Comprehensive immigration reform was debated in the 109 th and 110 th Congresses, but no comprehensive legislation was enacted. The Speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader pledged to take up immigration reform legislation in the 111 th Congress. In the past, comprehensive bills addressed border security, enforcement of immigration laws within the United States (interior enforcement), employment eligibility verification, temporary worker programs, permanent admissions and, most controversially, unauthorized aliens in the United States. Although the 111 th Congress did not take up a comprehensive reform bill, it did consider a narrower DREAM Act bill to legalize the status of certain unauthorized alien students. On December 8, 2010, the House approved a version of the DREAM Act as an amendment to an unrelated bill, the Removal Clarification Act of 2010 ( H.R. 5281 ), on a vote of 216 to 198. Ten days later, a cloture motion in the Senate to agree to the House DREAM Act amendment failed on a 55-41 vote. The 111 th Congress considered various other immigration-related measures and enacted a number of targeted immigration provisions. It passed legislation ( P.L. 111-8 , P.L. 111-9 , P.L. 111-68 , P.L. 111-83 ) to extend the life of several immigration programs—the E-Verify electronic employment eligibility verification system, the Immigrant Investor Regional Center Program, the Conrad State J-1 Waiver Program, and the special immigrant visa for religious workers—until September 30, 2012. Among the other subjects of legislation enacted by the 111 th Congress were border security ( P.L. 111-5 , P.L. 111-32 , P.L. 111-83 , P.L. 111-230 , P.L. 111-281 , P.L. 111-376 ), refugees ( P.L. 111-8 , P.L. 111-117 ), and Haitian migrants ( P.L. 111-212 , P.L. 111-293 ). This report discusses these and other immigration-related issues that received legislative action or were of significant congressional interest in the 111 th Congress. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations are addressed in a separate report and, for the most part, are not covered here. Employment eligibility verification and worksite enforcement have been mainstays of recent debates over comprehensive immigration reform. They are widely viewed as essential components of a strategy to reduce unauthorized immigration. Under Section 274A of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), it is unlawful for an employer to knowingly hire, recruit or refer for a fee, or continue to employ an alien who is not authorized to be so employed. Employers are further required to participate in a paper-based (I-9) employment eligibility verification system in which they examine documents presented by new hires to verify identity and work eligibility, and to complete and retain I-9 verification forms. Employers violating prohibitions on unlawful employment may be subject to civil and/or criminal penalties. Enforcement of these provisions is termed "worksite enforcement." While all employers must meet the I-9 requirements, they also may elect to participate in the E-Verify electronic employment eligibility verification system. E-Verify is administered by DHS's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Participants in E-Verify electronically verify new hires' employment authorization through Social Security Administration (SSA) and, if necessary, DHS databases. At the start of the 111 th Congress, E-Verify was scheduled to expire on March 6, 2009. Prompted by the approaching expiration, the House and Senate considered several provisions related to electronic employment eligibility verification and enacted a series of extensions. The Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009 ( P.L. 111-8 ) extended E-Verify until September 30, 2009, and the Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2010 ( P.L. 111-68 , Division B, §128) extended the program until October 31, 2009. With the enactment of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2010 ( P.L. 111-83 , §547), E-Verify is currently authorized until September 30, 2012. This extension represented a compromise between the House-passed version of the underlying bill ( H.R. 2892 ), which would have extended the program until September 30, 2011, and the Senate-passed version which would have made E-Verify permanent. P.L. 111-83 also included language on E-Verify that was in both the House-passed and Senate-passed versions of H.R. 2892 to prohibit any funds made available to the DHS Office of the Secretary and Executive Management under the act to be used for any new DHS hires who were not verified through E-Verify (§533). Other E-Verify provisions in the House-passed or Senate-passed versions of H.R. 2892 were not enacted in P.L. 111-83 . The omitted language included two Senate-passed provisions. One would have allowed any employer participating in E-Verify to verify the employment eligibility of existing employees. The other Senate provision would have directed federal departments and agencies to require, as a condition of contracts they entered into, that the contractors use E-Verify to verify the employment eligibility of all individuals hired during the term of the contract to work in the United States and all individuals (whether new hires or existing employees) assigned to perform work in the United States under the contract. Other bills introduced in the 111 th Congress would have more broadly changed existing law on employment verification. For example, the Secure America Through Verification and Enforcement Act of 2009 (SAVE Act; H.R. 3308 ) would have made E-Verify permanent and would have phased in a requirement that all employers use it to verify the employment authorization of new hires and current employees. A similar bill of the same name ( S. 1505 ) was introduced in the Senate. 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. Border security was an important immigration issue for the 111 th Congress. There was much debate about whether DHS had sufficient resources to fulfill its border security mission. A number of bills were introduced that would have added resources for Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the lead agency at DHS charged with securing U.S. borders at and between official ports of entry (POE). At ports of entry, CBP officers are responsible for conducting immigration, customs, and agricultural inspections on entering aliens. Between ports of entry, the border patrol, a component of CBP, enforces U.S. immigration law and other federal laws along the border. In the course of discharging its duties, the border patrol patrols over 8,000 miles of U.S. international borders with Mexico and Canada and the coastal waters around Florida and Puerto Rico. The following discussion focuses on key provisions on border resources that were enacted by the 111 th Congress and selected other provisions. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA; P.L. 111-5 ) provided an emergency supplemental appropriation of $680 million for CBP during FY2009. The funding for CBP included $160 million for salaries and expenses, of which $100 million was designated for the procurement and deployment of nonintrusive inspection technology and $60 million was designated for the procurement and deployment of tactical communications equipment and radios. The act included $420 million for the construction and modification of ports of entry. In response to the drug-related violence on the Mexican side of the Southwest border, Congress appropriated additional resources for border activities. Title VI of the FY2009 Supplemental Appropriations Act ( P.L. 111-32 ) contained $140 million to support activities along the Southwest border with Mexico in response to reports of increasing drug-related violence. This funding included $40 million for CBP for various activities and $5 million for CBP Air and Marine to support additional air operations along the Southwest border. Moreover, the FY2010 DHS Appropriations bill ( P.L. 111-83 ) included funding for 50 additional CBP Officers and 10 support positions to enhance the Southwest border outbound operations. On August 13, 2010, the President signed into law P.L. 111-230 , making $600 million in FY2010 emergency supplemental appropriations available for border security, of which $394 million was allocated to DHS, $196 million to the Department of Justice (DOJ), and $10 million to the federal judiciary. Within DHS, P.L. 111-230 provided CBP with a total of $306 million, including $39 million for CBP officers at ports of entry on the Southwest border and $10 million to support integrity and background investigation programs. The remaining funding for DHS was to be focused largely on efforts between ports of entry, as discussed below. Another CBP-related law, the Anti-Border Corruption Act of 2010 ( P.L. 111-376 ), requires that within two years after enactment all applicants for law enforcement positions within CBP receive polygraph examinations before being hired. In addition, the act requires that that CBP initiate background reinvestigations for all of its law enforcement personnel within 180 days of enactment. Legislation related to border patrol resources garnered some attention in the 111 th Congress. For example, P.L.