Mikie Sherrill on Immigration

ICE protests have been peaceful, but ICE hasn't been

SHERRILL: The president said he was going to use our American cities for practice for troops. He's now put a deployment order out in Alaska to potentially put them on the streets.

Q: Yes; why do you think?

SHERRILL: I think he is trying to incite the protesters. Somebody asked me yesterday, "Haven't the protests been peaceful?" I said, "the protesters have been peaceful, but ICE hasn't been." They're assaulting people on the street. People are getting shot and killed by these out of control proto-military agents.

Q: What would it mean if he actually goes through with the threat to invoke the Insurrection Act?

SHERRILL: He seems to be trying to incite an insurrection so he can then put troops on the street for the insurrection. This is something that every single American should be concerned about. That we are somehow going to have to live our lives under military troops on the street. It is not how the troops should be used.

Ensure no retaliation for dealing with police, health care

Increase both high-skill and family-based visa caps.

Legislative Summary:This bill increases the per-country cap on family-based immigrant visas from 7% of the total number of such visas available that year to 15%, and eliminates the 7% cap for employment-based immigrant visas. It also removes an offset that reduced the number of visas for individuals from China. The bill also establishes transition rules for employment-based visas from FY2020-FY2022, by reserving a percentage of EB-2 (workers with advanced degrees or exceptional ability), EB-3 (skilled and other workers), and EB-5 (investors) visas for individuals not from the two countries with the largest number of recipients of such visas. Of the unreserved visas, not more than 85% shall be allotted to immigrants from any single country.

Explanation from the Countable.US: Under the current immigration system, immigrants from any one country can claim no more than 7% of the 140,000 employment-based green cards issued annually to foreign nationals working in the U.S. This significantly disadvantages immigrants from larger countries that more immigrants come from.

For example, China (population 1.3 billion) and India have large backlogs of workers wishing to immigrate to and work in the U.S., but they have the name visa caps as countries such as Iceland or Estonia (population 1.3 million), which have both much smaller populations and far fewer citizens seeking to immigrate to the U.S.

The net effect of this is that immigrants from India and China can face decades-long waits, averaging 2-3 times the wait times for immigrants from other countries, for green cards, and many have to return home because they can`t get permanent residency; meanwhile, countries such as Iceland and Estonia never come close to reaching their visa limit caps.

Legislative outcome Roll call 437 in House on 7/10/2019 passed 365-65-2; referred to Committee in Senate 7/9/2019; no action as of 1/1/2020.

Sponsored bill to disallow religion-based immigration ban.