H.R. 8586: Americans First Immigration Act

Americans First Immigration Act

This bill-

• Requires employers to attest to making a good faith effort at recruiting American workers prior to hiring an alien, including a prohibition on laying off an American worker in an "essentially equivalent" job during the period starting 90 days before the attestation and lasting until the last day of the alien's employment;
• Requires employment-based immigrants (replaced by points in this bill) to swear attachment to the U.S. Constitution and attest they have not participated in acts like genocide, religious persecution, or honor killings;
• Eliminates the visa lottery (55,000 a year), but reserves 3,000 annual visas for religious workers;
• Ends chain migration by limiting family-based immigration to the spouses and minor children of citizens and lawful permanent residents (the cap of 87,934 applies specifically to the spouses and minor children of lawful permanent residents, and is reduced by the number of aliens paroled in the second preceding fiscal year);
  • Age-Out: While modifying age calculations, the bill explicitly allows an alien to retain "child" status up until they turn 25 or marry before the visa is issued. This effectively loosens standard requirements by allowing aliens up to age 24 to still be processed as "minor children";
• Replaces and increases the 140,000 annual employment-based visa program with a 192,000 points-based system (reduced by the number of aliens subject to mandatory detention but who are illegally released each year), which requires a minimum of 16 points and is awarded based on high salary offers, U.S. STEM degrees, English proficiency, extraordinary achievements, military service, and age;
• Repeals the EB-5 Regional Center Program;
• Imposes a 2-year conditional status on points-based immigrants, which can be revoked for crimes totaling over a year in prison, receiving welfare, or failing to maintain employment at a salary equivalent to or higher than their original job offer;
  • The removal of the condition includes a personal interview, but grants the Secretary the authority to waive it; and
• Requires colleges to charge out-of-state tuition rates to all aliens without lawful permanent residence.