Immigration has not been a front-burner issue for the 112 th Congress. Unlike in some past years, there has been little discussion in this Congress of comprehensive immigration reform legislation, which typically has encompassed border security, employment eligibility verification, temporary worker programs, permanent admissions, and unauthorized aliens, among other issues. The 112 th Congress has, however, taken legislative action on some immigration-related measures. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012 ( P.L. 112-74 ) contains provisions on border security, visa security, tourist visas, refugees, and other immigration issues. P.L. 112-176 extends the authorization for four immigration programs (EB-5 visa program, E-Verify, Conrad State program, and special immigrant religious worker program) for three years, until September 30, 2015. Legislation has also been enacted on military service-based immigration benefits ( P.L. 112-58 ), border tunnels ( P.L. 112-127 ), the Border Enforcement Security Task Force (BEST) initiative ( P.L. 112-205 ), and E-2 treaty investor visas ( P.L. 112-130 ). In addition, the House and Senate have each passed other immigration-related legislation. Both houses have passed different bills ( H.R. 4970 , S. 1925 ) to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The House has passed bills that would reform permanent employment-based and family-based admissions ( H.R. 3012 ); create new visa categories for prospective LPRs with graduate degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) fields ( H.R. 6429 ); and reauthorize the H-1C temporary worker category for nurses ( H.R. 1933 ). It also has passed legislation on border security at and between ports of entry ( H.R. 1299 ) and student visa reform ( H.R. 3120 ). Among the other subjects of immigration-related legislation before the 112 th Congress are victims of trafficking ( S. 1301 , H.R. 2830 ), immigrant detention ( H.R. 1932 ), and diversity visas ( H.R. 704 ). This report discusses these and other immigration-related issues that have received legislative action or are of significant congressional interest in the 112 th Congress. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations are addressed in a separate report and, for the most part, are not covered here. DHS is charged with protecting U.S. borders from weapons of mass destruction, terrorists, smugglers, and unauthorized aliens. Border security involves securing the many means by which people and things can enter the country. Operationally, this means controlling the official ports of entry (POE) through which legitimate travelers and commerce enter the country, and patrolling the nation's land and maritime borders to safeguard against and interdict illegal entries. At ports of entry, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Field Operations is responsible for conducting immigration, customs, and agricultural inspections of travelers seeking admission to the United States. Between POEs, CBP's border patrol is responsible for enforcing U.S. immigration law and other federal laws along the border and for preventing unlawful entries into the United States. In the course of discharging its duties, the border patrol patrols 8,500 miles of U.S. international borders with Mexico and Canada and the coastal waters around Florida and Puerto Rico. Border security has been an important issue for the last several Congresses, with much of the debate focused on whether DHS has sufficient resources to fulfill its border security mission. Some Members of Congress have argued that Congress should not consider other reforms to the immigration system, including any proposed legalization provisions or changes to the family- or employment-based visas systems, until DHS is better able to secure the border. With apprehensions of unauthorized immigrants at a 42-year low, administration officials have argued that significant progress has been made at the border, though continued investments are needed. The following discussion focuses on key border-related provisions that have been considered by the 112 th Congress and may be considered in the future concerning staffing and enforcement at and between POEs, including on federal lands. The overarching immigration challenge at POEs is to prevent terrorists and unauthorized migrants from being admitted to the United States, while also facilitating legal migration flows. This challenge translates into policy questions about funding for various CBP screening and enforcement programs, including the number of CBP officers at POEs, which has grown from 17,881 in FY2005 to 21,186 in FY2012. Three hundred additional CBP officers were funded during the FY2012 appropriations process, and several other bills that would address additional POE staffing increases have been considered in the 112 th Congress. For example, the Secure Border Act of 2012 ( H.R. 1299 ), passed by the House in May 2012, would direct DHS to develop metrics to measure security at ports of entry and to estimate the required number of CBP officers at POEs. The Department of Homeland Security Authorization (DHSA) Act of 2011 ( S. 1546 ), as reported by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, would direct DHS to develop a workforce staffing model and to ensure that CBP has instituted an outbound inspections program at land, air, and maritime ports of entry. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 ( P.L. 104-208 , Div. C), as amended, requires DHS to maintain an automated, biometric entry-exit system that collects a record of arrival and departure for every alien arriving to and departing from the United States. The U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program is responsible for collecting and storing biometric and biographic data about foreign visitors to the United States, and for providing biometric and biographic information about U.S. visitors to other components within DHS and other federal agencies. US-VISIT, which is active at all POEs, has been a subject of debate because it does not collect biometric data from all visitors entering the United States and does not collect any biometric data from visitors leaving the United States, potentially weakening its effectiveness as an enforcement tool. (CBP collects biographic data from all visitors lawfully admitted to the United States; from certain people exiting through land ports; and, based on carrier information, from all passengers departing though air and sea ports.) Department of Homeland Security Authorization bills, as ordered to be reported by the House Homeland Security Committee ( H.R. 3116 ) and as reported by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee ( S. 1546 ), would require DHS to develop a plan for implementing a biometric exit system. Between ports of entry, congressional attention in recent years has focused on border patrol staffing, surveillance technology, and fencing and other physical barriers. One effect of increased border enforcement has been that smugglers increasingly have turned to cross-border tunnels, particularly for moving illegal drugs into the United States. To combat this trend, Congress passed the Border Tunnel Prevention Act of 2012 ( P.L. 112-127 ), which creates a new federal crime relating to the unlawful construction or use of an underground tunnel between the United States and another country, and requires DHS to submit annual reports to Congress on the investigations of unlawful tunnels between Mexico and the United States. A new border patrol national strategy published in May 2012 continues to emphasize staffing, surveillance, and infrastructure, with an increased focus on intelligence and risk management to allocate enforcement resources efficiently. House and Senate FY2012 DHS authorization and appropriations bills include related provisions, as discussed below. In other related legislative action, Congress has passed the Jaime Zapata Border Enforcement Security Task Force Act ( P.L. 112-205 ), which provides statutory authority for the Border Enforcement Security Task Force. Congress may also take additional action on proposals to broaden DHS authority to conduct enforcement activities on federal lands and waive environmental and other regulations and to address concerns about metrics for measuring border security. With ongoing support from Congress, DHS has substantially increased border patrol staffing along the Southwest and northern borders over the last decade, with total border patrol staffing increasing from 9,821 in FY2001 to 21,370 for FY2012, including 1,000 border patrol agents added by the FY2010 Border Security Supplemental ( P.L. 111-230 ) and funded again in P.L. 112-74 . A number of bills have been introduced in the 112 th Congress to authorize further growth in the border patrol and/or to direct the Department of Defense (DOD) to deploy National Guard troops to the Southwest border. For several years, Congress has supported a series of DHS programs aimed at achieving "border situational awareness." Through these programs, CBP agents track movement in border areas, identify and classify (i.e., prioritize) illegal entries, correlate entries with the positions of nearby agents, and use this information to make tactical interdiction decisions. DHS's primary effort to provide such an integrated surveillance system between 2006 and 2011 was known as SBInet. But cost overruns, technical problems, and scheduling delays led the agency to terminate the SBInet contract in January 2011 in favor of a new Arizona Border Technology Plan that relies on a broader mix of off-the-shelf surveillance technology and continued investment in SBInet-style integrated surveillance towers. The new plan has been a subject of some scrutiny. P.L. 112-74 provides $400 million for border security fencing and technology for FY2012, $128 million less than the President's request, and both chambers have recommended additional cuts in FY2013.