The House has passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
So what does this mean
for the immigration provisions in Biden's reconciliation framework?
President Biden is now putting pressure on the House and Senate to pass
the reconciliation bill, which includes parole, recaptured visas and super fees.
But without the infrastructure bill as leverage, these provisions
face an uncertain future.
So today we are taking a look at when this bill might pass
and what these provisions will mean for immigrants in America.
Stay tuned because we'll be covering some of the immigration details
people have not been talking about.
And if you appreciate this immigration news update,
please be sure to like this video so that others get a chance to see it.
OK, what will happen to the immigration provisions
in the budget reconciliation bill now that the infrastructure bill has passed?
As I mentioned in my last video.
House progressives were refusing to vote on the infrastructure bill
in order to ensure that the $1.75 trillion Build Back
Better bill was passed on time and without additional changes.
Unfortunately, after mainstream media outlets started blaming progressives
for the high profile losses in Virginia, they gave in and passed that bill
last Friday, with six progressives voting "no," and 13 Republicans voting "yes."
This means that there is little President Biden or progressives can do to prevent
establishment Democrats like Joe Manchin or Kristen Cinema
from making changes when it reaches the Senate.
Shortly after passing the infrastructure bill, Democratic leaders
declared that the Build Back Better bill would pass by November 15,
but that quickly changed November 22nd, and now
word is that the timeline is getting pushed back even further.
Assuming that the immigration provisions survive this process, what specifically
would pass and what would it mean for immigrants in America?
I've been getting this question a lot from a lot of you
about the details of this bill, so let's dive in.
There is parole for undocumented immigrants—also called Plan C—and
there are legal immigration provisions, which include recapturing unused visas
and waiving per country caps through a "super fee."
Unlike plans "A" and "B," parole does not include a pathway to citizenship,
but it does provide long term protection from deportation and work
authorization for approximately 7.1 million undocumented individuals
who entered the country before January 1st 2011.
The legal immigration provisions are designed to reduce the visa backlog,
which is projected to have average wait times measured in decades
if Congress does not do something now.
If passed, they would immediately recapture hundreds of thousands
of unused visa numbers from 1992
to 2021 and would maintain the availability
of diversity visas from fiscal year 2017 until 2021.
The provisions would also allow for some of those who have been waiting
at least two years in the visa backlog to pay a "super fee,"
which would waive the per country cap and allow them to adjust their status.
As written, the "super fee" for employment based visa applicants is $5,000
and the "super fee" for family sponsored applicants is $2,500.
We have discussed these here before, but we have not covered the increase
in application fees
that the reconciliation bill also proposes in order to increase funding for USCIS
to hire more staff and processed more visas, the current House
reconciliation bill also proposed increasing the following fees: $500
for E, H-1B, L, O and P petitions (form I-129),
$500 for each application to change or extend nonimmigrant status
(form I-539), $500 for applications for employment authorization (form I-765)
$75 for each approved nonimmigrant visa,
$800 for each employment based visa petitions on the form I-140, $500
for requesting a replacement or expired permanent resident cards on the Form I-90,
and $15000 for each immigrant petition
for an alien entrepreneur on the form I-526.
These are part of a 2.8 billion dollar increase
to the USCIS budget that is included in the Build Back Better plan.
So what do you think?
Will the reconciliation bill pass in the next few weeks?
Will it pass this year?
And if so, will Plan C and the legal immigration provisions
be included and survive?
Leave a comment below and let me know.
If you want to hear more about what parole is
and whether or not it will pass the parliamentarian, click here
to watch my latest video where I explain this in more detail.
I will continue to bring you more updates as news becomes available,
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