Amnesty: here we go again

This is an Action Alert.  Following Mick Mulvaney’s remarks on immigration (see below), NumbersUSA issued the following:

Republican Senators are hoping to take up an amnesty bill passed by the House last December that also expands guest worker programs; White House says it’s “listening” to these proposals.

News reports this week brought attention to a push in Congress to pass an amnesty for illegal aliens working in the agricultural industry, which would in effect create an indentured servitude program, allowing illegal aliens to gain green cards in return for a period of service working an ag-related job.

According to a story in Politico by Anita Kumar on Wednesday, the White House “has been in talks with Senators” hoping to convince the President to back amnesty legislation.

Last December, the House passed the mis-titled Farm Workforce Modernization Act, introduced by Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.).

You will find the NumbersUSA fact sheet for the bill here. And Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, wrote up his take at National Review (“Farming Like It’s 1699.”)

In the Senate, Republicans Lindsay Graham (S.C.) and Thom Tillis (N.C.) are leading efforts in that chamber to pass legislation along the lines of Rep. Lofgren’s bill, with indications the Senators would like to expand guest worker programs for other industries. The senior Senator from South Carolina is well-deserving of his nickname “Grahamnesty,” though, to his credit, he has always been upfront about his aims to provide U.S. employers with a continual flow of low-wage labor from abroad. Tillis has never had Graham’s national visibility, but he, too, has been a reliable advocate for amnesty and expanded guest worker programs.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.), who has emerged in the House as a strong voice for enforcement, sent a letter to Senator Graham on Tuesday:

I write to urge that any immigration reform measures undertaken in the Senate, for Agriculture workers or otherwise, focus expressly and solely on actual and desperately needed immigration reform. There should be no amnesty considered as we should be squarely focused on re-establishing actual operational control of our border, which we currently do not have. – - Rep. Chip Roy

Kumar points out that amnesty and expanded guest worker programs go against pledges made by President Trump on the 2016 campaign trial, and reiterated after he took office. She also wrote that:

A White House official confirmed the ongoing negotiations on the guest worker proposal and said the effort is an attempt to generate action on a smaller immigration proposal after a larger one stalled and won few adherents.

“We’ve also been listening to stakeholders,” the official said. “We’ve also developed points of view on what the temporary system should look like.”

Journalists have written a lot about how the Trump Administration wants to decrease immigration, and some have even claimed the administration has already achieved this end, often conflating legal admissions with illegal entries. It remains an open question whether the President truly supports that goal.

While he endorsed the RAISE Act in 2017, President Trump more recently said that America “needs workers” and he would like to see “the largest numbers ever” of legal immigrants.

The President isn’t always precise in his language, and he must be given credit for steps taken to secure the border, though he has not pressured Congress to pass mandatory E-Verify. However, just this week Acting White House Chief of State Mick Mulvaney was quoted as saying this:

“We are desperate – desperate – for more people….We are running out of people to fuel the economic growth that we’ve had in our nation over the last four years. We need more immigrants.”

Wages are finally started to rise for workers at the lower end of the pay-scale. It is for this reason, and not because of any labor shortages, that employers are now “desperate” for immigration increases.

Mr. Mulvaney referenced “immigrants,” not “legal immigrants. NumbersUSA recommends that citizens

Take action: Urge President Trump to Abandon Amnesty and Guest Worker Expansion Plans!

White House comment line: 202-456-1111

Switchboard: 202-456-1414

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Alert: Amnesty Passes House Judiciary Committee

NumbersUSA sent out an Alert today: "Republican Buy-In Makes Amnesty Real Threat." Much of the message contained a pitch for contributions; I deleted those sections, although if you are interested, the NumbersUSA website is here. Here’s the Alert:

This morning, the House Judiciary Committee passed the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. That would mean the bill can now be voted on by the House with little additional warning. . . and with 23 Republican Co-sponsors, it's likely to pass.

I bet a lot of people might wonder why the Judiciary Committee is passing a farm workforce bill. It's because this bill is really an immigration bill.

We need to stop this bill.

Here's why they don't just call it an immigration bill: There are none of the good immigration reforms American voters are demanding, such as requiring E-Verify for every U.S. employer and eliminating chain migration. There's only more immigration and more amnesties.

• There's no reduction in immigration numbers.
• There's no end to the visa lottery.
• There's no reform of asylum or refugee laws.
• And there's no mandatory E-Verify for any but a tiny proportion of employers... who are going to get all the low-paid, indentured servants they can handle anyway.

Indentured servitude! -- THAT'S what this bill is about: using amnesty to provide indentured servants to the groups like the Western Growers Association. That's because it gives hundreds of thousands of workers -- and their families -- amnesty and green cards... after they work four to eight years as what amounts to indentured servants first.

Once the illegal farm workers get their amnesty, they would be free to take any job in America, not just farm jobs. On top of that, an additional 40,000 new green cards each year would be issued for unskilled workers to work in ANY job they can get in America.

Please don't write off this threat as merely coming from extremists in the House. It has overwhelming support from the Democratic caucus, and almost two dozen Republican House members are co-sponsoring. So, especially with the impeachment battle, it's hard to take anything for granted.

We're going to need hundreds of thousands of our members to contact Congress. For that to happen, we're going to need to activate our millions of activists, with millions upon millions of emails and social media messages. We've just finished a vital overhaul of our website, allowing much easier access to actions while maintaining security and discretion. 

Two Ohio Representatives are on the Judiciary Committee: Steve Chabot [https://chabot.house.gov/] and Jim Jordan [https://jordan.house.gov/]. Click here for the full House of Representatives roster and contact information.

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Agriculture amnesty bill

Bronson Stocking at Townhall reports on yet another push for amnesty in the House:

Lawmakers have forgotten the lessons of the previous amnesties, or they are hoping the American people have. Yesterday [Weds.], a bipartisan group of House members introduced the Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2019. Like the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, the new bill claims it will only apply to a limited number of illegal-alien agricultural workers, and it promises tougher employment verifications in the future. These are the same broken promises politicians made when they passed amnesty back in 1986. 

Via Neil Munro at Breitbart:

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is opposing the bill. “The name of this mass amnesty bill name should be changed to the Mandatory Farm Labor Act of 2019,” FAIR said.

NumbersUSA just sent out an update on the bill:

Agriculture amnesty bill to include weak E-Verify provision

A bipartisan group of House Members has introduced a new agricultural amnesty bill that includes a new twist from past ag amnesties -- a provision that requires farmers but nobody else to use E-Verify. The E-Verify provision isn't enough, however, to hide the fact that this will be an amnesty for millions of illegal ag workers and encourage more illegal immigration.

The Farm Workforce Modernization Act, H.R. 4916, was introduced on Wednesday. The official text has yet to be released, so we don't know all the details. But here's what lead sponsor Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) says the bill would do:

Establish a program for agricultural workers in the United States to earn legal status through continued agricultural employment and contribution to the U.S. agricultural economy.

Reform the H-2A program to provide more flexibility for employers, while ensuring critical protections for workers. The bill focuses on modifications to make the program more responsive and user-friendly for employers and provides access to the program for industries with year-round labor needs.

Establish mandatory, nationwide E-Verify system for all agricultural employment with a structured phase-in and guaranteed due process for authorized workers who are incorrectly rejected by the system.

NumbersUSA's Director of Government Relations, Rosemary Jenks, issued the following statement:

Congress tried amnesty as a solution to large numbers of illegal agricultural workers in 1986 with the Immigration Reform and Control Act. As predicted, it failed because the workers left agriculture for easier, better-paying jobs as soon as they got their amnesty, and illegal immigration actually increased thanks to the promise of future amnesties. The Farm Workforce Modernization Act will have the same result: amnestied aliens competing with Americans for non-farm jobs; and more illegal immigration incentivized by amnesty. Moreover, by mandating E-Verify only for agricultural employers, it will actually encourage more illegal aliens to compete with American workers and legal immigrants for non-farm jobs, where E-Verify is not required.

Last year, House lawmakers considered advancing legislation that would require all employers in the U.S. to use E-Verify in exchange for reforming the H-2A agricultural guest worker program. The legislation did allow current illegal ag workers to apply for the new guest worker program, but did not provide an opportunity for permanent amnesty like the Farm Workforce Modernization Act promises to do.

The most concerning aspect of H.R. 4916 is that 44 U.S. Representatives from both sides of the aisle have signed on as original cosponsors.

[NumbersUSA will] continue to monitor the legislation and will post actions after Congress returns from its current recess and we have been able to read and analyze all the details.

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