H.R. 3452, the VISA Act, would help reduce illegal immigration by authorizing Congress to use the military to secure the borders. It would also limit the release of aliens in removal proceedings, thereby reducing the number of illegal aliens with standing deportation orders who are able to disappear before they are deported.
H.R. 2671, the CLEAR Act, would clarify state and local law enforcement's ability to enforce immigration laws. If enacted, H.R. 2671 would have reduced the flow of new illegal aliens into the United States and also begun to slowly and steadily reducing the current illegal population.
H.R. 655 would prevent illegal aliens from being able to use a driver's license as a legal form of identification. Since a driver's license is a gateway to other documents, this would have made it more difficult for an illegal alien to operate in the U.S.
H.R. 3229, the Visa Entry Reform Act, would implement an entry-exit system an an integrated database of biometric identifiers for every visa holder. It also would have created a comprehensive alien tracking and identification system. This would have reduced illegal immigration by decreasing the ability of a visa holder in the U.S. to overstay their visa and become an illegal alien.
H.R. 3077, the Visa Integrity and Security Act, would require H-1B employers to notify authorities if H-1B visa holders never show up for the job. The bill would have also created an entry-exit tracking system that would signal authorities when people who enter the U.S. legally on visas do not leave as they should and stay here illegally.
H.R. 2202, the Immigration in the National Interest Act of 1995, was a large omnibus bill designed to reform the entire immigration system. The legal immigration reforms it included were based on the bi-partisan Barbara Jordan Commission's recommendations for cutting the major links of family-chain migration and protecting American workers from further wage depression. The bill would have eliminated the categories for adult children and siblings and limited that for parents of adults.
H.R. 1915, the Immigration in the National Interest Act, would have shifted the primary focus of immigration policy to spouses and minor children from extended family and to skilled immigrants from less skilled ones. It would have set a ceiling of 330,000 on family-based immigration. In addition this bill would have increased the number of skilled workers, while eliminating the unskilled worker category and the lottery program. H.R. 1915 also contained provisions designed to reduce illegal immigration such as worker verification programs.
H.R. 4934, the Immigration Reduction Act, would cut legal immigration -- by reducing chain migration, ending the visa lottery, capping refugees and asylees, eliminating unnecessary worker visas, and ending birthright citizenship -- from around 1 million to around 320,000 a year, reducing U.S. population growth by about 5.8 million over a 10-year period.
H.R. 3862 would have cut legal immigration from around one million to below 300,000 a year -- near the traditional American level of immigration. It also would have eliminated one of the major incentives for illegal immigration by halting the granting of U.S. citizenship to babies born to illegal-alien mothers in the United States. The House leadership did not bring the bill to a vote.