AMERICAN NATIONALIST issued the following announcement on July 22.
Even amid the pandemic, House Democrats are keeping a focus on President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda: They passed a bill on Wednesday that would repeal the travel ban on citizens of 13 countries and limit his authority to issue such sweeping bans in the future.
The bill — the No Ban Act, which passed 233-183 — will almost certainly go nowhere in the Republican-led Senate, where several Democrat-led immigration bills have languished. But it allows Democrats to contrast themselves with Trump ahead of the presidential election and present themselves as a party that welcomes immigrants, rather than keeping them out.
The bill would also strengthen existing prohibitions on religious discrimination in visa applications, which are guaranteed by the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Immigrant advocates have praised the House’s measure as a means of protecting the rights of American Muslims.
Democrats are hopeful that former Vice President Joe Biden will prioritize the legislation should he win the presidential election this fall. He could quickly repeal Trump’s travel bans via executive order, but the bill would provide more lasting protection against such bans in any future administration.
“It’s a very clear signal about what the House Democratic Caucus stands for,” said Tom Jawetz, vice president of immigration policy at the Center for American Progress think tank. “An incoming Biden administration can and should eliminate these bans by the stroke of a pen on day one. But that act itself will not stop a future administration from trying to shape an immigration system in his or her own anti-immigrant, racist image. This bill imposes important procedural and substantive constraints on that authority.”
Another Democrat-led immigration bill also cleared the House Wednesday: The Access to Counsel Act, which passed 231-184, would allow immigrants to contact an attorney or other legal service provider when they are detained by US Customs and Border Protection or US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Immigrants taken into custody currently do not have any such assurance.
But these bills are only pieces of what should constitute broader immigration reform efforts if Biden assumes the presidency, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who introduced the Access to Counsel Act, said.
“We’re going to be pushing for comprehensive, humane immigration reform that really addresses the broken pieces of immigration law that we currently have,” she said. “That is absolutely essential.”
Original source here.
Alerts Sign-up