H.R. 36, the Central American and Caribbean Refugee Adjustment Act, was an amnesty bill for about one million Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Hondurans and Haitians, including their spouses and children, who have lived in the United States illegally since December 1, 1995.
H.R. 3553, the Central American and Caribbean Refugee Adjustment Act, would have awarded amnesty to almost 1.2 million illegal immigrants, in addition to the almost one million who were granted amnesty in 1997.
S. 1504, the Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act, would grant amnesty to 50,000 illegal aliens from Haiti who came to the U.S. before December 31, 1995. It also granted amnesty to their spouses and children, bringing the total number of Haitians to be amnestied to about 125,000. This provision was slipped quietly into an omnibus appropriations bill, and was fully endorsed by President Clinton who signed it into law.
H.R. 2302, the Immigration Technical Revisions Act of 1997, would have allowed 540,000 illegal immigrants from Central America to apply for amnesty, even though they previously had been denied asylum in the United States. Congress eventually passed a much-expanded version of this proposed amnesty by slipping it into an appropriations bill for the District of Columbia (see the Nicaraguan and Central American Relief Act of 1997).
H.R. 347, the Immigration Moratorium Act, would have helped reduce chain migration significantly by eliminating several categories of extended-family migration such as parents and adult unmarried children of U.S. citizens. It would have also reduced the ceiling for skilled workers to 5,000 per year from its current ceiling of 120,060 per year, eliminated the category for unskilled workers, required that refugees and asylees reside legally in the United States for five years before they could apply for adjustment to permanent resident status, and would have ended the Visa Lottery.
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.
A bill to impose a moratorium on immigration by aliens other than refugees, certain priority and skilled workers, and immediate relatives of United States citizens and permanent resident aliens.
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.
S.1923, the Immigration Stabilization Act, was the first comprehensive immigration reduction bill to be introduced in the Senate since the 1920s. It would have cut legal immigration in all categories from around one million to about 425,000 a year.