By Dorothy Atkins

Law360 (July 7, 2020, 4:15 PM EDT ) The chairwoman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security said Tuesday that a supplemental bill to address the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' funding shortfall caused by the pandemic will move through Congress this month in an effort to prevent the agency from furloughing about 70% of its staff on Aug. 3.

U.S. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif., said she will work with other lawmakers to address any shortfalls in the next COVID-19-related supplemental bill to include measures to help avoid this kind of situation in the future.

"We will continue our work in a bipartisan way, to ensure the furlough notices the agency recently sent out never go into effect and to ensure USCIS continues its important mission," she said.

Roybal-Allard added that in light of the impact of the pandemic on fee revenue, the committee is also monitoring the need for additional funding for U.S. Customs and Border Protection's customs officers in the upcoming fiscal year, along with potential funding shortfalls in the Judiciary Committee and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

"I will note the [Trump] administration has not formally requested supplementary funding for USCIS," Roybal-Allard said. "I do not understand why, but we do not wish to see a funding shortfall cripple this agency."

A representative for USCIS said Tuesday that the agency doesn't comment on proposed legislation, but USCIS Deputy Director for Policy Joseph Edlow said last month that forecasts predict a "crippling budget shortfall" that requires assistance from Congress to allow USCIS to maintain current operations. 

The majority of USCIS operations rely on fees paid by applicants and petitioners, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, USCIS has seen income from those fees drop in half. On May 15, USCIS notified lawmakers of its projected budget shortfall and requested $1.2 billion in emergency funding, which USCIS proposes to repay by adding a 10% surcharge to applications. 

Roybal-Allard's remarks on the new COVID-19 bill came during a meeting in which the appropriations panel approved their homeland security spending bill for fiscal year 2021, setting up a congressional showdown with its calls for slashing ICE's detention capacity and placing a bar on transferring defense funding to Trump's long-promised U.S.-Mexico border wall.

The bill calls for slashing ICE's adult detention capacity to 22,000, imposing a 20-day limit for the government to hold migrants in civil detention and requiring migrants to have "meaningful" access to legal counsel. The proposal also allocates no funding for Trump's border wall and restricts where construction can take place and how it is financed.

The bill provides $50.72 billion in discretionary funding, nearly $2 billion less than what President Donald Trump sought in his 2021 budget request. It includes $48.1 billion in non-defense discretionary funding, the same level as fiscal year 2020, and $2.8 billion in defense funding, which is $250 million more than the previous year.

It also provides an additional $5.1 billion for disaster relief and $215 million for overseas contingency operations.

The bill next heads to the full Committee for markup.

Roybal-Allard noted during prepared remarks Tuesday that the disagreement between lawmakers over immigration issues is "significant," but most of the bill represents a bipartisan agreement.

She said in a statement that the bill provides the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with the funding it needs to protect American communities, to secure seaports and borders, to tighten cybersecurity and to ensure the safety of air travelers, among other things.

"Our bill fights for a more humane immigration approach, including the more restricted use of civil detention, expanded alternatives to detention, and the phase-out of family detention this year," she said. "We also include new measures to keep the administration accountable and transparent – including a prohibition on diverting any new money for President Trump's racist border wall boondoggle."

According to Roybal-Allard, in drafting the bill, the subcommittee received 3,850 member requests, which is a 20% increase over the number of requests it received the prior year, and the number of requests for specific bill or report language doubled to 1,800 requests.

--Additional reporting by Alyssa Aquino. Editing by Steven Edelstone.

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