Immigration Bills

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. 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. 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.

H.R. 4300 was a bill to radically increase annual immigration numbers by removing or increasing limits in most immigration categories. As well, H.R. 4300 created the diversity visa lottery. Traditional American immigration had averaged around 250,000 a year until the 1980s when it dramatically rose to around 500,000. Largely as a result of H.R. 4300, annual legal immigration has risen to around 1,000,000 (one million) a year.