Liz Cheney on Immigration

Deport foreign criminals;punish nations denying repatriation.

Congressional Summary:

• Requires a quarterly report to Congress regarding each country that has refused or unreasonably delayed repatriation of an alien who is a citizen, subject, national, or resident of such country.
• Prohibits the Secretary of State, upon the passage of specified periods of time, from issuing certain nonimmigrant (including certain diplomatic) visas and immigrant visas to a citizen, subject, national, or resident of a listed country.
• Notifies the chief law enforcement officer of the state and of the local jurisdiction in which an alien who has been detained is released.

Opponent's Comments (American Immigration Lawyers Association letter, Nov. 17. 2011): AILA urges withdrawal of this unnecessary and deeply harmful bill from consideration. If enacted, H.R. 3256 would do serious damage to the U.S. visa processing system, jeopardize U.S. businesses and communities that depend on foreign national students, workers, and their families, and threaten America's economy and security. At a time when America's doors must be open for business, we cannot risk sending the message to the world that we have shut our doors.

The proposed bill's mandatory visa-denial scheme would place at risk America's relations with many of its most important trade, business and diplomatic partners. H.R. 3256 would mandate the denial of visas to any country that denies or unreasonably delays the repatriation of its nationals. If implemented today, scores of countries would risk having their visas cut-off because they failed to repatriate nationals within a 180-day period. Among those countries are some of our closest allies and key economic partners.

Allow immigration bans from non-cooperating countries.

The National Origin-Based Antidiscrimination for Nonimmigrants Act (NO BAN Act) imposes limitations on the President's authority to suspend or restrict aliens from entering the US. It also prohibits religious discrimination in various immigration-related decisions, such as issuing a visa. The President may temporarily restrict the entry of any class of aliens after determining that the restriction would address specific and credible facts that threaten U.S. interests such as security or public safety.

GovTrack.us analysis (4/21/21): President Donald Trump instituted a travel ban on eight countries: Chad, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen. The Supreme Court upheld the travel ban 5-4 in the 2018 decision Trump v. Hawaii. Trump's travel ban was popularly nicknamed "the Muslim ban" by its Democratic critics since most of the countries it applied to were majority Muslim, and because Trump as a 2016 candidate had indeed proposed a Muslim ban. Regardless, President Joe Biden rescinded the policy on his first day in office. Currently, federal law bans any person from being discriminated against when entering the U.S. on the basis of five characteristics: race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence. The NO BAN Act would add another category: religion.

Rep. Tom McClintock in OPPOSITION: President Trump invoked this authority against countries that were hotbeds of international terrorism and that were not cooperating with the US in providing basic information about travelers coming from these countries. The left called it a 'Muslim ban.' What nonsense. Without this authority, the president would have been powerless to take simple, prudent precautions against terrorists and criminals from entering the US.

Legislative Outcome: Passed House 218-208-3 on April 21, 2021, rollcall #127; introduced in Senate with 42 co-sponsors but no further Senate action during 2021.