Calling for comprehensive legislation that addresses United States policies contributing to forced migration and displacement, promotes an immigration system that addresses the root causes of migration, reaffirms United States commitment to asylum, and provides a roadmap to citizenship for immigrants living in the United States.

Bill: 118-hres-1525
Sponsor: full_name: Rep. Casar, Greg [D-TX-35]
Introduced: 2024-10-01
Policy area: Immigration
Latest action: action_date: 2024-10-01
text: Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committees on Foreign Affairs, Financial Services, and Ways and Means, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.

Summaries:

tv_txt: IV 118th CONGRESS 2d Session H. RES. 1525 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES October 1, 2024 Mr. Casar (for himself, Ms. Jayapal , Mrs. Ramirez , Ms. Kamlager-Dove , Mr. García of Illinois , Mr. Vargas , Ms. Velázquez , Mr. Johnson of Georgia , Mr. McGovern , Ms. Schakowsky , Ms. Lee of Pennsylvania , Mr. Robert Garcia of California , Mr. Grijalva , Ms. Clarke of New York , Ms. Tlaib , Ms. Omar , Ms. Sewell , Mr. Carson , Ms. Ocasio-Cortez , Mr. Espaillat , Ms. Barragán , Mr. Quigley , Ms. Pressley , Ms. Norton , Mrs. Cherfilus-McCormick , Mrs. Napolitano , Mr. Jackson of Illinois , Ms. Chu , Mr. Thanedar , and Ms. Bush ) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary , and in addition to the Committees on Foreign Affairs , Financial Services , and Ways and Means , for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned RESOLUTION Calling for comprehensive legislation that addresses United States policies contributing to forced migration and displacement, promotes an immigration system that addresses the root causes of migration, reaffirms United States commitment to asylum, and provides a roadmap to citizenship for immigrants living in the United States.

Whereas the majority of Americans are immigrants or descendants of immigrants; Whereas there are an estimated 11,000,000 undocumented immigrants in the United States, the majority of whom have been in the United States for more than a decade, and they make immense contributions to the United States, have families in the United States, and need a roadmap to legal status; Whereas the United States has for decades pursued an immigration policy centered on punitive enforcement and deterrence, which has failed to achieve its stated purpose of curbing immigration and has greatly exacerbated the humanitarian struggles faced by people migrating; Whereas the United States has a long history of welcoming immigrants who choose to come to the United States and immigrants who are forced to come to the United States because of conditions in their home countries; Whereas the United States can continue to welcome immigrants while advancing policies that reduce forced displacement and make it easier for people who do not want to migrate to stay in their home countries; Whereas there has been a global rise in forced migration and displacement; Whereas the continent of Africa has both a larger share and absolute number of forcibly displaced people than any other major region in the world, with the continent’s forcibly displaced population doubling since 2018; Whereas the Department of State identifies addressing economic insecurity and inequality as the first pillar under its strategy to address the root causes of migration; Whereas research has found that broad-based sectoral sanctions disproportionately affect the civilian population and have contributed to increased rates of income inequality and poverty; Whereas former President Donald Trump imposed some of the harshest sanctions in United States history on Venezuela, and both tightened the United States embargo of and applied new sanctions on Cuba; Whereas sanctions and other punitive economic measures have contributed to an economic depression in Venezuela, a multidigit economic contraction in Cuba, and the largest migratory outflows in the history of either country, with millions having left in recent years; Whereas the sanctions on both countries, and the 60-year embargo of Cuba, have failed to force either government out of power while contributing to the immiseration of people in both countries; Whereas addressing poverty, food insecurity, and inequality in developing countries requires making adequate investments in the region, prioritizing local communities when providing aid, implementing trade policies that advance the rights of workers, strengthening local agricultural sectors, and ensuring respect for indigenous peoples rights; Whereas investments in developing countries should focus on reducing the poverty rate, improving labor rights and increasing wages for workers, mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change, strengthening democratic institutions, combating corruption, improving human rights, boosting access to education, closing the digital divide, empowering women and young people, and building resilience to food insecurity in order to address the drivers of migration; Whereas some United States-sponsored trade and investment agreements, particularly in Latin America, have benefited corporate profits at the expense of workers and the environment, threatened the livelihoods and well-being of both United States and foreign workers, and catalyzed waves of immigration to the United States; Whereas congressional Democrats and labor unions forced changes to Trump’s initial United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) to include a facility-specific rapid response mechanism between the United States and Mexico, designed to protect workers’ collective bargaining rights at worksites in North America, which has directly benefited tens of thousands of workers and reduced unfair labor practices by multinational corporations; Whereas investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions, found in most United States trade agreements, allow multinational corporations and wealthy foreign investors to sue governments in unaccountable corporate tribunals over democratically chosen economic, environmental, labor, and public health policies, including in Honduras, where United States company Honduras Próspera launched an ISDS claim for nearly $11,000,000, which amounts to nearly two-thirds of Honduras entire 2022 national budget; Whereas debt distress and reduced investment in public services in developing countries contribute significantly to forced migration and displacement; Whereas the United Nations (UN) reports that global public debt reached an all-time high of $92,000,000,000,000 in 2022, with devastating consequences for 3,300,000,000 people living in developing countries compelled to spend more on debt-servicing payments than on crucial public goods like health, education, and climate change adaptation and mitigation; Whereas the UN has called for a reform of the international financial architecture to foster a more inclusive system that empowers developing countries to actively participate in the governance of the international financial system ; Whereas the climate crisis is an existential threat and global challenge that is a primary driver of forced migration and displacement; Whereas climate change has exacerbated climate hazards and has amplified the risk of extreme weather disasters, resulting in the number of climate related disasters tripling over the last 30 years, and threatens the existence of island nations, including Kiribati, the Maldives, Marshall Islands, and Tuvalu; Whereas natural disasters including floods, hurricanes, and cyclones in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China, Myanmar, the Bahamas, and Zimbabwe, droughts in India, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, and earthquakes in Haiti, Nepal, and Indonesia have fueled displacement and forced migration; Whereas the UN says low- and middle-income countries could need up to $4,000,000,000,000 of additional investment a year to address the effects of climate change; Whereas violence is a primary driver of forced migration; Whereas armed conflict, repressive governance, and lack of economic opportunity, especially for young people, are some of the top drivers of migration; Whereas conflicts across the world have resulted in millions of displaced people; Whereas reportedly 90 percent of the firearms recovered from crime scenes in Haiti, 70 percent of the traced firearms recovered in Mexico, and 75 percent of the firearms recovered in the Dominican Republic originated from the United States; Whereas the United States has too often provided security assistance, including defense articles and services, to human rights-abusing governments in Latin America and elsewhere, contributing to political repression and instability that worsens forced migration and displacement; and Whereas a consistent lack of high-level United States attention to conflicts on the African continent enables humanitarian crises to persist: Now, therefore, be it

That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States must— (1) address United States policies contributing to forced migration and displacement, including by— (A) overhauling United States broad-based sanction policy to ensure sanctions are not increasing economic inequality, poverty, and forced migration; (B) making adequate economic and humanitarian investments in developing countries to address income inequality and ensuring those investments improve the livelihoods of everyday people, allowing them to stay in their homes; (C) promoting good governance, economic investment, and humanitarian assistance in developing countries to increase stability and create opportunity, enabling people to pursue livelihoods at home; (D) advancing international aid reforms that support the localization of aid and strengthen local agricultural sectors; (E) improving the standard of living of everyday people in developing countries by pursuing trade policies that prioritize the needs and well-being of workers and reviewing existing trade and investment agreements to bring them in line with these priorities, including by— (i) building upon the rapid response mechanism (RRM) in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and building upon the RRM in other existing or future trade deals to ensure robust enforcement of labor, environment, and human rights standards in trade agreements; and (ii) working to eliminate extreme investor rights and harmful Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms from existing trade and investment agreements in the region; (F) using the United States voice and vote at International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Inter American Development Bank to create a more inclusive international financial system that empowers developing countries, addresses the global debt crisis, eliminates surcharges, and refrains from implementing policy actions that are shown to increase inequality and drive displacement; (G) supporting international climate finance mechanisms, including a new issuance of Special Drawing Rights and robust investments in the Green Climate Fund, Loss and Damage Fund, and Amazon Fund to help developing countries transition away from fossil fuels, build resilience to climate change, and deal with the effects of climate change, reducing climate-induced migration; (H) reducing arms trafficking and the flooding of weapons into Haiti, Mexico, and the region by strengthening United States gun laws, controlling the scale and end users of United States-exported firearms, and banning assault rifles; (I) applying Leahy Law, Arms Export Control Act, and Foreign Assistance Act principles and criteria to the sale of origin defense articles and services; (J) monitoring recipients’ use of origin defense articles and services to harm civilians and contribute to violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law; (K) supporting efforts to broker peace in the region, including Colombia peace processes; and (L) increasing interagency attention and resources to United States engagement in developing countries, including sustained high-level diplomacy to help bring an end to conflicts that are the primary drivers of forced displacement; (2) ensure a humane and sustainable immigration system that appropriately addresses the root causes driving migration including by— (A) expanding appropriate legal pathways for migration, creating additional pathways for migration, and modernizing the legal immigration system to meet 21st century needs; (B) ensuring access to immigration benefits, including asylum and refugee processing, by providing sufficient funding to process benefits, including at Safe Mobility Offices, and clearing visa backlogs; (C) lifting the current 180-day waiting time for work authorization for individuals who apply for asylum; (D) guarantying legal representation to asylum seekers and individuals facing deportation; (E) utilizing humane community-based alternatives to detention, dramatically reducing our reliance on detention, and ending the criminalization of immigrants; and (F) creating a central process to give wrongfully and unjustly deported people with ties to the United States a meaningful chance to present a case to return to the United States and reunite with loved ones; and (3) provide immigrants living in the United States with a roadmap to citizenship.