For fiscal year 2013, the House Budget Committee-approved budget resolution would provide for $57.626 BILLION in new budget authority.  This would be a cut of $16.38 BILLION, or 22.1 percent, relative to the $74.006 BILLION that Congress appropriated in fiscal year 2012.

The committee report accompanying H. Con. Res. 112 does not contain any recommendations relating to refugee resettlement, trafficking or torture victim assistance, or unaccompanied alien child programs.

For fiscal year 2013, the House Budget Committee-approved budget resolution would provide for $54.277 BILLION in new budget authority.  This would be a cut of $.572 BILLION, or 1 percent, relative to the $54.849 BILLION Congress appropriated in fiscal year 2012.

 

The committee report accompanying H. Con. Res. 112 does not contain any recommendations relating to DHS programs.

For fiscal year 2013, the House Budget Committee-approved budget resolution would provide for $96.725 BILLION in new budget authority.  This would be a cut of $29.819 BILLION, or 23.6 percent, relative to $126.544 BILLION Congress appropriated in fiscal year 2012.

The committee report accompanying H. Con. Res. 112 does not contain any recommendations relating to the funding of refugee programs in Function 970.

 

Entitlement Spending Under the Resolution.  H. Con. Res. 112 would require six committees of the House to report legislation by no later than April 27, 2012, making an aggregate of $18.5 BILLION in entitlement spending reductions under their jurisdiction in fiscal year 2013.   Under the resolution, once these committees have acted, the legislation that they produce will be packaged together into a "budget reconciliation bill", so-named because the bill would reconcile spending on these entitlement programs with the resolution's goal for the maximum amount of money that should be spent on them.

Among the committees that the resolution instructs to report entitlement-cutting legislation is the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which has jurisdiction over the Medicaid program, and the House Committee on Agriculture, which has jurisdiction over the Food Stamp program (which was recently renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

While the budget resolution cannot force the committees to make cuts in specific programs, it has strongly suggested which programs the committees should make reductions in.

The following summarizes the potential impact that the reconciliation instructions that are contained in H. Con. Res. 112 could have on immigrants and refugees:

It is unclear at the time of this writing whether the legislation that will emerge from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce during the reconciliation process will alter current law that requires states to provide Medicaid to refugees and asylees for the first seven years after entry or alter provisions in current federal law that make qualified aliens eligible for Medicaid, subject to deeming and affidavit of support requirements.

The Committee materials go on to assert that, “[w]ith regard to federal low‐income assistance programs, starting with SNAP, this budget proposes two of the reforms that led to the success of welfare reform in the late 1990s.   First, the budget ends the flawed incentive structure that rewards states for signing up ever-‐higher numbers of recipients. By capping the open‐ended federal subsidy and freeing states to come up with innovative approaches to delivering aid to those who truly need it, this reform encourages states to reduce rolls and help recipients find work.  Second, it calls for time limits and work requirements like those that proved successful at cutting welfare rolls in half and reducing poverty nationwide. These changes would be phased in gradually, however, to give states and recipients opportunity to adjust and the employment time to recover.”

It is unclear at the time of this writing whether the legislation that will emerge from the House Committee on Agriculture during the reconciliation process will alter current law that requires states to provide Food Stamps to refugees and asylees for the first seven years after entry or alter provisions in current federal law that make qualified aliens eligible for the Food Stamp program, subject to deeming and affidavit of support requirements.

Impact on Sequestration.  Under the Budget Control Act of 2011, discretionary spending programs are due to sustain $98 BILLION in across-the-board cuts, known as a sequestration, beginning in January of 2013.  Roughly half of these across-the-board cuts are supposed to come out of defense discretionary spending and the other half is set to come from non-defense spending. 

H. Con. Res. would replace the scheduled across-the-board cuts, shielding defense spending from any cuts and achieving all of the savings out of domestic spending.  It would do this by cutting non-defense discretionary spending by $19 BILLION in fiscal year 2013 and by using the reconciliation process to achieve the remaining $79 BILLION from entitlement spending.

 

Anticipated Immigration- and Refugee-Related Floor Amendments
The procedure recommended by the House Committee on Rules for considering amendments to H. Con. Res. 112 would permit six substitutes to be offered to the bill, none of which contains any speciifc immigration- or refugee-related provisions but each of which would pose some consequences for immigration- and refugee-related spending.

 

 

• House Judiciary Committee Markup of Border Tunnel Bill. The House Committee on the Judiciary has scheduled a markup for this week of several bills, including H.R. 4119, the the "Border Tunnel Prevention Act of 2012."
  

• House Foreign Affairs Panel to Markup Bill on Human Rights in Vietnam.  The House Foreign Affairs Committee has scheduled a markup for this week of H.R. 1410, the "Vietnam Human Rights Act of 2011".  As introduced, the measure would prohibit U.S. nonhumanitarian assistance to the government of Vietnam in excess of FY2011 amounts unless: (1) the federal government provides assistance, in addition to democracy building assistance under this Act, supporting human rights training, civil society building, and exchange programs between the Vietnamese National Assembly and Congress at levels commensurate with or exceeding any increases in nonhumanitarian assistance to Vietnam; and (2) the President certifies to Congress that the government of Vietnam has made substantial progress respecting political, media, and religious freedoms, minority rights, access to U.S. refugee programs, and actions to end trafficking in persons and the release of political prisoners. 

• House Homeland Security Subcommittee Hearing on Terrorist Visa Overstayers. The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security has scheduled a hearing for this week titled, "From the 9/11 Hijackers to Amine el-Khalifi: Terrorists and the Visa Overstay Problem."  Testifying at the hearing will be John Cohen, Deputy Counterterrorism Coordinator, Department of Homeland Security (DHS); and Peter Edge, Deputy Associate Director, Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, DHS.

• House Judiciary Panel Hearing on the Scott Gardner Act. The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement is planning a hearing for this week on H.R. 3808, the Scott Gardner Act, a measure that would provide that any illegal alien convicted of a DWI face automatic deportation.  It also would require state and local law enforcement officers to check federal databases upon apprehending someone for a DWI who thay have a "reasonable ground to believe" is an alien to determine if the person is an illegal immigrant and, if "any such database indicates the individual is an alien unlawfully present in the United States" authorize them to place federal detainers on such aliens and transfer them to Federal custody, where the alien "shall be rmoved from the United States" with priority.

• Senate Hearings on the President's FY '13 DHS Budget Proposal. The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs have scheduled separate hearings for this week to examine President Obama's proposed fiscal year 2013 budget for the Department of Homeland Security.  The sole witness for each hearing will be Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. 

• Hearing on the Plight of North Korean Refugees in China. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China has scheduled a hearing for this week titled, "China's Repatriation of North Korean Refugees."  Two panels of witnesses will testify at the hearing.  Testifying on Panel I will be Suzanne Scholte, President of the Defense Forum Foundation and Chairman and Founding Member of the North Korea Freedom Coalition; Songhwa Han, former North Korean refugee detained in China, repatriated to North Korea, and detained in North Korea; and Jinhye Jo, former North Korean refugee detained in China, repatriated to North Korea, and detained in North Korea. Testifying on Panel II will be T. Kumar, Director of International Advocacy, Amnesty International; Greg Scarlatoiu, Executive Director, Committee on Human Rights in North Korea; and Michael Horowitz, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute.

• Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Hearing on the President's FY '13 Department of Justice Budget Proposal. The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies has scheduled a hearing for this week to examine President Obama's proposed fiscal year 2013 budget for the Department of Justice, an entity that is the parent agency for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Office of Immigration Litigation, and the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices.  Testifying at the hearing will be Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr.

• Hearing on the Food and Refugee Crisis in the Horn of Africa.  The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission has scheduled a hearing for this week titled "Horn of Africa: The Continuing Food, Refugee and Humanitarian Crisis."  Three panels of witnesses will testify at the hearing.  Testifying on Panel I will be Nancy Lindborg, Assistant  Administrator, Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, USAID; Deborah Malac, Director, Office of East African Affairs, Department of State; and Margaret McKelvey, Director, Office of Assistance for Africa, Department of State.  Testifying on Panel II will be Allan Jury, Director, U.S. Relations Office, United Nations World Food Program.  And testifying on Panel III will be Mark Yarnell, Advocate, Refugees International.