House advances budget resolution, Trump floats Gold Cards

The House of Representatives advanced its "big, beautiful" budget resolution on Tuesday, setting up a showdown between House and Senate Republicans. The House resolution calls for approximately $110 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement for interior enforcement and $90 billion for Customs and Border Protection for border security. 

The Senate passed its own budget resolution earlier this month, but Pres. Trump has endorsed the House version. Still, House and Senate leaders will need to negotiate a resolution that can pass through both chambers before moving on to the next step--drafting a bill that details the spending cuts, expenditures, and tax provisions.

Meanwhile, Congress must pass an appropriations bill to fund the federal government before funding expires on March 14th. There's been little movement in the negotiations among appropriators, so House Speaker Mike Johnson said this week that a continuing resolution (CR) to extend current spending levels through the end of September is becoming more likely. Yesterday, President Trump endorsed the CR path.

Trump floats 'Gold Card' for foreign investors

This week, Pres. Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick promoted the idea of selling off U.S. citizenship to foreign investors in the form of a "Gold Card" visa. The plan would permit foreigners to purchase U.S. citizenship for $5 million, with the funds used to pay down the national debt.

The Trump Administration said it could use green cards reserved for the existing EB-5 visa program and the Visa Lottery as "Gold Cards." Together, these two programs provide nearly 65,000 green cards per year. However, these programs were created legislatively by Congress and would require legislation to alter them.

The EB-5 program currently allows foreign investors to purchase U.S. citizenship by investing in a business located in a rural or economically depressed area that creates jobs for Americans. It's rife with fraud, and most of the demand comes from wealthy foreigners who live in countries like China that are hostile toward the United States. While Lutnick told reporters this week that "Gold Card" applicants would be deeply vetted, vetting requires cooperation by the sending country to provide access to internal records, which we clearly won't get from China or our other adversaries.

IAP Commentary

L Visa: A Prime Example of How Government 'Oversight' Has Failed
According to the statute, the L visa was created only for the intracompany transfer of executive management for companies or those with “specialized knowledge.” However, a recent Bloomberg story details a lawsuit alleging tech bodyshop company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was improperly classifying front-line employees as managers to acquire numerically uncapped L visas and avoid the H-1B numerical cap.

Immigration News

Secretary Noem Announces Agency Will Enforce Laws That Penalize Aliens in the Country Illegally
This week, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Noem announced new enforcement of an old tool to combat illegal immigration: an alien registration system. A commonly overlooked provision of a 1952 immigration law already requires all aliens over 14 years old who haven't been fingerprinted and remain in the United States for more than 30 days to apply for registration and fingerprinting. Moreover, failure to register comes with criminal penalties. What's new about this announcement is that, until now, there hasn't been a way for aliens to register. It's worth noting that this registration requirement doesn't cover illegal alien populations like visa overstays and parolees who have already been fingerprinted. Still, it would cover illegal aliens who entered without inspection, which is a substantial share of the existing illegal alien population. For a deep dive into this policy change, see this article by our friend Art Arthur at the Center for Immigration Studies.

Migrant arrests at US-Mexico border near record low in February
While it was just last week that we were updating you on January's border data, early reports on February's numbers are already making their way into the press. Reuters reported this morning that February apprehensions are at a record low, perhaps surpassing the previous low in April 2017. Just a year ago, border apprehensions alone were at 141,000, even though the Biden Administration was funneling illegal aliens to the interior and ports of entry using various illegal parole programs to drive border numbers down artificially. In January of this year, that number had dropped to 29,000. According to Reuters, February apprehensions were 8,500, down from a peak of over 249,000 in December 2023. Next time a politician tells you that the President can't secure the border without a bipartisan bill, remember this month.

Trump officials prepare plans to revive Title 42 policy to expel migrants, documents show
CBS reports that the Trump Administration, not content with resting on decreased border numbers, plans to reinstate Title 42, a public health power belonging to the Surgeon General used during the COVID-19 pandemic. If the Surgeon General determines there is a serious danger of a communicable disease entering the United States, he or she can prohibit entries from countries where the disease is prevalent. It's important to remember that Title 42 is merely one tool that can be used to stop illegal entries and reduce asylum fraud.

IED Kills Texas Rancher. Cartels Expected to Be Responsible, Official Says.
Finally, in a story that you would expect to hear about in a terror haven, a Texas rancher was killed last month when his vehicle hit an improvised explosive device (IED) on the Mexican side of the border. According to the Daily Signal, the 74-year-old rancher worked both sides of the border, and it appears that the warring drug cartels who control the border are to blame. On his first day in office, President Trump declared the cartels foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) and promised action to eliminate their presence in the United States. 

Next Week

Both the House and Senate are in session.