HR7664-119

What This Bill Does

The State Partnerships to Enhance Removal of Criminal Aliens Act lets DHS, in coordination with the Attorney General, contract with a state to use qualified state-employed lawyers as Office of the Principal Legal Advisor counsel in specified immigration-removal proceedings. The state pays the lawyers' costs.

Each lawyer must be licensed, trained, knowledgeable about federal immigration law, and covered by a written agreement defining duties, duration, and federal supervision. State counsel have no independent prosecutorial or policymaking discretion and remain under DHS direction. They may use federal property under the agreement. Their service cannot displace a federal employee. They generally are not federal employees, except for specified injury-compensation and tort-claim purposes, but are treated as acting under color of federal authority for civil liability and immunity.

Covered cases include certain expedited proceedings for people held in correctional facilities in the participating state and regular removal proceedings when inadmissibility, deportability, or eligibility for relief may be affected by a state-law violation.

The bill separately broadens “aggravated felony” throughout immigration law. It expands drug offenses to include state, local, or tribal substances even when not federally controlled; adds firearms straw purchasing and trafficking, child pornography, broad violence, assault, battery, robbery, burglary, theft, document, illegal-entry or reentry, war-crimes, torture, genocide, and child-soldier offenses; and covers conspiracies, attempts, solicitation, aiding, and similar participation.

Most broadly, the definition adds any offense classified as a felony by the convicting jurisdiction or punishable by more than one year, even if not otherwise listed. The bill adds aggravated felonies as a ground of criminal inadmissibility, broadens expedited-removal eligibility to criminal grounds under section 237(a)(2), and makes every aggravated felony a particularly serious crime for withholding purposes without the existing five-year aggregate-sentence threshold. Officials may also treat a non-aggravated-felony conviction as particularly serious and may jointly designate additional crimes by regulation.

The bill broadens the criminal-removal jurisdiction bar and applies the changes to offenses committed and removal proceedings begun before, on, or after enactment. A severability clause preserves unaffected provisions and applications if any part is held unconstitutional.

Who Benefits and How

DHS removal counsel programs gain state-funded attorneys for covered cases. Federal immigration prosecutors may process more correctional-facility and state-conviction cases without displacing current federal employees. Participating states gain a formal channel to assign their lawyers to federal removal litigation. State attorneys receive specified federal injury, tort, liability, and immunity treatment while acting under an agreement. Federal enforcement officials gain broader conviction categories and rulemaking authority.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Participating states pay attorney salaries, training, supervision coordination, and litigation costs. State attorneys must follow federal law and DHS direction without independent discretion. DHS supervisors must certify qualifications and manage each agreement. Noncitizens with a wide range of past or future convictions face increased inadmissibility, removal, asylum or withholding barriers, expedited procedures, and reduced judicial review, including people already in pending proceedings. Immigration judges, defense counsel, prosecutors, and courts must apply broad conduct-based, state-law, foreign-law, and retroactive definitions.

Key Provisions

• Authorizes state-funded lawyers to represent DHS in specified removal proceedings.
• Requires federal training, written duties, DHS supervision, and no independent discretion.
• Protects existing federal jobs from displacement.
• Provides specified federal injury, tort, liability, and immunity treatment.
• Expands aggravated-felony drug, violence, theft, firearms, document, and international-crime categories.
• Adds a general catchall for any felony or offense punishable by more than one year.
• Adds aggravated felonies as a criminal inadmissibility ground.
• Expands expedited removal and particularly-serious-crime treatment.
• Broadens rulemaking authority and limits on judicial review.
• Applies the changes to pre-enactment offenses and proceedings.
• Preserves unaffected provisions after a constitutional holding.