Nevada senators back proposal to eliminate new fees for immigrant minors

Senator (D-NV) Catherine Cortez Masto speaks to the Las Vegas Sun editorial board Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022. Photo by: Wade Vandervort

U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., introduced legislation today to reverse some provisions from President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” signed in July that impact immigrant minors.

The “Upholding Protections for Unaccompanied Children Act” would exempt minors from a new $5,000 “border apprehension fee,” as well as asylum, annual maintenance and immigration court fees. By October, teenagers across the country started to receive fine notices related to the border apprehension fee, according to The Intercept.

Cortez Masto said during a press conference that it’s Congress’ “duty to stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves.”

“That includes the unaccompanied children who come to the United States after escaping trafficking and abuse,” Cortez Masto said during a news conference. “It’s essential that we reverse the Republican tax law’s cruel provisions and protect these kids.”

The legislation, co-sponsored by 20 other senators, including U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., would also repeal funding for “intrusive body examinations of children in federal custody,” according to Cortez Masto’s office.

It would do the same for the money allocated for deportations of certain unaccompanied children “without robust trafficking screenings or full review before an immigration judge,” the office continued.

Outside of funding and fees, the Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Refugee Resettlement would be restricted from sharing data on children’s sponsors with Homeland Security for immigration enforcement under the legislation.

U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman, D-New York, joined Cortez Masto to support the bill, saying that “it seems like almost every week now we have to introduce a bill to address the mass immigration dragnet this administration is executing.”

“There’s so much that we need to undo from the ‘Big, Ugly Bill,’ but the first thing that we start with right here is making sure that we’re taking care and saving children,” Goldman said.

“To put in these exorbitant fees that are prohibitive is effectively (saying) to unaccompanied minors, escaping persecution, escaping terror, escaping violence, escaping horrific conditions in their home country, that you have no place to go,” he continued.