Speech #1090070428

Speaker. Hurricane Katrina has devastated the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals living along the gulf coast. This population includes legal aliens who may now face hardships under our immigration laws as a result of being displaced by the storm or. worse yet. due to the loss of a loved one. Today we have the opportunity to provide humanitarian relief to these hurricane victims by passing H.R. 3827. I have worked with my ranking member.. the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 51. Pt. 15 September 21. 2005 CONYERS). to develop this legislation to help lawabiding aliens and their families avoid unfair consequences and get back on their feet. It is similar to the relief that we provided in the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 for the legal immigrant victims of September 11. I will briefly outline some of the bills most significant provisions. First. the bill provides special immigration status to individuals whose immigration petitions were nullified as a result of Hurricane Katrina. This relief would be available to aliens who were the beneficiary of an immigration petition or labor certification application before Katrina struck if the petitioner or applicant died or was disabled or. in the case of an employmentbased petition. the placement was destroyed. Grandparents of orphans are also provided special immigration status in cases where both parents died as a result of the hurricane. if at least one of those parents was a citizen or legal permanent resident. The bill also allows spouses and children of citizens and legal permanent residents who died as a consequence of the hurricane to continue their petitions as if the death had not occurred. Without this relief. many spouses and children would have their visa petitions nullified. This legislation also provides similar relief for the immediate relatives of asylees and refugees who died because of the hurricane. Many people were displaced from their homes and stranded in other locations during and after Hurricane Katrina. As a result. there may be instances in which an alien might not be able to meet the deadline set forth in our immigration laws. This bill provides an extension of status until December 31 for nonimmigrant aliens who were lawfully present on the date of the hurricane but who were unable to timely depart the country as a result of Hurricane Katrina. H.R. 3827 also provides relief for individuals who were the recipients of immigrant visas but who were not able to use them immediately as a consequence of the hurricane. Additionally. this bill assists aliens. lawfully in the United States on student visas. by preventing them from falling out of status due to hurricanerelated circumstances. provided they are reenrolled in another qualifying school by February 1. 2006. Undoubtedly. some lawful aliens lost their green cards and other federally issued work authorization documents as a result of Hurricane Katrina. In order to help these people get back on their feet as soon as possible. this bill authorizes expeditious replacement of these documents. Further. the bill allows employers to make jobs available to citizens and aliens who lost their work authorization documents in September 21. 2005 CONGRE the hurricane.