By Micheal E. Hill 
Friday, October 16, 2009  -  8:40 am EDT
[Updated on Sunday, October 18, 2009  -  8:55 pm EDT]

The House of Representatives yesterday approved a compromise version of the fiscal year 2010 bill that funds the nation's border enforcement, interior immigration enforcement, and immigration services functions.  The key vote on the measure came on a Republican motion to send the bill back to a conference committee because it would permit Guantanamo detainees to be brought to the United States for trial.  The House defeated that motion by a vote of 193-224.  The House went on to approve the conference agreement by a vote of 307-114.

The Senate is likely to take up the bill early next week.

Yesterday's House action occurred in connection with H. Rept. 111-298, the conference report accompanying H.R. 2892, the Fiscal Year 2010 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act.  As passed by the House, the measure contains a three year-long extension of the controversial E-Verify Program, as well as three year-long extensions of the EB-5 Investor Visas Regional Centers Program, the Special Immigrant Non-Minister Religious Worker Visa Program, and the Conrad 30 State J-1 Visa Program. 

The conference report also directly appropriates about $50 MILLION for refugee and asylum adjudications and provides for the admission of widows and orphans of deceased United States citizens under some circumstances.

From an immigration perspective, the conference report is more controversial for what it does not contain.  It rejects a number of controversial immigration enforcement policy provisions that the Senate adopted when the Senate considered the measure last Summer, including E-Verify, border fencing, and SSA No-Match letters.

Conferees reached agreement on settling the differences between the House-passed and Senate-passed versions of the fiscal year 2010 Homeland Security Appropriations Act on Wednesday, October 7, 2009, filing the conference report late in the evening on Tuesday, October 13, 2009.


Resolution of Key Immigration-Related Policy Differences between the House and Senate Bills
The following is a brief summary of some of the agreements reached on major immigration policy and spending provisions:

• The E-Verify System.  The Senate-passed bill sought to extend permanently, require that all federal contractors participate, and permit employers to use the system to verify the immigration status of existing employees; not just new-hires.  The House-passed bill would have extended the program for two years.  But it did not contain any of the policy provisions. 

• SSA No-Match Letters.  The Senate-passed bill would have provided that none of the amounts made available under the Act could be used to implement changes to a Bush era rule describing the process for employers to follow after receiving a ‘‘no match’’ letter in order to qualify for ‘‘safe harbor, which the Senate-passed bill.  The House-passed bill did not contain comparable lanugage.  The conferees rejected the Senate language.

• Border Fencing.  The Senate-passed bill would have imposed a number of restrictions and mandates on the Administration with regard to fencing being constructed along the U.S. border with Mexico.   The House-passed bill contained no such provisions.

• Investor Visa Regional Centers.  The Senate-passed bill would have extended for three years the EB-5 Investor Visa Regional Centers program.   The House-passed bill contained no such provision.

• Relief for Widows and Orphans of U.S. Citizens.  The Senate-passed bill would have protected widows, widowers and orphans of deceased U.S. citizens who are in the family immigration system by allowing widows, widowers and orphans, to immigrate on a family-based visa despite the death of a petitioner.   The House-passed bill contained no such provisions.

Resolution of Key Immigration-Related Funding Differences
There were a number of significant differences in the level of funding in the House- and Senate-passed bills for various immigration- and refugee-related bureaus and programs within the Department.  The most prominent difference was found in the area of appropriations for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). 

The House-passed bill would have appropriated $2.8 BILLION for USCIS, including $298 MILLION in directly appropriated funds.  However, the Senate-passed bill would have appropriated $2.639 BILLION for USCIS, including only $135.7 MILLION in directly appropriated funds.

The conferees agreed to include $2.726 BILLION for USCIS, including $224 MILLION in directly appropriated funding for USCIS.

Within the appropriation for USCIS--

• Refugee and Asylum Adjudications.  The conferees dramatically cut the Administration's request for funding for refugee and asylum adjudications.  The Administration had aksed for $206 MILLION for that purpose.  The House-passed bill would have appropriated $100 MILLION for those adjudications.  The Senate-passed bill would have appropriated no funds.  The conferees agreed to appropriate $50 MILLION.

• Immigrant Integration.  The conferees agreed to appropriate $11 MILLION "to expand immigrant integration and outreach efforts that promote legal paths to US citizenship."

• Funding for E-Verify.  The conferees agreed to appropriate $137 MILLION to operate the E-Verify System "and further improve its accuracy and compliance rates."

 
Outlook
The Senate is expected to take up the conference report on the Fiscal Year 2010 Homeland Security Appropriations Act next week.  It was not known at the time of this writing whether opponents in the Senate will exercise parliamentary options that are available to them to force the Senate to spend an extended amount of time debating the measure or to require 60 votes in order to pass it. 

Click Here to see a summary of H. Rept. 111-298, the conference agreement that was prepared by staff members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees

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