Refugee Protection Act of 2019

Bill: 116-s-2936
Sponsor: Sen. Leahy, Patrick J. [D-VT]
Introduced: 2019-11-21 in the Senate
Policy area: Immigration
Subjects: Administrative law and regulatory procedures
Administrative remedies
Afghanistan
Asia
Border security and unlawful immigration
Central America
Child safety and welfare
Citizenship and naturalization
Conflicts and wars
Congressional oversight
Costa Rica
Crime victims
Criminal investigation, prosecution, interrogation
Criminal justice information and records
Department of Homeland Security
Department of Justice
Department of State
Detention of persons
Diplomacy, foreign officials, Americans abroad
Disability and paralysis
Domestic violence and child abuse
Economic development
Economic performance and conditions
El Salvador
Evidence and witnesses
Family relationships
Foreign aid and international relief
Foreign labor
Foreign language and bilingual programs
Fraud offenses and financial crimes
Government buildings, facilities, and property
Government employee pay, benefits, personnel management
Government ethics and transparency, public corruption
Government information and archives
Government studies and investigations
Government trust funds
Guatemala
Health information and medical records
Homelessness and emergency shelter
Honduras
Housing finance and home ownership
Human rights
Human trafficking
Immigrant health and welfare
Immigration status and procedures
International law and treaties
International organizations and cooperation
Iraq
Judicial procedure and administration
Juvenile crime and gang violence
Latin America
Lawyers and legal services
Mexico
Middle East
Military operations and strategy
Organized crime
Political movements and philosophies
Presidents and presidential powers, Vice Presidents
Protest and dissent
Racial and ethnic relations
Refugees, asylum, displaced persons
Religion
Right of privacy
Sex, gender, sexual orientation discrimination
Social security and elderly assistance
Syria
Terrorism
Visas and passports
Worker safety and health

Summary:
action_date: 2019-11-21
text: 

Refugee Protection Act of 2019

 
This bill provides protections for aliens such as asylum seekers and contains other provisions.
 
The bill's provisions include
 
 
eliminating the general requirement that an asylum seeker apply for asylum within one year of arriving in the United States; 
 
prohibiting requiring an asylum seeker to provide corroborating evidence of persecution if such evidence is not reasonably obtainable; 
 
waiving certain grounds of inadmissibility or deportability for qualifying refugees seeking permanent resident status; 
 
requiring the Department of Justice to appoint counsel to a child or particularly vulnerable individual in certain immigration proceedings; 
 
increasing the annual cap on principal nonimmigrant U visas (victims of crimes) from 10,000 to 20,000; 
 
prohibiting the removal of an alien with certain pending immigration applications, such as a U visa application; 
 
imposing limits on when an alien may be removed from the United States in a proceeding without the alien present; 
 
establishing a presumption that the least restrictive conditions necessary should be imposed in custody proceedings for asylum seekers, including release if appropriate; 
 
establishing that the maximum number of refugees admitted each fiscal year shall be no less than 95,000; 
 
directing the Department of State to help other governments increase their capacity to care for and accept refugees; 
 
directing the State Department to establish refugee processing centers in other countries in North and Central America; and 
 
authorizing the Department of Homeland Security to provide special immigrant status to qualified aliens who assisted U.S. efforts in Syria and admit up to 5,000 such aliens each fiscal year for five years. 
 


Legislative actions:
action_date: 2019-11-21
text: Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
action_date: 2019-11-21
text: Introduced in Senate