Workers: H.R. 241 (2017)

H.R. 2602, the Timely Repatriation Act, would give the Secretary of Homeland Security the ability to punish countries that refuse or unreasonably delay the repatriation of its nationals from the United States. If a country’s repatriation failure rate exceeds 10%, the Secretary will refuse to issue visas for attendants, servants, personal employees, and immediate family members of ambassadors, diplomats, consular officers, or other officials and employees from that country’s government. For each 6 months that the country maintains an excessive repatriation rate, the Secretary will reduce the amount of visas for those ambassadors, diplomats, etc., by 10% of that country’s average number of such visas in the past 3 years, though the total number can never be below 20% of that average. The Secretary has the ability, however, to waive such sanctions for national security reasons or where there are certain temporary exigent circumstances to warrant a waiver. The Secretary may also exempt countries whose number of outstanding non-repatriations drops below 10%.