On immigration, it would make major changes along the lines of what Republicans have demanded for years and leaves one big Democratic goal unfulfilled. Here is NBC's summary:
I still don't understand what it really means to "shut down" the border.The bill includes a new emergency authority that would allow the Department of Homeland Security to, as Biden has put it, “shut down” the border if there are too many migrants trying to cross.
DHS could close the border if Border Patrol encounters 4,000 or more migrants on average over a seven-day period. The border would have to be shut down if those encounters reached a seven-day average of 5,000 or if they exceeded 8,500 in a single day.
The border couldn’t be shut down under this authority for more than 270 days in the first year. And the bill would give the president the power to suspend a border closure “on an emergency basis for up to 45 days if it is in the national interest.”
During an emergency closure, Border Patrol would still need to process a minimum of 1,400 migrants who try to enter the U.S. legally through ports of entry. Only unaccompanied minors would be able to cross between ports of entry. And any migrant who tried to cross illegally two or more times during a border emergency would be barred from the U.S. for a year.
That "consequence," Sinema said, represents "one key difference between the use of Title 42 and our new border authority. It will create disincentives for individuals who seek to cross illegally into the country during border closure.”
The bill would also end the practice of “catch and release.” If passed into law, the bill would allow migrants who come to the border through lawful ports of entry and families to enter the U.S. under federal supervision for 90 days while they complete an asylum interview. Those who pass would receive work permits as they await adjudication of their claims. Those who fail would be removed from the U.S. and repatriated to their home countries or to Mexico.
The bill would mandate that migrants who attempt to enter the U.S. outside of official ports of entry be detained, pending any asylum claims. Those who fail would also be removed.
The bill allocates funding for repatriation flights up to 77 per day.
Current and former DHS officials had told NBC News that the emergency shutdown provision in the bill would cause chaos and might not be effective unless Mexico agreed to take more migrants turned away from the U.S. The bill doesn’t include new cooperation from Mexico.
The bill also raises the “credible fear” standard during interviews for asylum claims, largely by front-loading consideration of whether a migrant has a disqualifying criminal history, whether they lived safely in a third country before trying to cross into the U.S. and whether they could safely relocate within their own country.
The bill doesn't address the children of undocumented people, known as DREAMers, long a priority of Democrats. It would change immigration laws to allow the children of people with H-1B visas to get work authorizations and freeze their legal ages while waiting for green cards, rather than face deportation once they hit age 21. While they wait, those children would be able to have work authorizations. These changes would affect about 250,000 children in the U.S., Sinema’s staff told reporters on a call on Sunday night.
The bill also provides a pathway to conditional, lawful, permanent residency for vetted Afghan nationals who were admitted or paroled into the U.S. after July 2021. The Afghan allies, many of whom worked directly with American forces during the war, and their families would be exempt from immigration quota limitations and could apply for naturalization.
And the bill would add new flexibility for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol to make new hires, seeking to address staffing shortages. The changes in hiring authorities are all set to sunset in the next few years and would have to be renewed.
Both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have endorsed the bill.
