Immigration and the 2023 Session

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HB 588 / SB 365 - Access To Care Act

This bill will allow people to purchase health coverage from the MD Health Benefit Exchange regardless of their immigration status. This bill was introduced last year. but did not get voted out of committee. A second bill on this subject (HB 363 / SB 806), would require the Health Department to develop a report comparing options for offering affordable health care coverage to State residents who are ineligible for the Maryland Medicaid, the Maryland Children’s Health Program, or qualified health plans due to the individuals’ immigration status.

Key facts:

• ACA currently excludes undocumented folks from accessing state exchanges, so this bill allows state to use "1332 waiver” to bypass that Federal requirement, and create a targeted state subsidy program for undocumented residents.

• There are 250k undocumented Marylanders who don’t have access to Exchange, including 115k who are uninsured.

• Builds on last year’s legislation which did not get out of House committee.

Resources:

• MD Health Benefit Exchange info HERE

• 1332 waiver info HERE

• JUFJ one pager HERE

• CASA one pager HERE

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Community/Advocacy partners

• CASA is lead on this and has told us this will be their #1 priority this session. 

• JUFJ and the MD Healthcare For All Coalition have also named this as a priority and will be supporting CASA on this as they did last Session.

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Other potential bills

In addition, UULM-MD expects to supporting two other immigrants’ rights bills that failed in the 2022 legislative session:

• Universal Representation, and

• Probation Not Deportation.

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Universal Representation - Access to Counsel in Immigration Proceedings Program
The Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees everyone the right to counsel – in criminal proceedings. Unfortunately, despite its severe consequences, deportation proceedings are civil and people facing deportation do not have a right to government-funded counsel, leaving most immigrants to represent themselves in immigration courts, in a system where even legal scholars admit, the statutes are as complicated as the Tax Code. CASA estimates that in Maryland, more than 500 adults are held in immigration detention, forced to defend themselves. (77% of immigrants do not have counsel during immigration proceedings. – Vera Institute of Justice.) Such a process violates the right of due process, harms immigrant communities and damages local economies.

​Filed as HB 114 / SB 129 in 2022, the proposed bill would have:

• Established an Access to Counsel in Immigration Proceedings Program administered by the Maryland Legal Services Corporation to provide access to legal representation to certain individuals in certain immigration proceedings

• Provided education and outreach to certain individuals, families, and communities affected by immigration proceedings and detention

• Established the Access to Counsel in Immigration Proceedings Special Fund as a special, non-lapsing fund

Prince George’s County and Baltimore City have already instituted universal representation programs. A state-wide program would ensure consistency. Moreover, forty jurisdictions nationally provide representation.

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Fast Facts:

• Studies show that individuals who represent themselves in immigration proceedings will succeed in preventing deportation and separation from family only 3% of the time, while those who are presented by counsel will succeed in more than 30% of the cases. (Capital Area Immigrant Rights Coalition.)

• ​Only 37 percent of all immigrants and 14 percent of detained immigrants go to court with lawyers on their side, according to a 2016 American Immigration Council (AIC) study. (National Immigrant Justice Center)

• Forty jurisdictions nationally provide legal representation to undocumented immigrants. In Maryland, Baltimore City and PG County have representation programs. A state-wide program will ensure consistency in application. 

• In Baltimore City, 41% of detainees who were represented in immigration courts and hearings were released from custody -- either on bond or won their cases.

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(HB 193 / SB 211) Probation Not Deportation

Introduced in 2023 as HB 193, this billl would address a serious problem in the federal immigration system's interpretation of the Maryland law that was intended to give criminal defendants a second chance through a disposition of "probation before judgment" (PBJ).

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The federal Immigration and Nationality Act lists multiple categories of deportable aliens which include lawfully admitted permanent residents (I-151, green card holders). Among the categories is conviction of a crime -- felony or certain misdemeanors – and subsequent sentence to confinement. 8 U.S.C.A.  section 1251.

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Sometimes, as the Maryland legislature has recognized, it is in the best interests of the community to provide an outcome in a criminal matter that will not result in a conviction and has established “probation before judgment” (PBJ) where a judge will strike a conviction and impose probation instead. The statute works well for U.S. citizens. However, under federal immigration law, the current MD PBJ statute is still considered a conviction for non-U.S. citizens because during the PBJ plea agreement process, they have admitted guilt and a finding of guilt is sufficient to trigger severe consequences of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The results can be not only severe but inhumane. A Maryland resident for whom PBJ is imposed, but who happens to be a lawfully admitted permanent resident or an undocumented immigrant, can face detention and deportation. Families can be separated – fathers, mothers, breadwinners, taken from their children – for minor offenses. We have the opportunity with HB 559 / SB 265 to correct this injustice.

As retired U.S. Immigration Judge John F. Gossart Jr. commented in the Baltimore Sun, “Virginia and New York have similar statutes, which function so that their non-citizen residents do not suffer additional consequences from probation. To allow this inequity to exist from one jurisdiction to another, when the intent of PBJ statutes is the same or similar, is in my opinion unjust. Which side of the Potomac River the case is heard on should not determine whether a PBJ triggers federal consequences.”

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Our Unitarian Universalist faith calls us to promote and affirm justice, equity and compassion in human relations and surely, supporting the passage and enactment of a Probation Before Deportation bill will redress the inequity that exists in Maryland’s Probation Before Judgment statute.

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