill-defined in the USRAP. At times there is no meaningful consultation with state authorities.
The federal government uses a legally questionable regulation (45 CFR 400.301) rather than statutory law to allow private non-profits to operate in a state where the state has asked to withdraw from the program.
By one reading of the law, prior to 45 CFR 400.301, there was no authority to resettle refugees in states that chose to withdraw from the program. In other words, prior to 1994 when 45 CFR 400.301 was introduced, the states were — knowingly or not — participating in and paying for a voluntary program from which they had every right to withdraw at any time with the expectation that no refugees would be resettled in the state.


Introduction

According to the House Judiciary Committee press release introducing the "Refugee Program Integrity Restoration Act" (H.R. 2826), the bill "prevents the resettlement of refugees in any state or locality that takes legislative or executive action disapproving resettlement within their jurisdiction."3 (https://judiciary.house.gov/press-release/labrador-goodlatte-introduce-bill-reform-refugee-program/) The press release notes that, "Currently, states or localities that do not want refugees resettled within their communities have no recourse."

In contrast to this concern over the lack of a state voice in refugee resettlement, official State Department policy affirms that "PRM [Department of State's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration] carefully considers all input received when approving placement plans in each proposed location, and accommodates the input received from the states to the extent feasible. In the overwhelming number of cases, PRM grants states' requests to reduce or hold steady the number of refugees to be resettled in a given community," according to a department spokesperson. Also, "Both reductions and increases as a result of state input to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program process happen regularly as a part of our ongoing consultative process," according to the spokesperson.4

So, which is it?

A brief history of the federal refugee program vis a vis states' rights and obligations will show that concern about the impact of the program upon states was paramount from the inception of the 1980 Refugee Act. Subsequent legislation, regulation, and congressional appropriations nullified initial promises of support and cut off any means the states may have once had of escaping the fiscal burden that the federal government has shifted to them.

more ..... (https://cis.org/Report/Do-States-Have-Say-Refugee-Resettlement-Program)

[Jan2017]

. . . cutting legal immigration to the US by 25%.



No need really to restrict legal immigration from ALL nations when
there is only one nation that exceeds existing legal immigration policy limits every year consistemtly.

I'll support cutting Mexico immigration/amnesty of the "Scammers" by 95% from the 660,000 in 2015 (?)
to limit Democrats wanting to promulgate their re-election new voter registrations every election cycle.



The imbalance is by the one nation that has decimated US immigration policy . . . talking about African nations or Haiti doesn't make sense.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 2015. Number of I-821D, Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Reports%20and%20Studies/Immigration%20Forms%20Data/All%20Form%20Types/DACA/I821_daca_performancedata_fy2015_qtr4.pdf
Unauthorized Immigrant Population Profile
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/us-immigration-policy-program-data-hub/unauthorized-immigrant-population-profiles


Trump has wanted to compromise, which has got him more in trouble with us hardliners on Mexico-specific immigration
as some of us have been since Ross Perot's independent POTUS bid in 1992, so yeah, it is all really too late.
Trump seeks $25 billion for border wall, offers 'Dreamer' citizenship
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-whitehouse/trump-seeks-25-billion-for-border-wall-offers-dreamer-citizenship-idUSKBN1FD2UU