Today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, delivered the following remarks on the House floor in opposition to H.R. 6136, the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act:

“I strongly oppose H.R. 6136.  Far from being the ‘moderate’ and ‘compromise’ bill that has been advertised, this bill is extreme and unreasonable.

“This bill eliminates the Diversity Visa program, which provides residents of many countries the only method of immigrating to the U.S., and it makes deep cuts to legal family immigration, including revoking the approvals of over 3 million family members who have been waiting for years to legally reunify with their U.S. citizen brothers, sisters, and parents.

“While it claims to end President Trump’s cruel family separation policy, nothing in the bill actually prohibits family separation or limits criminal prosecutions.  And the bill actually requires the long-term detention of families and children.  It also eliminates a variety of court-ordered conditions governing the detention of children, including requirements that facilities be safe, sanitary, and appropriate for children.

“If this bill were to become law, important asylum protections would be eliminated by raising the credible fear standard of proof to an unreasonably high degree.  It also contains a safe third country prohibition preventing many bona fide asylum-seekers from even applying for protection.

“This bill makes communities less safe by forcing local authorities to accommodate ICE detainers, even though immigrant victims and witnesses may be less willing to cooperate with law enforcement as a result.

“In addition, this legislation spends $23.4 billion to fund Donald Trump’s offensive and unnecessary border wall.  It also funds an array of military technology to be used on the border, and it requires Customs and Border Protection to maintain over 50,000 agents and officers—a 30% increase—without any additional oversight.

“Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this bill fails to provide a certain path to citizenship for the Dreamers.  Donald Trump created havoc when he made the decision to strip legal status from young Americans who were brought to the United States as children, and who know only this country as their home.  The Republican Leadership repeatedly announced that they intended to protect the Dreamers, but those pledges turn out to have been nothing but empty promises.

“Now we see their solution, and it is a half-measure, at best, that leaves far too many Dreamers behind.  The bill’s stringent eligibility requirements would likely cut off more than 2 million of the estimated 3.5 million Dreamers from even participating in the bill’s legalization program, a program that itself provides an uncertain path to citizenship.

“For those who are eligible, the bill establishes a long and difficult process to permanent residence that forces applicants to earn points towards gaining a green card.  But, because of the limited number of visas made available each year, it forces applicants to battle it out against each other, with a potential wait of up to 23 years by the time all of the visas are allocated.

“Most galling, if even one dollar of border wall funding is ever transferred or rescinded by Congress, the long and difficult path to permanent residence would be canceled entirely.  This would effectively hold the Dreamers hostage to every appropriations battle in the years to come. 

“Do not be fooled by this legislation.  It is not moderate.  It is not a compromise.  It does not solve the Dreamer issue.  It is yet one more anti-immigration measure by the Republican Majority that fails to solve the real issues plaguing our immigration system.

“I urge all Members to oppose this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.”

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