How the Senate Border Bill Could Help Fix
Our Broken Legal Immigration System
On February 4, 2024, the U.S. Senate unveiled an immigration border bill which contains the following provisions which would improve our broken legal immigration system:
Increase the Number of Green Cards Issued – The border bill would authorize the issuance of an additional 250,000 green cards over the next 5 years – 160,000 additional green cards in the family-based categories and 90,000 in the employment-based categories.
However, these green cards would still be subject to the 7% per-country limitation, and so would only have a modest impact on current employment-based green card backlogs for persons born in India and China and on family-based backlogs for persons born in Mexico and the Philippines.
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Expand Work Authorization to Additional Family Members of Certain Nonimmigrants and U.S. Citizens – The border bill would grant work authorization to certain adult children of H-1B workers provided that the H-1B worker has an immigrant petition filed. Current regulations only allow H-4 spouses to get Employment Authorization Documents (EADs). Work authorization would also be issued to an additional 25,000 individuals who are K-1, K-2, and K-3 nonimmigrant visa holders, or fiancés or spouses and children of US citizens. These changes would promote family reunification and legal immigration.
Protect Certain “Aged Out” Children of H-1B Workers – The border bill also seeks to protect H-4 dependent children, who have resided in the U.S. lawfully based on their parents’ work visas, but who would otherwise “age out” of H-4 nonimmigrant status and run out of time to get green cards along with their parents. The bill would protect H-4 dependents who have lived in the U.S. lawfully as a child of an H-1B parents for 8 years prior to turning 21, allowing that individual – even if married now or over the age of 21 – to secure work authorization and remain in the U.S. and get a green card together with their parents.
With unprecedented levels of global migration and an outdated U.S. immigration system pushing more
migrants to the U.S. southern border, solutions are urgently needed to reform the immigration system,
bring order to the border region, and process migrants more rapidly, efficiently, and fairly. To address the border situation, the Senate’s emergency spending bill includes the most extensive border funding and security measures proposed in decades, perhaps ever.
The border bill provides massive resources to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other agencies on the order of $20 billion, mostly targeted to the border. The bill creates new executive powers that will restrict and reduce the flow of migrants and asylum seekers at the southern border. If enacted, the border enforcement bill will accelerate asylum processing and rapidly expel many migrants from the United States. The bill also takes important first steps in expanding or affirming existing legal pathways to alleviate pressures that force people to the border.
Border Bill – Chances of Passage
The border bill will need bipartisan support to advance this week in the Senate, where it must draw at least 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.
The bill — negotiated by Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, and Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — would be the most aggressive border security and migration overhaul bill in decades if it passes Congress.
“The Senate’s bipartisan agreement is a monumental step towards strengthening America’s national security abroad and along our borders,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, said in a statement. “This is one of the most necessary and important pieces of legislation Congress has put forward in years to ensure America’s future prosperity and security.”
The border bill seemed to have a good chance of becoming law until former President Donald Trump urged Republican legislators to reject it. Now, even if the Senate passes the bill, there is virtually no reason to believe that it would be approved by the House of Representatives.
As House Speaker Mike Johnson tweeted Sunday night: “If this bill reaches the House, it will be dead on arrival.”
