[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 64 Introduced in House (IH)]
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117th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 64
Recognizing that it is the duty of the Federal Government to develop
and implement a Roadmap to Freedom in order to overhaul the outdated
immigration system in the United States that has gone without
significant reform for decades, and to relieve the great human impact
an unjust system bears on communities around the country.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
January 28, 2021
Ms. Jayapal (for herself, Mr. Garcia of Illinois, Ms. Escobar, Ms.
Ocasio-Cortez, Ms. Chu, Ms. Clarke of New York, Mr. Blumenauer, Ms.
Bush, Mr. Carson, Mr. Cicilline, Mr. Danny K. Davis of Illinois, Mr.
Espaillat, Ms. Garcia of Texas, Mr. Gomez, Mr. Grijalva, Mr. Hastings,
Ms. Jackson Lee, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, Mr. Jones, Mr. Khanna, Ms. Lee
of California, Mr. McGovern, Ms. Meng, Ms. Moore of Wisconsin, Ms.
Norton, Ms. Omar, Mr. Pallone, Mr. Panetta, Ms. Pingree, Mr. Pocan, Ms.
Pressley, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Smith of Washington, Mr. Takano, Ms.
Tlaib, Mr. Torres of New York, Mr. Vargas, Ms. Velazquez, and Mrs.
Watson Coleman) submitted the following resolution; which was referred
to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committees on
Ways and Means, Homeland Security, and Foreign Affairs, for a period to
be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for
consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the
committee concerned
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Recognizing that it is the duty of the Federal Government to develop
and implement a Roadmap to Freedom in order to overhaul the outdated
immigration system in the United States that has gone without
significant reform for decades, and to relieve the great human impact
an unjust system bears on communities around the country.
Whereas our strength as a country has always been greater when we welcome
newcomers;
Whereas today the United States is an economic and innovation powerhouse due to
the labor and lands of Indigenous peoples to which the United States has
continuing trust and treaty responsibilities, the labor of enslaved
people and their descendants, and generations of immigrants from every
corner of the globe;
Whereas immigrants and their families are a vital part of every community across
the country;
Whereas creating a fair immigration process that upholds our values and honors
the courage and tenacity of people who have moved to pursue a better
life, upholds our foundational commitment to liberty and justice for
all;
Whereas the majority of Americans support modernizing our Nation's immigration
laws and keeping families together;
Whereas the United States is home to an estimated 10.5 million undocumented
immigrants and stateless individuals, approximately 16 million people
living in mixed-status families, and at least 5.1 million children with
an undocumented parent;
Whereas an estimated 19.8 million people who have immigrated to the United
States support American families by providing health care, food, and
other essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet many--
including mixed-status families--are excluded from almost all Federal
pandemic relief, including access to testing, treatment, and food and
financial assistance;
Whereas these 19.8 million people are projected to continue playing a critical
role in American life and work, and need a safe and fair immigration
process;
Whereas creating a fair and humane immigration system will help level the
playing field for all working people and ensure that employers cannot
take advantage of an outdated system to undermine worker voice and
protections;
Whereas people, businesses, and communities suffer due to an immigration system
that is plagued by backlogs, processing delays, and overly complex
policies that are inefficient, harmful, and widen the existing
inequities in the system;
Whereas immigrants--regardless of status--contribute billions every year in
taxes, yet many have virtually no access to safety net programs that are
vital to ensuring that all communities thrive;
Whereas all of us are harmed when our outdated and biased immigration system
does not respond to the needs of the United States;
Whereas today's main immigration enforcement agency, the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) was formed after the September 11, 2001, attacks and
reshaped immigration as a national security issue, and minimized
immigration as an issue of humanitarian protection, family unity, and
economic necessity--the effects of which have permeated immigration
policies at all levels over the last nearly 20 years;
Whereas the Trump Administration's DHS has deployed agents and surveillance
technology to suppress the constitutionally protected First Amendment
rights of citizens and noncitizens alike across the country;
Whereas our outdated immigration laws and rampant immigration enforcement has
disproportionately impacted low-income people, people of color, and
Black, Latinx, Muslim and Arab, Asian and Pacific Islander immigrants,
immigrants from Indigenous communities and their families, and
borderland communities and these people have suffered gravely under
policies that prioritize detention and deportation as a means of
deterrence, including--
(1) the separation of hundreds of thousands of families resulting from
implementation of the Trump administration's ``Zero Tolerance'' policy in
addition to deporting tens of thousands of parents away from U.S. citizen
children annually, and families separated by lengthy processing backlogs
and bans on people from Muslim-majority and African countries who have
loved ones and family members in the United States;
(2) over a million recipients of either Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals (DACA) or Temporary Protected Status (TPS) who have had their
status taken away, bans on people from Muslim-majority and African
countries, and the decimation of the asylum and refugee resettlement
systems;
(3) deplorable conditions in the custody of Customs and Border
Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including prolonged
detention, rampant use of solitary confinement, crowded cells, rotten food,
physical abuse, sexual abuse, medical abuse, and forced medical procedures
of detained women, including some resulting in sterilization; and
(4) dozens of preventable deaths in the custody of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, including deaths of
children, due to medical neglect and suicide;
Whereas Black immigrants excel in all sectors of society, yet are
disproportionately targeted by incarceration and deportation in which
they experience abuse, longer periods of detention, and make up more
than 20 percent of those facing deportation, despite making up
approximately seven percent of the noncitizen population;
Whereas Muslim immigrants contribute greatly to their communities, yet have been
disparately subjected to bans, visa denials and denaturalization efforts
based on their religion and national origin, and the targets of racial
and religious profiling, discrimination, bigotry, and hate crimes;
Whereas Asian immigrants are the fastest growing immigrant population yet are
harmed by lengthy backlogs that keep families apart and prevent them
from becoming U.S. citizens, and Southeast Asian immigrants are the
largest refugee community in the United States, yet are three times more
likely to be deported based on an old criminal conviction;
Whereas indigenous immigrants have come to the United States fleeing persecution
in great numbers in recent years yet have been subject to prolonged
detention and forcibly returned to the countries they fled due to
language barriers and a lack of adequate interpretation in their native
languages;
Whereas Latinx immigrants represent the largest immigrant community in the
United States yet are frequently scapegoated, criminalized, and racially
profiled leading to discrimination, hate crimes, and targeting for
detention and deportation due to collaboration between local law
enforcement and Federal immigration authorities;
Whereas migration can increase a woman's access to education, economic
independence, and autonomy, yet migrant women's work is not valued in
the immigration system and women are at a greater risk of exploitation,
trafficking, and abuse;
Whereas the Federal Government unnecessarily spends $8.43 million per day on
immigrant detention at an average daily cost of $208 per detained
immigrant, when those same people should be able to pursue their
immigration case in communities, and cost-effective humane community-
based case management programs exist when needed;
Whereas the main drivers of the global displacement of people include violence,
food insecurity, extreme poverty, mass wealth inequality, the effects of
climate change, endemic corruption, unfair judicial systems, harm done
by multi-national corporations and mass consumption of resources, and
U.S. foreign policy and military intervention leading to decades of
destabilization;
Whereas our post-World War II commitment to provide access to protection to
people seeking safety in the United States has been almost completely
dismantled under the Trump Administration;
Whereas the politicization of the Immigration Court system has interfered with
the efficient and fair operations of the Immigration Courts and resulted
in due process violations;
Whereas immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human and
labor trafficking are vulnerable to ongoing abuse and exploitation for
extended periods of time while their harm-doers are able to leverage the
immigration system as a tool of fear, exploitation, and profit making;
Whereas the COVID-19 pandemic deepened the injustices of the immigration system
resulting in a tremendous spread of COVID-19 in detention, deaths of
multiple persons in detention due to COVID-19, and mass expulsions of
unaccompanied children and asylum seekers at the border; and
Whereas a fair and equitable immigration process that centers on family unity
and humanitarian protection, and that works for all, is necessary to
eliminate these systemic injustices: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives
that--
(1) it is the duty of the Federal Government to develop and
implement a Roadmap to Freedom by--
(A) promoting full citizenship by creating an
equitable roadmap that fosters and nurtures full
citizenship, and investing in resources to clear the
backlogged citizenship process;
(B) protecting and strengthening a fair process
centered on family unity by--
(i) eliminating barriers to family
reunification;
(ii) preserving and strengthening family
based immigration;
(iii) creating a just and accessible
process for eligible individuals who are
deported, detained, or in sanctuary to reunite
with their families and communities, and return
home in the United States;
(C) promoting and preserving diversity by
encouraging immigration from underrepresented
countries; establishing opportunities for individuals
who otherwise would not have an opportunity to migrate
through existing family, humanitarian, or employment-
based channels; and fostering new connections, unique
perspectives, and diversity within the United States
through upholding and enhancing the diversity visa
program;
(D) establishing a just, humane system to uphold
U.S. immigration laws by--
(i) ensuring fairness and disentangling the
criminal and deportation systems such that the
enforcement of immigration laws will not rely
upon detention and deportation by--
(I) creating scalable civil
consequences to immigration violations;
(II) repealing harmful provisions
of the Illegal Immigration Reform and
Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA)
and the Antiterrorism and Effective
Death Penalty Act (AEDPA);
(III) decriminalizing the acts of
migration and seeking asylum;
(IV) ending the 287(g) program and
other programs that enable local law
enforcement to enforce immigration laws
or require or incentivize cooperation
and support for Federal immigration
enforcement; and
(V) ending the disproportionate
immigration penalties that flow from
involvement in the criminal legal
system, in particular on immigrants of
color;
(ii) ensuring that no person is removed,
expelled, or denied admission without
guaranteed and meaningful access to legal
defense;
(iii) mandating that all enforcement
actions must comply with the Fourth Amendment,
basic principles of fairness and due process,
uphold civil rights and civil liberties, and
include robust privacy protections;
(iv) respecting the safety and security of
all people during encounters with law
enforcement by upholding the longstanding
division between State and local law
enforcement and Federal immigration enforcement
and enacting policies to build trust and
eliminate racial and religious profiling by all
Federal, State and local law enforcement
agencies in the United States;
(v) protecting the safety of immigrant
communities by prohibiting immigration
enforcement at sensitive locations including
health care facilities; schools and school bus
stops; places that provide assistance to people
such as children, pregnant women, and survivors
of abuse; places that provide disaster or
emergency services; places of worship;
courthouses; probation offices; lawyers'
offices; and public assistance offices; and
(vi) initiating an individualized review
process to ensure that these changes are
implemented retroactively;
(E) embracing a presumption of liberty for all
immigrants by--
(i) ending the detention of families,
children, and other vulnerable populations,
mandatory detention, and the use of detention
for migration processing;
(ii) upholding dignity by eliminating the
profit motive to detain people by ending the
use of private, for-profit detention facilities
and State and local jails and prisons;
(iii) investing in effective community-
based and community-supported case management
programs operated by credible non-profits that
support immigrants who need it based on a
presumption that asylum seekers and immigrants
going through immigration court proceedings are
free to live in their homes or communities, and
save taxpayers' dollars and protect human
rights; and
(iv) ensuring robust protections and
standards for the safety and well-being of
children, including while in immigration
custody;
(F) ensuring Federal immigration agencies are fair
and accountable by--
(i) establishing U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Service (USCIS) as a customer-
service oriented agency that is properly
resourced to promote immigrant and refugee
integration by reviewing all applications and
benefits in an expeditious, fair, and
responsive manner; protecting immigrants'
rights and data privacy; and maintaining
affordable application fees;
(ii) creating an Office of Migrant
Protection that is tasked with collecting data,
establishing best practices, and promoting
policies that benefit the immigrant community
in the United States;
(iii) establishing an independent
Immigration Court system that promotes fairness
and independence and ensures Immigration Judges
and appellate courts are free from political
influence and have the power to exercise
discretion, including granting relief where
equities demand it; and
(iv) ensuring robust and independent
oversight of immigration agencies including a
meaningful complaint process that engages
impacted communities and stakeholders;
(G) establishing a humane and effective border
policy that protects the safety of all communities and
invests in the rights and livelihoods of borderland
communities by--
(i) partnering with borderland communities
in decisionmaking about the border;
(ii) facilitating safe, dignified, and
efficient trans-border travel, trade, and
exchange that strengthens community and
economic ties and well-being;
(iii) honoring the rights of people living
in the borderlands including by reversing the
flow of money into harmful border walls,
barriers, and ``virtual walls'' that perpetuate
militarization of the border and use invasive
technology that violate individuals' civil
rights and civil liberties and investing in
modernizing ports of entry, economic
development, education, and social services;
(iv) ensuring fair, effective, timely, and
humane processing of all persons seeking entry
at the borders and ensuring civil rights and
civil liberties protections, including by
ensuring that these protections apply fully
everywhere within the United States, including
at and near the border;
(v) establishing welcoming centers at the
border to ensure that people seeking safety are
processed in a way that upholds American
values;
(vi) protecting the right of borderland
communities to move without unconstitutional
searches and seizures by ending checkpoints in
the interior of the United States;
(vii) engaging in evidence-based strategic
planning to better allocate border authorities
and resources and uphold human rights including
rejecting spending on military installments,
physical barriers, or unnecessary personnel,
and rescinding the authorities that were used
to waive legal requirements for border
construction; and
(viii) addressing the damages and providing
reparations for landowners, communities, and
public, private, and tribal lands harmed by
border wall construction, border
militarization, and border authorities;
(H) affirming protections for immigrant survivors
of violence by ensuring prompt access to survivor
protections afforded under the Violence Against Women
Act (VAWA), the Trafficking Victims Protection Act
(TVPA), through the asylum system, and for Special
Immigrant Juveniles seeking safety, by--
(i) preventing the detention and
deportation of survivors seeking legal
protections;
(ii) ensuring fair, just, and expedited
processing of VAWA, TVPA and other victim
related cases and corresponding employment
authorization; and
(iii) protecting survivors from abuser
manipulation of the immigration system as a
tool of retaliation by strengthening
accountability to confidentiality protections
afforded immigrant survivors;
(I) recognizing the value of all work by
modernizing the rules that govern our workforce
immigration needs including by--
(i) ensuring that all people who are
recruited to meet verifiable labor market needs
are able to change employers, bring and live
with their families, and earn a roadmap to
citizenship;
(ii) protecting all working people by
ensuring immigrants have work authorization,
safe working conditions, and strong labor
protections, including safeguards against
employer retaliation and equal remedies when
their rights are violated; and
(iii) redirecting budgets and priorities
for worksite immigration enforcement and
instead empowering labor and employment
agencies to prosecute workplace violations that
endanger all working people--whether immigrant
or native born--and that perpetuate
discrimination, exploitation, and substandard
working conditions;
(J) promoting healthy communities by ensuring
immigrants' access to health care and housing, and
eliminating barriers that deter immigrant communities
from accessing crucial public services for which they
are eligible;
(K) promoting social, civic, and economic
integration by establishing a National Office of
Immigrant Affairs, promoting citizenship for those who
are eligible, and investing in English language
learning programs and workforce development training;
(L) modernizing and strengthening humanitarian
pathways to the United States to recognize fundamental
human rights to safety and dignity, and reflect the
changing socio political, economic, and environmental
causes driving humanitarian crises, including by--
(i) fully supporting refugee resettlement;
(ii) ensuring meaningful and broad access
to asylum and other humanitarian protections;
(iii) recommitting to U.S. obligations to
protect and support people seeking asylum in
the United States throughout the duration of
their pending asylum claims; and
(iv) acknowledging the global trends that
lead people to seek safety and ensuring people
fleeing both state and non-state violence are
able to access protection;
(M) engaging regional allies and investing in
countries vulnerable to the impacts of economic,
climate, trade, social, and security factors driving
migration including investment in rural development,
employment, free and fair elections, gender equity,
labor protections, access to health care, and education
programs that expand opportunity and economic security,
food security, and other targeted credit and financing
programs to provide debt relief and stimulate stability
and growth that is inclusive of vulnerable populations;
and
(N) acknowledging the harms of past policies on
individuals, families, and communities by engaging in a
truth and reconciliation process to provide justice to
those who have suffered under an inequitable and
inhumane system for decades; and
(2) the Roadmap to Freedom must be developed in transparent
and inclusive consultation, collaboration, and partnership with
frontline communities, community-based organizations, human
rights organizations, labor unions, immigrant worker
collectives, academia, and business stakeholders.
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