Immigration Bills

H.R. 3918, the Comprehensive Immigration Fairness Reform Act, would create an amnesty for illegal aliens who have been physically present in the U.S. for five years and have never been convicted of a criminal offense. In addition to this general amnesty, H.R. 3918 included special amnesties for Haitians and Liberians. The bill would also increase the cap on lottery visas from 55,000 to 110,000 annually.

S. 2010, the Immigration Reform Act of 2004, would: reward illegal aliens with jobs and residency, thus serving as an incentive for future illegal immigration, increase the number of family visas available in order to reduce the backlog, thereby increasing legal immigration numbers and increasing chain migration, reward certain illegal aliens with green cards and a path to U.S. citizenship, and increase the number of foreign workers legally allowed to work in the U.S. annually as well as rewarded illegal aliens with jobs.

H.R. 3674, the Financial Customer Identification Verification Improvement Act, would have made it harder for illegal aliens to gain government services and to otherwise profit from their illegal activity by prohibiting banks from accepting foreign issued IDs (except for passports) for purposes of verifying the identity of a person who opens an account at a financial institution.

S. 1906, the Homeland Security Enhancement Act, would clarify state and local law enforcement's ability to enforce immigration laws. If enacted, it 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. 3534, the BE REAL Act, would reduce rewards for illegal immigration by prohibiting the issuance of Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers to illegal aliens. It would eliminate the Section 245(i) amnesty for certain illegal aliens. It would increase border control by amending the Posse Comitatus Act to authorize the use of the U.S. military for border enforcement.