Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 2202 - Immigration in the National Interest Act

(House)
(Smith (R) Texas and 129 cosponsors)

The Administration has serious concerns with H.R. 2202 as reported by the Judiciary Committee. These concerns are described below and in the Attachment, The Administration will work with the Congress to seek adoption of amendments that satisfactorily address these concerns.

If H.R. 2202 were presented to the President with the Agriculture Committee's amendment creating a new agricultural guestworker program, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Labor would recommend that the bill be vetoed. The Administration strongly opposes a new agricultural guestworker program because it would: (1) reduce work opportunities for U.S. citizens and other legal residents; (2) depress wages and work standards for U.S. farmworkers; (3) not be a sustainable solution to any labor shortage that might develop; and (4) increase illegal immigration. However, the Administration is prepared to work with all interested parties, including the Congress, as appropriate, to address ways to improve the existing H-2A program in a way that will not jeopardize worker protections.

Illegal immigration

Many provisions of HJL 2202 are similar or identical to the President's 1995 legislative proposal, comprehensive enforcement initiatives, and overall strategy to deter illegal immigration. To reverse decades of neglect, the Administration's strategy calls for regaining control of the Nation's borders; protecting legally employed workers by improving worksite enforcement; aggressively pursuing the removal of criminal aliens and other illegal aliens; and securing from Congress the resources to assist States with the costs of illegal immigration. The President's strategy is already being implemented and making sure and steady progress toward achievement of its goals.

Legal Immigration

The Administration supports die bill's objective of a moderate reduction in the overall level of legal immigration. However, the Administration endorses a framework of legal immigration that respects our immigration traditions. The Administration has significant objections, as described in the Attachment to the manner in which H.R. 2202 would achieve fin overall reduction. The Administration series legal immigration reform that; (1) promotes the strength of families and their values through family reunification; (2) protects U.S. workers from unfair competition while providing employers with appropriate access to international labor markets to promote U.S. global competitiveness; and (3) promotes naturalization to encourage full participation in the national community.

H.R. 2202 fails in several respects to satisfy these principles:

• It drastically and unnecessarily restricts fee ability of U.S. citizens to reunite with family members, even close family members such as parents and some children. In addition, an equitable process should be established to address existing waiting lists of family members of U.S. citizens — including brothers and sisters of adult citizens — that recognizes that these individuals "played by the rules" of this country's legal immigration system.
  
  
• It fails to protect U.S. workers. The Administration supports reform that provides incentives to employers to prepare and hire American workers few: the high skilled jobs and high performance workplaces of the future. Such reform should provide business and the scientific community with a safety valve of access to foreign labor markets to meet skill demands that the U.S. workforce cannot supply in sufficient quantity or with sufficient speed. The Administration believes that it should be the rare exception, rather than the rule, that employers hire foreign over U.S. workers. Hie Administration is concerned that the rule proposed for the bill does not even nrovide Members of Congress the opportunity to vote to protect U.S. workers.
  
  
• It fails to recognize the role that naturalization can serve to advance the Nation's immigration policy. For example, the Administration proposed utilizing naturalization as a mechanism for reducing family reunification backlogs. By failing to utilize this mechanism, H.R. 2202 unnecessarily dedicates slots to the legal permanent resident category that could be used to reunite U.S. citizen families. The Administration believes that the Federal Government should help eligible legal immigrants become citizens, achieve and maintain self-sufficiency, and participate and contribute fully as members of the national community.

Asylum and Refugees

Protecting individuals with a genuine fear of persecution is a basic tract of our Nation's heritage and the Administration's policy. The Administration strongly opposes any provision that would invalidate a claim for asylum, regardless of the merits of the claim, if it is filed after a deadline. The Administration's asylum reforms already are addressing misuse of the system and applications declined by 57 percent in 1995. Any asylum application deadline is contrary to our country's humanitarian principles and would divert resources from addressing real abuse to needless disputes over the date the applicant entered the United States.

Eligibility for Bencfits

The Administration has a number of concerns about the provisions of H.R. 2202 relating to immigrants eligibility for government benefits. While the Administration appreciates and supports that H.R. 2202 does not impose an outright ban on benefits, as proposed under other legislation, the Administration continues to have concerns with these provisions. The Administration is committed to strengthening die "deeming" requirements, under which an immigrant's income is deemed to include the income of the sponsor.

Concerns remain, however, that the bill as currently drafted may jeopardize immigrants' health and safety and create a significant administrative burden on social service providers. For these reasons, the Administration strongly opposes applying new deeming rules to the Medicaid program and other non-cash assistance programs, including public health and inland social services programs. It is simply unworkable. In addition, the Administration also opposes applying new deeming rules to current recipients; the disabled (who are exempt under current law); and legal immigrants seeking to participate in student financial aid programs.

Pay-As-You-Go Scoring

H.R. 2202 would affect direct spending and receipts; therefore, it is subject to the "pay-as-you-go" requirement of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990. OMB's scoring of this legislation is under development

ATTACHMENT: Issues to Be Addressed in Amendments to H.R. 2202

Work Authorization Verification and Worker Enforcement

• Require verification systems to have adequate privacy and anti-discrimination protections as prescribed by the Attorney General.
• Increase penalties for both immigration-related employment discrimination and employer sanctions violations. Failure to increase the discrimination penalties could create a financial incentive for employers to discriminate in order to avoid employer sanctions.
• Provide worksite enforcement personnel and resources sought by the Administration to help replace illegal workers with legal workers and to fight worker exploitation in sweatshops and other exploitative employment circumstances.
• Clarify when it is appropriate for an employer to request additional employment eligibility or identity documentation from a job applicant or employee who presents documentation that appears to be genuine.

Migration Control Provisions

• Delete the deadline on applying for asylum. This provision would create needless protracted litigation regarding an alien's date of entry rather than on the merits of the asylum claim.
• Restore withholding of deportation to continue the Nation's proud tradition of providing protection to true refugees. The elimination of this mechanism could cause tire United States to violate its obligations under foe 1967 United Nations Protocol Relating to foe Status of Refugees.
• Eliminate the ceiling on annual refhgee admissions levels which arbitrarily restricts the Administration's flexibility to respond to changing international events.
• Make foe Attorney General's authority for expedited exclusion a stand-by authority, to be used selectively as needed in immigration emergencies. The provision in H.R. 2202 is unnecessarily broad and would result in a considerable diversion of INS resources.
• Preserve the Attorney General's parole authority in order to maintain the ability to respond quickly and appropriately to compelling immigration emergencies.

Legal Immigration

• In the interest of family ramification, maintain family-sponsored visas for adult children of U.S. citizens and unlimited visas for patents of U.S. citizens. In addition, establish an equitable process to address masting waiting lists for fourth preference visas (for brothers and asters of adult citizens).
• Delete the requirement that U.S. sons and daughters who sponsor their parents purchase health insurance comparable to Medicare parts A and B and long-term care insurance comparable to Medicaid. Due to the high cost and limited availability of comparable health and long-term care insurance of this kind, this requirement would limit family reunification only to wealthy Americans.
• Allow 100,000 employer-sponsored visas per year to address the needs of American businesses and workers. Congress should periodically review and, if warranted, adjust the level of employment-based immigration to continue to address these needs.
• Provide a new method of labor market screening for selection of skilled employment-based immigrants that relies more on market-based incentives. The incentives should discourage employers from abandoning the domestic workforce in favor of foreign labor and prohibit firing U.S. workers to replace them with imported workers. The employment-based immigration system should promote training for U.S. workers in those occupations where the need for immigrant workers clearly signals defects in the Nation's skill-building system.
• Adopt three amendments to foe H-1B (professionals employed in specialty occupations) nonimmigrant program: (1) prohibit employers from obtaining nonimmigrant workers if they have laid off similarly employed U.S. workers within specified time periods; (2) a requirement that employers make reasonable efforts to recruit and retain U.S. workers before they seek skilled foreign temporary workers; and (3) a reduction in the permissible length of stay for nonimmigrant workers to better reflect foe temporary nature of foe employment need.

Eligibility for Public Benefits

• Replace foe provisions restricting immigrants' eligibility for public benefits with the Administration's proposal, which would:
  • Adopt a definition of eligible alien and apply tins definition to only foe four primary needs-based programs — AFDC, SSI, Medicaid, and Food Stamps. This approach would eliminate significant administrative burdens on social servioe providers.
  • Apply the deeming provision only to SSI, AFDC, and Food Stamps. Medicaid and other programs where denning would adversely affect public health and safety would not be affected.
  • Exempt from the application of new eligibility and deeming provisions those aliens who are: (1) current recipients under programs to which the new provisions would apply, (2) disabled, who are exempt under current law; and (3) seeking student financial assistance for cost, secondary education.
  • Protect every child's right to full participation in fiee public elementary and secondary education, including pre-school and school- related nutrition programs.
  • Not include the requirement that a sponsor demonstrate the means to maintain an annual income of at least 200 percent of the poverty level in order to sponsor an immigrant This requirement is too restrictive and runs counter to the Administration's goal of family reunification.