Immigration Bills

H.R. 692, Nuclear Family Priority Act, would eliminate current green card categories for adult brothers and sisters, married and unmarried adult sons and daughters, and create a special non-working visa for parents. By not providing an increase in any other category, overall immigration would decrease by more than 111,800 per year (1.118 million a decade). The numbers would also be indirectly reduced by this bill because there would be fewer spouses or parents of U.S. citizens that would be brought into the country by immigrants.

H.R. 399, the STAPLE Act, would exempt aliens who earn a Ph.D degree in math, science, technology, or engineering at a United States institution from the numerical limitations on H-1B nonimmigrants. Specifically, this legislation would offer permanent residence status to doctors, teachers, and engineers, driving down wages and creating undue competition for high-skilled American workers.

H.R. 282 would require all federal contractors and subcontractors to participate in the Basic Pilot (E-Verify) program. Specifically, this legislation reinforces Executive Order 12989 signed by President Bush on June 10, 2008.

H.R. 218, the PROUD Act, would amnesty and provide citizenship for certain illegal aliens as a reward for graduating high school. Specifically, the alien would have to be under 25 years old at the date of application; complete grades 6 through 12; complete a curriculum that reflects knowledge of United States history, government, and civics; provide transcripts from their school(s), and provide a copy of their high school diploma. This legislation would further reward illegal aliens by reducing the naturalization application fee by 50 percent.

H.R. 98, Illegal Immigration Enforcement and Social Security Protection Act of 2011, would establish a mandatory employment eligibility verification system in which employers would be required to verify new hires' eligibility to work in the United States, and would upgrade Social Security cards' security features by including: (1) a digitized photograph of the rightful bearer; (2) an encrypted machine-readable electronic identification strip unique to the rightful bearer; and (3) additional anti-tampering, -counterfeiting, and -fraud security features.