Description:
The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act expires on December 23, 2022. S. 93 would permanently extend the authorities and requirements of the act. The bill would also modify the President’s authority to impose sanctions on individuals who commit serious human rights abuses or significant acts of corruption under current law. S. 93 would make officials of entities who commit human rights abuses subject to sanctions and would extend sanctions to the immediate family members of sanctioned persons. The bill would require the U.S. government to prevent people from entering the United States if they are found to have contributed serious human rights abuses or corruption. CBO expects that the provision would result in a small number of people being denied visas, resulting in an insignificant decrease in revenues from fees. Although most visa fees are retained by the Department of State and spent without further appropriation, some collections are deposited into the Treasury as revenues. Denying foreign nationals entry into the United States also would reduce direct spending on federal benefits (emergency Medicaid or federal subsidies for health insurance, for example) for which those people might otherwise be eligible. Sanctions under the bill also would increase the number of people who are subject to civil or criminal monetary penalties. Those penalties are recorded as revenues, and a portion can be spent without further appropriation. In addition, the bill would block transactions in certain assets and property that are in the United States or that come under the control of people in the United States. On the basis of data for similar sanctions, CBO estimates that sanctions in the bill would affect a small number of people. Thus, enacting the bill would have insignificant effects on revenues and direct spending and would, on net, reduce deficits by insignificant amounts over the 2021-2031 period. By permanently extending the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, S. 93 would extend an existing private-sector mandate as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) that will expire in December 2022. The bill also would expand the mandate by authorizing the President to impose sanctions on family members of foreign persons sanctioned under the act. The current mandate prohibits some transactions involving assets and property that have been frozen by sanctions and that are in the United States or that come under the control of U.S. entities. Extending the act would prohibit transactions that would otherwise be permitted if the act expired. The cost of extending and expanding the mandate would be any income that U.S. entities lose as a consequence. CBO expects that because a small number of people or entities would be affected, the loss of income from any incremental increase in restrictions imposed by the bill would be small as well. CBO estimates that the cost of the mandate would fall well below the annual threshold established in UMRA for private-sector mandates ($170 million in 2021, adjusted annually for inflation). S. 93 contains no intergovernmental mandates as defined in UMRA.
