Overhauling Immigration Policy (H.R. 15)

What is H.R. 15?

(Updated December 14, 2018)

Revises federal immigration policy. Notably, the bill: 

-allows undocumented immigrants to apply for Resident Provisional (RPI) status if they have been in the U.S. since December 31, 2011, have not been convicted of a felony or three or more misdemeanors, pay their assessed taxes, pass background checks, and pay penalty fees, among other requirements;

-permits undocumented agricultural workers to be eligible for an immigrant status known as a "blue card," if they have worked at least 575 hours or 100 work days of agricultural employment during a two-year period ending December 31, 2012;

-initiates a merit-based point system that allows foreign nationals to obtain Legal Permanent Resident (LPR) status by accumulating points mainly based on their skills, employment history, and educational credentials;

-eliminates the current immigrant visa categories for siblings and adult married children of U.S. citizens, as well as the diversity visa program, replacing them with the point system above;

-clears the backlog of visa applicants by allocating visas to applicants with pending applications over the course of seven years starting in 2015, allowing these immigrants to qualify for LPR status by 2021;

-increases civil and criminal penalties for employers that knowingly hire, recruit, refer, or continue to employ an unauthorized immigrant or fail to comply with E-Verify requirements.

Argument in favor

Works toward clearing sizable backlog of visa applications. Provides system improvements to asylees and greater protections for victims of human trafficking and workplace abuse.

Argument opposed

10 to 13 year road to citizenship encourages illegal immigration, as opposed to decreasing it. Has been perceived as detrimental to U.S. workers.

Impact

Would mean substantive changes for the roughly 11 million unauthorized immigrants currently residing in the U.S., foreign nationals applying for citizenship, and foreign nationals seeking asylum.

Cost of H.R. 15

While a CBO cost estimate is not available for this bill as this time, a similar bill, S. 744, was analyzed by the CBO in June 2013, with the CBO estimating that S. 744 would DECREASE federal deficits by $158 billion over the 2014-23 period.

Additional Info

Media:

Immigration Policy Center: A Guide to H.R. 15

National Immigration Law Center: H.R. 15 Summary

Of Note:

-The bill is based on S.744, the bipartisan bill passed by the Senate by a vote of 68-32 on June 27, 2013. However, this bill removes the Corker-Hoeven border security amendment and replaces it with the bipartisan House border security bill, H.R. 1417, which was passed unanimously by the Homeland Security Committee in May 2013.

-Under current law, immigrants in removal proceedings do not have the right to appointed counsel if they cannot afford to hire a lawyer. The bill changes this in the case of unaccompanied minor children, immigrants with serious mental disabilities, and other particularly vulnerable individuals, and requires that a lawyer be appointed to represent them. 

-A 2013 Wall Street Journal/NBC News national poll found that almost two-thirds of respondents said they supported giving the 11 million citizenship. Support for that idea rose to 76% if the plan called for requiring them to pay fines and back taxes, learn English and clear security background checks. 51% of those polled said they were willing to give unauthorized immigrants with jobs citizenship after only five years, and 18% said they supported unauthorized immigrants becoming citizens immediately.

-The bill makes immigrants inadmissible or deportable if:

They have been convicted of an offense that involves participating in a street gang and promoting the criminal activity of the gang;

They have been convicted of a crime of domestic violence, stalking, child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment for which they served at least one year in prison, or if they were convicted of more than one such crime;

Are convicted of three drunk-driving offenses.