| 3.23.22

Should ICE Be Notified When an Unauthorized Immigrant Attempts to Purchase a Gun? (H.R. 1397)

Do you support or oppose this bill?

What is H.R. 1397?

(Updated September 27, 2021)

This bill — the Notify ICE Act — would require authorities to notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when an unauthorized immigrant is denied the ability to purchase a firearm through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Federal law only allows U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to buy firearms.

Argument in favor

It makes sense for ICE to be notified when unauthorized immigrants are denied gun purchases due to their immigration status. This will help enforce both immigration and control laws.

Argument opposed

Reporting unauthorized immigrants to ICE shouldn’t be one of firearms sellers’ responsibilities. Immigration enforcement belongs with federal agencies, not with private citizens.

Impact

Unauthorized immigrants; firearms sales; firearms sellers; ICE; and the NICS.

Cost of H.R. 1397

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA) introduced this bill to require U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) notification when an unauthorized immigrant is denied the ability to purchase a firearm through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS):

“The FBI reported just last month that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System had nearly 8 million people listed as an ‘illegal/unlawful.’ Additionally, illegal aliens rank as the number one prohibited category in the FBI’s NICS Indices… My bill connects NICS with Immigration and Customs Enforcement so this information can be communicated to the agency tasked with enforcing our immigration laws. This creates a mechanism to enforce laws which are already on the books and keep guns out of the hands of people who are in this country illegally.”

In an interview with Breitbart, Rep. Cline claimed that unauthorized immigrant status is the “number one reason” for background check rejection for firearm purchases:

“Illegal alien status] is the number one category that results in the rejection of a background check is the fact that a person is here illegally or has illegal status in the country. And we need to address it. We need law enforcement agencies to talk to each other, and it’s not a ridiculous concept. But, the Democrats said no, we could not have ‘ICE actually aware of these people to deport them.’”

This bill has 18 Republican cosponsors. According to Rep. Cline, the National Rifle Association (NRA) supports this bill.

Rep. Cline originally introduced the language in this bill as an amendment to Rep. Mike Thompson’s (D-CA) Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, which passed the House by a 240-190 vote. Initially, House Judiciary Committee Democrats refused to allow the amendment to come to the House floor. However, it was reintroduced using a motion to recommit, which passed by a 220-209 vote with 26 Democrats’ support. The Republican-controlled Senate is unlikely to bring the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019 to the floor for a vote.

However, despite this legislative language’s inclusion in the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, Rep. Cline remains opposed to that bill in its entirety. Thus, he introduced this bill as standalone legislation.

Of Note: According to the Pew Research Center, there were 10.7 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. in 2016, representing 3.3 percent of the total U.S. population. This figure was a 13 percent decline from the peak of 12.2 million in 2007, when the unauthorized immigrant population was four percent of the U.S. population.

According to the FBI, just over 23,000 firearms purchase background checks were denied due to the applicants’ immigration status from 1998-2017, out of around 1.5 million denied applications.

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