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Monday Immigration Bulletin: Eagle, Registry, Diwali

Added 2022-10-24 20:01:38 +0000 UTC

Good afternoon and Happy Diwali to those who celebrate! Bay Area backloggers marched to end per-country caps over the weekend as East Harlem Latinas continue to push Senators to support the immigration registry bill. Here’s your Monday immigration bulletin -

Backlog Immigrants March to Lofgren’s House

Eagle Act advocates marched to Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)’s home on Sunday from a nearby elementary school. At least four dozen supporters of the bill to end per-country immigration caps on employment based visas turned up with signage to the family-friendly affair.

“When somebody is hired based on merit to do a job, why does their country of birth really matter?” Gokul Gunasekaran told CBS News Bay Area affiliate, who reached out to the House Democrat for comment. Lofgren told CBS “the bill should be set for a House vote when Congress reconvenes.”

Photo courtesy of Rohit Sharma

In the House, Eagle Act has already been set for a House vote, having gone through the markup process and been added to the Union Calendar. It just hasn’t been brought to the floor. Before Sunday’s rally, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-NY) told Immigration Voice that Eagle Act would get a vote in the lame duck, according to two sources familiar with the conversation.

Multiple Hill aides told Pablo Reports that the House vote count for Eagle Act is not as obvious as some advocates have claimed. The immigrant relief bill was incredibly successful a Congress ago, but has been reduced to legislative obscurity ever since.

"To help the people from India at the expense of everyone else is their solution,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin told me in June when asked about support for the Eagle Act. “You can imagine everyone else has a different opinion so we're trying to find some middle ground.”

The Eagle Act eliminates the employment-based caps altogether, a change that most benefits immigrants from India and China. The bill also increases the family-based cap from seven to fifteen percent, which would most benefit immigrants from Mexico and the Philippines.

“If this is about fighting racism in our immigration system, why not eliminate country caps altogether?” said Amy Maldonado, an immigration attorney in Michigan and Eagle Act skeptic.

Gunasekaran disagrees. “This is akin to people being asked to stand in a separate line based on the color of their skin,” he told CBS while standing in front of Logfren’s house on Sunday. “I think this country has rejected this idea in the past.”

Latina Immigrants Push Registry Bill in Senate

Movement for Justice in el Barrio is a low key, majority-women, community organization in East Harlem with a deep rolodex in the House and Senate that includes both Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Ds-NY).

The group has been pressing Senators to sign on to the Renewing Immigration Provisions of the Immigration Act of 1929, the immigration registry bill introduced late last month in the upper chamber by Democratic Senators Alex Padilla (CA), Elizabeth Warren (MA), Ben Ray Lujan (NM), and Majority Whip Dick Durbin (IL). A month early, Lofgren introduced the original, identical bill in the House.

The immigration registry bill is just two pages long, but its social and economic impact would be immense. Eight million undocumented immigrants would be eligible for green cards. The bill would also help legal immigrants by clearing much of the green card backlog and protecting many documented dreamers, mostly from India.

A spokesperson for Movement tells me that they have been meeting with staffers for Senators Bernie Sanders (VT) and Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) about the registry bill and that Sanders is ready to cosponsor when the Senate returns after the midterm. Sanders’ team did not immediately reply to confirm, but the senior senator from Vermont has a long history of supporting ambitious immigrant relief legislation.

Registry is arguably the most ambitious of a galaxy of immigrant relief items that advocates are trying to push through Congress during the lame duck. Immigrant rights advocates fear the short legislative sprint after the election could be the last window of opportunity for a long time if the GOP gains control of either the House or Senate … or both.

Today I Learned …

In the video era, there has been only one mention of Diwali on the House or Senate floor. "I would also like to extend my best wishes to the millions of people that will celebrate Diwali this Saturday; I certainly hope it will be a joyous occasion,” said Rep. Ed Royce on the House floor on October 14, 2009. Hat tip to CSPAN’s Howard Mortman on Twitter for that trivia.