Advocates in Ga. warn of consequences if immigration measures are lost

The Biden administration’s immigration agenda took another hit this week, leaving immigration reforms in Democrats’ signature social safety net bill now seriously in doubt.

If the immigration measures are lost, if will disappoint millions of immigrant families hoping for a firmer foothold in the U.S. And immigrant advocates in Georgia are warning that could complicate efforts to mobilize Latino or Asian voters, two fast-growing electorates in the state, going forward.

“If [Democrats] don’t deliver on the promises that were made during the campaign season, then I think it’s going to be very, very difficult to persuade voters to come back out in 2022,” Jerry Gonzalez, head of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (GALEO), said.

Triggering the alarm bells was a Thursday decision from the nonpartisan rules referee in the Senate, the parliamentarian, who said that a legalization program for unauthorized immigrants didn’t belong in Democrats’ bill.

The parliamentarian had previously made clear that no path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants could be included in the expansive Build Back Better Act and passed through reconciliation. That’s the legislative track for budget-related matters that exempts lawmakers in the Senate from the constraints of the typical 60-vote threshold.

To assuage those concerns, the version of the bill House Democrats passed in November featured immigration provisions that were narrower in scope, including a “parole” program that would have granted deportation relief and work permits to roughly 7 million immigrants living in the U.S. without legal status, or about 65% of the total undocumented population. Advocates in Congress had said that addressing immigration has important economic implications, citing nationwide labor shortages.

But in a procedural “Byrd bath” — an exercise named after the late Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., during which the Senate parliamentarian ensures that every provision inside a reconciliation bill is tied to the budget — the immigration measures were ruled too extraneous for inclusion.

“These are substantial policy changes with lasting effects just like those we previously considered and outweigh the budgetary impact,” Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough wrote in her opinion Thursday. She also noted that parole would cost the government around $111 billion over 10 years, due to federal benefits immigrants would qualify for by gaining legal status.

This is the third time MacDonough has ruled against an immigration-related provision in the Build Back Better package. The rejected proposal fell short of pathway to citizenship — a policy supported by President Biden and Georgia’s Democratic U.S. Senators — and it only would have benefited unauthorized immigrants who have moved to the U.S. before Jan. 1, 2010. But parole status would have formally admitted millions of beneficiaries into the U.S., a significant policy change given the razor thin margins Democrats are contending with in the Senate.

A statement issued Friday by Ossoff’s office said that the parliamentarian’s opinion is not the end of the effort. According to the statement, “Millions of hardworking immigrants in communities across America deserve the dignity and protection of citizenship, and Sen. Ossoff believes it is vital that we establish a pathway to citizenship.”

The parliamentarian’s consistent opposition to immigration provisions in the Build Back Better bill represents one of many setbacks Biden has faced on immigration since assuming the presidency.

In February, Democratic lawmakers unveiled Biden’s standalone immigration package, which would grant nearly every unauthorized immigrant a path to citizenship, but the legislation failed to make progress in Congress. A deportation moratorium was blocked by a federal judge mere weeks after being announced. Another judge thwarted the Biden administration’s decision to shut down a controversial Trump-era policy requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are processed.

In a statement, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and five other Democratic senators criticized the parliamentarian’s decision, but did not commit to overruling her, a course of action that is rarely taken, but which many advocates are calling for.

Luis Zaldivar is the Georgia state director for CASA, an immigrant advocacy organization. On Thursday, he led a rally of about 15 people outside Sen. Ossoff’s Atlanta office, where they chanted “Ossoff, escucha, estamos en la lucha” (“Listen up, Ossoff, we are in this fight”).

“We expect our senators to overrule the advice of the parliamentarian,” he said.

Credit: Lautaro Grinspan

Credit: Lautaro Grinspan

It is unclear whether Democrats have the votes in the Senate to overrule the parliamentarian’s guidance, or where Sens. Ossoff and Warnock stand in the matter.

Aside from the parole program, the Build Back Better Act’s immigration provisions also take aim at the sizable backlog of green card applications. The legislation would make available over 400,000 green cards that previous administrations failed to use for reasons ranging from pandemic-related disruptions to bureaucratic delays.

Under current law, only 7% of the 140,000 employment-based green cards issued each year can go to applicants from a single country. The country caps yield particularly long wait times for immigrants hailing from large, populous nations such as China or India, who sometimes must stay in line for years or decades to get their applications approved.

It’s an issue keenly felt in Georgia, where Indians make up the second largest immigrant group in the state, following Mexicans.

Lautaro Grinspan is a Report for America corps member covering metro Atlanta’s immigrant communities.