Keep an Eye on Immigration Bill in U.S. House
Following the defeat of H.R. 4760, also known as the “Securing America’s Future Act of 2018”, House leadership decided to delay further consideration of H.R. 6136, also known as the “Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2018”, presumably to work toward whipping the votes in favor of the bill ahead of any vote.
Let’s call both bills for what they are. They provide amnesty for immigrants who are illegally present in the United States. The difference is in the degree to which said immigrants are granted amnesty. Under H.R. 4760, current DACA beneficiaries would have received a codified version of the existing program (work permits only, no green cards and no citizenship) initiated by President Obama via executive order. In exchange, conservatives stood to gain in nearly all areas they advocated recently: significantly reduced chain migration, investments in border security (including more border agents), requiring use of the e-verify system and measures to eliminate sanctuary cities. The bill had the support of the House Freedom Caucus, but unfortunately 41 Republicans joined with all voting Democrats to defeat the bill 193-231. You can view the roll call here. To his credit, John Culberson voted “yes” on the bill despite the fact that he faces significant opposition from a Democrat on the ballot in November.
Some Republicans mentioned a preference for H.R. 6136 as their reason for voting no on H.R. 4760. The Border Security and Immigration Reform Act, which has also been dubbed by some as the “Ryan compromise bill” due to its support from Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, instead provides a broader group of DACA eligible persons with not only work permits, but also a path to permanent residency and, in some instances, citizenship. Rather than merely codify the existing DACA program, it would extend those benefits to people who never applied for DACA despite being eligible, and expand eligibility by extending the age group from a maximum of 31 years old under the original DACA program to a maximum age of 37. This would expand the program to an estimated 2-3 million immigrants. In exchange, H.R. 6136 provides $23 billion to secure the border as well as shifting quotas for family chain migration instead to employment related visas and reducing the overall quotas to account for the amnestied DACA beneficiaries.
Ultimately, it would seem that all Speaker Ryan has done is recoup some of those 42 GOP “no” votes and instead likely lost an equal number of votes from the House Freedom Caucus. That could be why the House leadership decided to pull the bill back for now in order to work out the details and find terms which will get them to the 218 votes needed to pass the bill.
In the meantime, we will wait and see what form the bill takes if and when it is put back on the House schedule. Hopefully the end product is improved and provides a fair and effective immigration reform package which protects our borders and provides a just immigration system.