Dear Readers:
The election has come and gone so as the smoke clears, here are my observations on what to expect in the months ahead:
- A Democratic US House of Representatives won’t mean many pro-immigration bills will pass anytime soon since bills must still move through the Senate and be signed by President Trump.
- However, some less controversial measures stand a better chance of moving since the House Immigration Subcommittee will move many bills and Senate Republicans have tended to be more moderate on immigration issues. Nevertheless, unless bills have veto-proof majorities, even bipartisan bills could face problems getting signed by President Trump. One bill that might move is HR 392 eliminating per country quotas because that bill already has 333 co-sponsors in the House.
- The House Immigration Subcommittee is more likely to make more headway with oversight and could change the behavior of agencies with its subpoena power and by calling agency and White House officials to testify under oath.
- House Democrats could also use their power over spending to bar agencies from using their budgets to implement controversial policies and regulations (such as the proposed public charge rule).
- The President is threatening a government shutdown if he doesn’t get funding for a border wall. The government is scheduled to shut down at midnight on December 7th unless a spending bill is passed. Democrats have previously offered a deal for spending money on a wall in exchange for DACA relief. While the terms of a deal may differ, many believe the White House may be willing to make a deal more acceptable to Democrats in the days ahead.
- The Senate’s immigration stance could look much different this coming term. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the current head of the Judiciary Committee (which is in charge of immigration), is stepping off to head the Finance Committee. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is taking over and he has a long history of supporting moderate immigration policies. He has taken some tougher positions in recent months, but many are hopeful that he’ll be interested in running the committee in a more bipartisan fashion.
- Now that he’s out of leadership, some expect Senator Jon Cornyn (R-TX) to take over as chair of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee. Given the scare Texas Senator Ted Cruz just saw in his re-election campaign and given Cornyn’s past moderate reputation on immigration, many expect his taking over the subcommittee would be good news for immigration advocates.
There’s a lot of unknowns, of course. And we could see upheaval depending on what the Supreme Court does on issues like DACA and the recent asylum ban that was overturned by a District Court judge. So stay tuned.
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The other news I wanted to tell you about involves this publication. Siskind’s Immigration Bulletin, turning 25 years old in a few months, was the first Internet-published law firm newsletter in the world. We’re proud of our continuous publication over these many years and look forward to continuing for many more to come. You’ll soon see some changes in the way we deliver immigration news. We’ll be publishing a news digest monthly and then publish more in-depth issues on a quarterly basis. And we’ll be focusing on pushing out more news alerts on major issues that we’ll be sending based on what our readers want to see. So you’ll have the option of selecting which broad issues you want to be alerted about – family immigration developments, employment issues, compliance, etc. Look for more information on this in the months to come.
Regards,
Greg Siskind
Disclaimer: This newsletter is provided as a public service and not intended to establish an attorney client relationship. Any reliance on information contained herein is taken at your own risk.