FY 2015 Budget Authority: $39.67 billion
FY 2015 Budget Request: $38.2 billion
FY2014 Enacted level: $39.27 billion
Highlights and Key Points:
* U.S. Customs and Border Protection - Provides $12.6 billion, which is $2.57 billion less than the President’s budget request.
* U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement - Provides $5.96 billion, which is $945 million less than the President’s budget request.
* Transportation Security Administration - Provides $7.23 billion, which is $76 million less than the President’s budget request. Funds the Federal Air Marshals Service at $790 million, which is $10.2 million less than the request and $190 million above the House level.
* U.S. Coast Guard - Provides $10.04 billion, which is $314 million more than the President’s budget request, as well as $213 million for Overseas Contingency Operations. Funds procurement of 8th and final National Security Cutter and two Fast Response Cutters.
* U.S. Secret Service - Provides $1.67 billion, which is $29.9 million more than the President’s budget request. Provides $25 million above the request to address security deficiencies identified at the White House complex following the Sept. 19, 2014, intrusion; additional requirements identified in the December 2014 report by the USSS Protective Mission Panel will be addressed in the FY 2016 budget request.
* Federal Emergency Management Agency - Provides $10.79 billion, which is $377 million more than the President’s budget request. Provides $1.5 billion for state and local grants, which is equal to the FY14 level. Provides level funding for fire grants, Pre-disaster Mitigation grants, and the Emergency Food and Shelter Program.
* U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services - Provides $3.25 billion, which is $10 million less than the President’s budget request, and provides the requested $124.4 million for the E-Verify program.
* Cybersecurity - Fully funds proposed cybersecurity and infrastructure protection activities through the National Protection and Programs Directorate, and provides $15.8 million above the request for cybersecurity eduction.
* Biological Threats - Provides $300 million for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Kansas through the Science and Technology Directorate, sufficient to complete construction. Provides $2.2 million above the President’s request to begin replacement of aging BioWatch equipment through the Office of Health Affaris.
* Nuclear Threats - Provides $307.8 million for the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, which is $3.4 million more than the request. Securing the Cities is funded at $19 million, which is $7 million more than the request.
Policy Riders
* The bill does not include riders on abortion services that were added to the bill through an amendment during House Committee consideration of the bill.
* Continues the 34,000 detention bed mandate and provides a corresponding $385.1 million above the request for single-adult detention beds. Provides $362.5 million for family-unit detention beds, which will increase capacity for detention of family units crossing the border, but still only accommodate a fraction of expected numbers.
* Includes a provision deeming a TSA Officer, who died as the direct result of an injury sustained in the line of duty, to be a public safety officer for purposes of eligibility for death benefits under the Public Safety Officer Benefits Program.
* Includes a Senate provision making FEMA Fire Management Assistance Grant recipients eligible for Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funding.
* Provides additional transfer and reprogramming authority to the Secretary for the care and transportation of unaccompanied alien children.
* Provides temporary authority to Southwest border states to use DHS grant funding to help cover the costs of providing humanitarian assistance to unaccompanied alien children and alien adults accompanied by their children.
Republican amendments targeting President Obama's executive actions on immigration
Aderholt/Mulvaney/Barletta: The amendment would deny use of any funds or fees to implement the President’s November executive action on immigration and a host of DHS and ICE memos concerned with civil immigration enforcement priorities, prosecutorial discretion, and deferred action. Further, no funds could be used to carry out any substantially similar policies. These policies were established by executive action because House Republicans refuse to consider comprehensive immigration reform.
Blackurn: The amendment would prohibit the use of funds to continue the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, preventing the consideration of any new applications and denying renewals for hundreds of thousands of young people who already have come forward, passed background checks, obtained temporary protection through DACA, and have since led law-abiding lives.
DeSantis/Roby: The amendment would deny use of funds or fees to implement any immigration enforcement policy that does not make anyone convicted of domestic violence, sexual abuse or child molestation the highest priority for deportation.
Immigration law currently defines sexual abuse of a minor as an aggravated felony even if it is considered a misdemeanor in the jurisdiction that it is prosecuted. As a result, a conviction for such an offense is currently among the highest enforcement priorities.
Making all domestic violence convictions the highest priority for deportation will have unintended consequences for immigrant victims. Immigrant victims are particularly vulnerable to being arrested and prosecuted for domestic violence, even when they are not the primary perpetrator of violence in the relationship. Because of language and cultural barriers - combined with poor legal counsel, particularly about the immigration consequences of criminal pleas and convictions - wrongly accused immigrant victims are more likely to plead guilty, in an effort to be quickly reunited with their children, or to be unfairly convicted of domestic violence charges. The November executive action that the amendment would stop specifically states: “In evaluating whether the offense is a significant misdemeanor involving “domestic violence," careful consideration should be given to whether the convicted alien was also the victim of domestic violence; if so, this should be a mitigating factor."
In effect, the amendment eliminates sensible civil immigration enforcement priorities in place. A vote for the amendment is a vote to deny that national security threats and dangerous felons are a top priority.
Salmon/Thompson of PA: The amendment finds that, under the Affordable Care Act, employers do not have to provide health insurance or face a penalty if they hire employees who have been granted deferred action and work authorization. The amendment would express the sense of Congress that this discourages employing citizens and so the executive branch should not grant deferred action and work authorization.
* Executive actions on immigration have NOT created an incentive to hire deferred action recipients instead of American workers.
* Under the Affordable Care Act, employers with fewer than 50 full-time workers generally are not subject to the employer responsibility provision. Roughly 95 percent of businesses are small businesses.
* A business with 50 or more full time workers either has to provide affordable, adequate health insurance to its full-time workforce and contribute the same amount toward this coverage for all its employees, regardless of their immigration status, or face a penalty if one or more full-time workers receive a premium tax credit for the purchase of insurance in the Health Insurance Marketplace.
There are two types of penalties, neither of which create an incentive to hire those granted deferred action over citizens or green-card holders:
* If the large employer covers substantially all (at least 95 percent) of its full-time employees but the coverage is either unaffordable or does not provide adequate coverage, the business will generally make a payment of $3,000 times the number of full-time employees that receive the tax credit. Immigration status does not play a role.
* A large employer that does not offer coverage to at least 95 percent of its full-time employees will owe a payment of $2,000 per worker if at least one of its full-time employees gets a premium tax credit. Its payment is based on the total number of full-time employees the employer has, regardless of their immigration status or whether the employees are even eligible for a tax credit.
Schock: The amendment would express the sense of Congress that adjudicating deferred action applications takes time and resources from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that should be used “for aliens abroad or who are lawfully present in the United States."
When DACA was initially implemented the wait times for some legal immigration categories increased because adjudicators were working on DACA applications. DACA was implemented very quickly, before a sufficient number of new adjudicators could be hired.
However, the implementation of expanded DACA and DAPA should go more smoothly. The new adjudicators are now on board and USCIS has continued to hire more people. USCIS also gave itself 180 days after November 20 before DAPA applications will be accepted so the agency will be much better positioned to process everything in a timely manner.
USCIS estimates that work authorization fees and fingerprint processing fees for background checks paid by DACA and DAPA applicants will be sufficient to fully cover the costs of those programs.
Source: U.S. Department of HCA
