Washington Update
November 2004

Rare Lame Duck Session Holds Fate of Many LIRS Priorities: Your Advocacy Could Help Sway Important Decisions
By Lynette Engelhardt Stott, LIRS Director for Government Relations

Congress adjourned in mid-October to allow members to campaign for the November 2 elections. But the House and Senate will return to Washington for a rare lame duck session beginning November 16. LIRS is working to win a number of our priorities in these final days of the 108th Congress:

• The outcome of the elections will greatly determine what is accomplished during the lame duck session. LIRS continues to seek increased funding for refugee accounts including Office of Refugee Assistance (ORR), Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA) and Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance (ERMA). The children’s bill is still in play, and we are also working to lift the asylee caps, and win an extension of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits for refugees and asylees, and defeat anti-immigrant provisions included in the House’s 9/11 recommendations bill. (Take Action!)
• Fiscal year 2005 (FY05) began October 1, but Congress did not pass the spending bills that provide the majority of government funding before adjourning. Most FY05 funding is currently being provided by a continuing resolution in place through November 20.
• The presidential determination for refugee admissions in FY05 was signed on September 30. The determination once again sets a 50,000 allocated ceiling with an additional 20,000 unallocated admissions. But the president’s FY05 budget request falls far short of funding 70,000 admissions and maintaining funding for overseas assistance and protection. Both the House and Senate have proposed increases above the president’s request, but the funding is still insufficient to reach the 70,000 admissions and to protect overseas assistance. We continue to work for increased funding for refugee admissions, assistance and protection.
• The Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act, which would greatly help ORR in laying out its specific obligations for care and custody of unaccompanied newcomer children, was passed in the Senate October 11. We are pushing the House to pass the bill also, and send it to President Bush for his signature. If the bill does not get signed into law this year, it will need to be re-introduced in the 109th Congress. (Take Action!)
• We have been working to remove three caps affecting asylees, public interest parolees and victims of coercive family planning measures in China. We will continue to push for the removal of these caps in the lame duck session. An October 18 letter from the White House bolstered our cause: “The Administration also believes that any changes in the asylum program must include removal of the annual asylee adjustment cap.”
• We also continue to push for an extension of SSI benefits for refugees and asylees, who began reaching a seven-year time limit in 2003. There remains a chance that the SSI extension may be included in a funding bill during the lame duck session.
• In the final days before Congress adjourned the House and Senate both passed bills on implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. The two bills, H.R.10 and S.2845, are very different. The House version contains anti-immigrant provisions that are not included in the Senate bill. A conference committee is working on the differences between the two bills. Members of Congress may be called back into session before the November 2 elections to vote on the conference report. It is urgent that the conferees agree to not include the anti-immigrant provisions in the conference report. (Take Action!)

The end of the 108th Congress is fast approaching, and the stakes for refugees and other immigrants are high. Your advocacy on several items could sway important decisions. Please make your voice heard on these issues!

Read past Washington Updates.