Us Congress House Bill HB2374

Us Congress 2023-2024 Regular Session

• Introduced: 3/29/23
• Refer: 3/29/23

Caption

New Way Forward Act

Impact

The proposed changes would notably affect existing detention practices by implementing a phase-out period for for-profit detention operations and requiring hearings to determine whether continued detention is necessary. The bill stipulates that aliens must only be detained if their removal from the United States is foreseeable and they pose a safety risk, significantly tightening the circumstances under which detention is permissible. These amendments stand to alter how communities manage immigration-related detentions, reducing the scope of mandatory detention and fostering a shift towards community-based supervision programs instead.

Summary

House Bill 2374, known as the New Way Forward Act, seeks to reform the enforcement of immigration laws in the United States by mandating a shift away from reliance on private for-profit detention facilities. The bill prohibits the Secretary of Homeland Security from entering into contracts with such facilities for the detention of aliens, requiring that all detention facilities be either publicly owned or operated by non-profit organizations. Additionally, it introduces significant changes to the conditions under which individuals may be detained, emphasizing the need for individualized assessments and requiring probable cause for arrests of non-citizens, which are currently permissible under less stringent standards.

Contention

Notable areas of contention surrounding the bill revolve around the criminalization of immigration offenses. The bill seeks to repeal current legal provisions that classify illegal entry and reentry as criminal offenses, a move that advocates argue will reduce the harmful impacts of punitive immigration practices. Critics, however, may contend that decriminalization could weaken border security enforcement. There are also concerns about how this bill may be perceived among constituents in districts with significant non-citizen populations versus those focusing on stricter immigration controls.