HR8586-119

What This Bill Does

The Americans First Immigration Act restructures several immigration pathways around U.S. worker protection, ideological and security attestations, tighter family categories, a points-based employment system, conditional permanent residence, and restrictions on public education benefits. It creates a new employer-attestation regime for points-based immigrant petitions. Employers must recruit U.S. workers, offer the job to equally or better qualified U.S. workers, document recruitment contacts and wages, avoid laying off equivalent U.S. workers around the foreign worker's employment, avoid placement arrangements that evade the rules, and pay the promised wage for three years unless the worker is discharged for cause or leaves voluntarily. The Secretary of Labor may investigate, use arbitration, impose civil penalties of up to $5,000, $15,000, or $50,000 depending on the violation, order hiring or compensatory damages for affected U.S. workers, and block petitions by noncompliant employers for up to 15 years. The bill also requires immigration applicants to attest that they remain attached to the Constitution and have not advocated or participated in genocide, religion-based punishment, governmentally enforced religious law in the United States, persecution, female infanticide, sex-selective abortion, honor killing, or female genital mutilation.

The bill repeals the diversity lottery structure and replaces section 203(c) with a 3,000-visa worldwide level for religious workers. It bars new petitions under the old special immigrant religious-worker pathway after enactment, transfers pending religious-worker petitions to the new allocation, rejects pending non-religious special immigrant petitions, and caps remaining approved non-religious special immigrant visas at 6,940. It narrows family immigration by removing parents of adult U.S. citizens from immediate-relative treatment, limiting family-sponsored immigrants to spouses and children of lawful permanent residents, setting the family-sponsored worldwide level at 87,934 minus certain parolee counts, and changing age determinations to the petition filing date. It replaces employment-based categories with a points-based immigrant visa program capped at 192,000 minus certain mandatory-detention failures. Applicants need a U.S. job offer, employer attestation, applicant attestation, minimum salary levels, at least 16 points, age 18 through 51, and English proficiency in at least the fifth decile. Points favor high salaries, Nobel prizes, Olympic medals, extraordinary ability, U.S. degrees, STEM doctorates, English proficiency, U.S. military service, and younger working-age applicants.

The bill makes points-based immigrants, spouses, and children conditional permanent residents for two years. DHS must terminate conditional status if the principal immigrant violates the attestation, is sentenced to more than one year for offenses, receives a means-tested public benefit, or no longer works in the offered job or an equivalent-or-higher-paid job. To remove conditions, the principal immigrant must file a petition in the 90-day period before the two-year anniversary and appear for a DHS interview unless waived under fraud and national-security criteria. The bill also states a federal policy that non-permanent residents should not receive public education benefits in the same way as U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, and it requires non-permanent-resident students at postsecondary institutions to pay at least the nonresident tuition, fees, and costs charged to similarly situated students.

Who Benefits and How

U.S. workers benefit because employers sponsoring points-based immigrants must recruit U.S. workers first, offer jobs to equally or better qualified U.S. applicants, avoid equivalent layoffs, pay promised wages, and face investigations, damages, and petition bans for violations. High-wage foreign professionals, Nobel laureates, Olympic medalists, STEM doctoral graduates, U.S.-educated degree holders, English-proficient applicants, and qualified U.S. military service members can benefit relative to other employment-based applicants because the points system gives them ranking advantages. Religious worker immigrants benefit from a dedicated 3,000-visa allocation. U.S. taxpayers and public benefit programs benefit because points-based conditional residents risk losing status if they receive means-tested public benefits. U.S. citizen and national college students benefit because institutions may not charge them more than non-permanent-resident students carrying the same workload after netting public or institutional discounts.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Employers sponsoring points-based immigrants bear new recruitment, wage, recordkeeping, attestation, anti-layoff, anti-placement, arbitration, penalty, and petition-ban risks. Points-based immigrant applicants bear higher entry barriers because they need a qualifying job offer, salary thresholds, points evidence, English scores, age limits, constitutional and values attestations, conditional residence, a later petition, and a DHS interview. Family-sponsored immigrants outside spouses and children of lawful permanent residents, parents of adult U.S. citizens, diversity visa applicants, many non-religious special immigrant applicants, and lower-wage employment-based applicants bear reduced or eliminated paths to immigrant visas. DHS, USCIS, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of State, the Department of Labor, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and postsecondary institutions bear administrative burdens from new petitions, rankings, attestations, investigations, arbitration, visa transitions, conditional status reviews, tuition rules, and reporting or notice duties. Non-permanent-resident students bear higher higher-education costs where they previously received in-state or other preferential rates.

Key Provisions

• Requires employers sponsoring points-based immigrants to recruit U.S. workers, document recruitment, offer jobs to equally or better qualified U.S. applicants, avoid equivalent layoffs, maintain promised wages, and face Labor Department investigations, arbitration, civil penalties, remedial hiring, damages, and petition bans for noncompliance.
• Requires immigration applicants to sign values attestations covering attachment to the Constitution and nonparticipation in listed conduct such as genocide, religious persecution, honor killing, and female genital mutilation.
• Repeals the diversity lottery structure, creates a 3,000-visa religious worker allocation, rejects many pending non-religious special immigrant petitions, and caps remaining approved non-religious special immigrant visas at 6,940.
• Reduces family immigration by excluding parents of adult U.S. citizens from immediate-relative treatment, limiting family-sponsored immigrants to spouses and children of lawful permanent residents, setting an 87,934 worldwide level minus certain parolee counts, and changing child-age determinations to the petition filing date.
• Creates a 192,000-slot points-based employment immigrant system that requires job offers, salary thresholds, at least 16 points, age 18 to 51, English proficiency, and ranking by employment, achievement, education, language, military service, and age factors.
• Establishes two-year conditional permanent residence for points-based immigrants, spouses, and children, with termination for attestation violations, serious criminal sentences, means-tested public benefits, or loss of qualifying employment, and with a petition and interview process to remove conditions.
• Restricts education benefits by stating that non-permanent residents should not receive public education benefits on the same terms as U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents and by requiring postsecondary non-permanent-resident students to pay at least nonresident tuition and fee levels.