[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 8980 Introduced in House (IH)]
<DOC>
118th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 8980
To authorize the Attorney General to provide grants to States, units of
local government, and organizations to support the recruitment,
training, and development of staff and infrastructure needed to support
the due process rights of individuals facing deportation.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
July 10, 2024
Mr. Robert Garcia of California (for himself, Mrs. Ramirez, Mrs. Torres
of California, Ms. Barragan, Mr. Thanedar, Ms. Tlaib, Ms. Velazquez,
Mr. Goldman of New York, Mr. Vargas, Ms. Lee of Pennsylvania, Ms.
Salinas, Mr. Carson, Mr. McGovern, Ms. Jackson Lee, Ms. Omar, Ms.
Ocasio-Cortez, Mr. Frost, and Mr. Casar) introduced the following bill;
which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To authorize the Attorney General to provide grants to States, units of
local government, and organizations to support the recruitment,
training, and development of staff and infrastructure needed to support
the due process rights of individuals facing deportation.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Securing Help for Immigrants through
Education and Legal Development Act'' or the ``SHIELD Act''.
SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Service area.--The term ``service area'' means the
jurisdiction or geographical area in which an entity carries
out activities using funds awarded under this Act.
(2) State.--The term ``State'' means each of the several
States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto
Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa,
and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
(3) Unit of local government.--The term ``unit of local
government'' has the meaning given such term in section
901(a)(3) of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of
1968 (34 U.S.C. 10251(a)(3)).
(4) Individual facing deportation.--the term ``individual
facing deportation'' means an individual in a proceeding under
section 212(d)(5)(A), 235(b)(1)(B), 236, 238, 240, or 241 of
the Immigration and Nationality Act.
SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON ACCESS TO LEGAL COUNSEL.
It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) unlike in the criminal legal system, there is no right
to government-funded legal representation for people facing the
devastating consequences of detention and deportation who
cannot afford a lawyer, even children are not entitled to an
attorney in these complex proceedings;
(2) as a result, most people in removal proceedings,
including an estimated 80 percent of individuals held in
immigration detention during deportation cases initiated in the
past 20 years, are unrepresented and are forced to navigate the
complexities of immigration law against trained government
prosecutors alone;
(3) the consequences of detention or deportation are
devastating, and can include the loss of liberty, the denial of
lawful immigration status or United States citizenship, loss of
livelihood, separation from and inability to support family,
and life-threatening danger in the country of origin;
(4) legal representation has been proven to significantly
increase the likelihood of someone being released from
detention on bond and establishing a right to remain in the
United States;
(5) studies show that detained immigrants with attorneys
are 3.5 times more likely to be granted bond and people in
detention with representation are up to 10.5 times more likely
to obtain relief from deportation than those without
representation, controlling for other factors;
(6) for nondetained people, 60 percent of individuals with
lawyers win their cases compared to 17 percent of those without
a lawyer;
(7) the detention and deportation system disproportionately
impacts Black immigrants and reinforces systemic racism, and
ensuring that immigrants have access to a lawyer reduces the
harms of the racial inequities in the immigration system;
(8) since 2013, local and State governments have led the
charge on providing public funding for deportation defense for
their residents facing deportation, with over 55 local and
State governments, including 10 States, funding these programs;
(9) the success of local and State publicly funded
deportation defense programs demonstrate the positive impact
that publicly funded universal representation programs have on
improving individual outcomes, keeping families and communities
together, and avoiding the resulting social, economic, and
public health costs of deportation;
(10) while these local and State programs have made a
significant impact, they are insufficient to meet the need for
representation and the Federal Government must act to address
the significant unmet need for legal defense in the Federal
immigration system by passing the Fairness to Freedom Act of
2023, which establishes a universal right to federally funded
representation for anyone facing deportation, regardless of the
individual's ability to pay;
(11) the growth of these local and State programs and the
resulting staffing recruitment challenges have also further
highlighted the acute need to develop and grow a legal and
social services staffing and infrastructure to address the
unmet representational needs for immigrants facing deportation;
(12) infrastructure must be built to maintain a highly
skilled and sustainable legal defense workforce equipped with
the tools to implement high-quality, independent legal
representation regardless of the individual's ability to pay,
prior contact with the criminal legal system, or the nature or
perceived strength of their legal defense; and
(13) in its 2023 Report ``Access to Justice in Federal
Administrative Proceedings'', the Legal Aid Interagency
Roundtable outlines the harms that unrepresented individuals
face in Federal administrative proceedings, including
immigration court, and their core strategy of increasing
representation and assistance by lawyers and nonlawyers for
people in administrative proceedings.
SEC. 4. IMMIGRATION LEGAL SERVICES STAFF AND INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT
PROGRAM.
(a) In General.--The Attorney General, acting through the Director
of the Office of Access to Justice, shall award competitive workforce
development and capacity building grants to eligible entities that are
seeking to expand access to representation for individuals facing
deportation by increasing the workforce and strengthening the legal
services infrastructure needed to provide such representation.
(b) Eligibility Criteria.--An entity eligible to receive a grant
under this section is a--
(1) State or unit of local government that has allocated
public funds towards the provision of immigration-related legal
services, including legal representation, legal assistance,
community navigation, and related services, to individuals
facing deportation;
(2) a community-based organization, nonprofit organization,
or educational institution that provides or coordinates
immigration-related legal services to individuals facing
deportation; or
(3) a community-based organization, nonprofit organization,
or educational institution that recruits, trains, or mentors
individuals who provide or will provide immigration-related
legal services to individuals facing deportation.
(c) Application.--An eligible entity seeking a grant under this
section shall submit to the Director of the Office of Access to Justice
an application at such time, in such manner, and containing such
information as the Director may reasonably require.
(d) Use of Funds.--Funds awarded under this section shall be used
to develop a workforce scaled to meet the representation needs of all
individuals facing deportation, grow the immigration-related legal
services infrastructure, and enhance long-term capacity to provide
high-quality, holistic, and linguistically appropriate legal services,
which may include--
(1) workforce recruitment and training programs, such as
educational, fellowship, clinical, job recruitment, and job
training services aimed at increasing the number of lawyers,
accredited representatives, social workers, and community
navigators entering the immigration legal services field;
(2) technical assistance services, such as--
(A) substantive and technical skills-based
trainings to improve the quality of representation
provided to individuals facing deportation;
(B) language training to ensure legal staff are
equipped to provide linguistically appropriate
services;
(C) specialized legal support to support
representation in complex defense cases, including
representation in Federal court and State court; and
(D) leadership development, including management
training and establishing appropriate supervisory
systems;
(3) local or regional coordination services to ensure a
coordinated and efficient delivery of legal services to
individuals facing deportation;
(4) retention improvement strategies to ensure sustainable
growth of the immigration-related legal services field,
including strategies to address caseload management, burnout,
and organizational systems;
(5) recruiting and retaining legal staff from
underrepresented backgrounds and promoting diversity within the
legal services field;
(6) growing legal services infrastructure and
representational capacity in locations with a significant unmet
need for legal representation and with significantly less
immigration-related legal services capacity in their service
area than national averages; and
(7) physical, administrative, and technological
infrastructure resources in coordination with a use of funds
described in paragraphs (1) through (6).
(e) Contracts and Subawards.--A recipient of a grant under this
section may, for purposes authorized under subsection (d), use all or a
portion of that grant to contract with or make one or more subawards to
one or more--
(1) community-based organization, nonprofit organization,
private organization, or educational institution; or
(2) units of local government.
(f) Conditions.--As a condition of receiving a grant under this
section, an eligible entity shall--
(1) submit to the Attorney General a certification that the
proposed uses of grant funds by the entity--
(A) are consistent with this section; and
(B) meet the criteria determined by the Attorney
General, in consultation with the Director of the
Office of Access to Justice; and
(2) not later than 90 days after the end of each fiscal
year for which an entity receives grant funds under this
section, submit to the Director of the Office of Access to
Justice a report that describes--
(A) the types of services being provided under the
grant;
(B) the service area;
(C) the number of individuals recruited or retained
through services funded under the grant;
(D) the impact that staffing recruitment and
retention has had on organizational capacity to
represent more individuals within the service area;
(E) the actual expenditures made in connection with
the grant, including personnel and staffing structure
and indirect costs;
(F) the outcomes of services; and
(G) a description of the continuing unmet
representation needs of individuals facing deportation
in the service area and recommendations of supports and
resources needed to meet them.
(g) Grant Term.--The term of a grant under this section shall be 4
years, and such grant may be renewed.
(h) Supplement of Non-Federal Funds.--Any Federal funds received
under this section shall be used to supplement, not supplant, Federal
or non-Federal funds that would otherwise be available for activities
funded under this section.
SEC. 5. AUTHORITY AND DUTIES OF THE ADMINISTERING AGENCY.
(a) Duties of the Director.--The Director of the Office of Access
to Justice may promulgate such rules, policies, and procedures as may
be necessary and appropriate to carry out the grant program under this
Act, including the following:
(1) Establishing competitive grantmaking procedures to
identify grant recipients.
(2) Targeting grants in a manner that best accomplishes the
following objectives and priorities:
(A) Advancing a legal services workforce trained
and equipped to implement an independent legal defense
for individuals facing deportation that ensures high-
quality, independent legal representation, regardless
of ability to pay, prior contact with the criminal
legal system, or the nature or perceived strength of
their legal defense.
(B) A national legal services infrastructure scaled
to meet the representation needs of all individuals
facing deportation.
(C) Long-term growth of organizational or
programmatic capacity to provide high-quality,
holistic, and linguistically appropriate legal services
to individuals facing deportation.
(D) Providing support to State and local
governments that have taken leadership and developed
expertise in providing public funding for the legal
defense of individuals facing deportation.
(E) Addressing the crisis of lack of representation
in parts of the country where such publicly funded
programs have not been established.
(b) Independent Implementation.--Except as otherwise provided in
this Act, the Attorney General, acting through the Director, shall
exercise the authority under this Act in an independent manner in order
to advance the primary objective of increasing access to representation
for individuals facing deportation, and without regard to other
priorities of the Federal Government related to immigration
enforcement.
SEC. 6. REPORTS AND ACCOUNTABILITY.
(a) Reports and Evaluations .--For each fiscal year, each grantee
under this section during that fiscal year shall submit to the Attorney
General a report on the effectiveness of activities carried out using
such grant. Each report shall include an evaluation in such form and
containing such information as the Attorney General may reasonably
require. The Attorney General shall specify the dates on which such
reports shall be submitted.
(b) Accountability.-- Grants awarded under this Act shall be
subject to the following accountability provisions:
(1) Audit requirement.--
(A) Definition.--In this paragraph, the term
``unresolved audit finding'' means a finding in the
final audit report of the Inspector General of the
Department of Justice under subparagraph (C) that the
audited grantee has used grant funds for an
unauthorized expenditure or otherwise unallowable cost
that is not closed or resolved within 1 year after the
date on which 1 final audit report is issued.
(B) Audits.--Beginning in the first fiscal year
beginning after December 13, 2016, and in each fiscal
year thereafter, the Inspector General of the
Department of Justice shall conduct audits of grantees
under this section to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse
of funds by grantees. The Inspector General shall
determine the appropriate number of grantees to be
audited each year.
(C) Final audit report.--The Inspector General of
the Department of Justice shall submit to the Attorney
General a final report on each audit conducted under
subparagraph (B).
(D) Technical assistance.--A recipient of a grant
under this section that is found to have an unresolved
audit finding shall be eligible to receive prompt,
individualized technical assistance to resolve the
audit finding and to prevent future findings, for a
period not to exceed the following 2 fiscal years.
(E) Priority.--In making grants under this section,
the Attorney General shall give priority to applicants
that did not have an unresolved audit finding during
the 3 fiscal years before submitting an application for
a grant under this section.
(2) Nonprofit agency requirements.--
(A) Definition.--For purposes of this paragraph and
the grant program under this section, the term
``nonprofit agency'' means an organization that is
described in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue
Code of 1986 and is exempt from taxation under section
501(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.
(B) Prohibition.--The Attorney General may not
award a grant under this section to a nonprofit agency
that holds money in an offshore account for the purpose
of avoiding paying the tax described in section 511(a)
of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.
(C) Disclosure.-- Each nonprofit agency that is
awarded a grant under this section and uses the
procedures prescribed in regulations to create a
rebuttable presumption