This bill addresses issues concerning family- and employment-based visas.The bill increases the annual per-country cap on family-based immigrant visas from 7% of the total number of such visas available to 15% and eliminates the per-country cap for employment-based immigrant visas.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/6542

• Access to Care Act (2023:HB588) – Allows all Marylanders, regardless of immigration status, to buy health insurance through the State’s marketplace. Currently, undocumented immigrants are prohibited from accessing coverage through the State due to their immigration status

• Just Cause (2023: HB684/SB504) – “Just Cause” laws protect tenants from arbitrary, retaliatory, and discriminatory evictions. They promote housing stability for tenants and neighborhoods. This bill allows counties to adopt “Just Cause” laws that meet local needs

• Tenant Safety Act (2023: HB691/SB807) – Right now, the “rent escrow” process is inadequate in ensuring remedies for a landlord’s failure to repair serious and dangerous defects that impact the health and safety of tenants. Tenants, living in multi-unit complexes facing similar threats to health and safety should have the ability to join collectively as plaintiffs to hold their landlord accountable

• Eviction Prevention Funds – Eviction prevention funds have kept thousands of families housed and secure; however, if this assistance is not sustained, these families will likely face eviction. We call on the General Assembly to provide $15M in eviction prevention funds

• Tenant Possessions Recovery Act (2023: HB1023) – Many families that have suffered an eviction have had their belongings thrown onto the curb, losing many valuables. The Tenant Possessions Recovery Act would align Maryland with 46 states and provide renting families a limited opportunity to collect their belongings after eviction. This bill would provide notice of an eviction date and a 10-day reclaim period

• MDE Permitting Authority Bill (HB24/SB96) – Maryland needs to become a state where the brunt of pollution isn’t felt by the state’s most vulnerable communities. This bill will advance equity, improve health, and strengthen our state by helping to end environmental racism and injustice in Maryland by granting MDE the authority to reject a pollution permit application based on an environmental justice analysis.