Democrats and Republicans Passed An Immigration Bill But it went largely unreported. Michael Cutler
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274369/democrats-and-republicans-passed-immigration-bill-michael-cutler
It has been my contention, for many years, that contrary to the lies spewed in the mainstream media that the immigration system is broken while, in reality, the immigration system is not broken, but has become the most efficient delivery system in the United States rivaling Fed-Ex and UPS combined.
What the immigration system delivers is a virtually unlimited supply of cheap and exploitable labor, an unlimited supply of foreign tourists, of foreign students and, for the immigration lawyers, an unlimited supply of clients for immigration law firms.
This was the underlying premise to my article, Sanctuary Country – Immigration failures by design.
This past month, most of the coverage about the Congress focused on the war of words between President Trump and the Democrats, particularly the venomous and frequently Anti-Semitic statements spewed by “The Squad” that consists of four first-term female members of Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
A virtual mantra has been created that the reason we have an immigration crisis is because the Democrats will not work with the Republicans (or visa versa).
You would think that if there was any movement to create immigration legislation that the media would jump all over it and put the story on page one in the newspapers and the “A Block” on television programs. After all, the mythology goes, the Democrats and Republicans have steadfastly taken diametrically opposed positions on immigration.
Of course while the Republicans insist that a wall needs to be constructed on the U.S./Mexican border to secure that dangerous and highly porous border against the un-inspected entry of aliens and cargo including such contraband as narcotics, it is worth noting that when they controlled both houses of Congress for the first two years of the Trump administration, money was never provided for the construction of that wall.
As my mom taught me when I was growing up, “Actions speak louder than words.”
Then there were the highly publicized “migrant caravans” that transported more than one hundred thousand illegal aliens to the U.S./Mexican border and the argument between the Democrats and Republicans focused on whether or not there was a “crisis on the border.”
For the most part, the Republicans declared that there was an emergency on the border and that there was a humanitarian as well as a national security crisis along the border. The Democrats, however, declared that the crisis was manufactured by the Trump administration.
And so it went, arguments and counterarguments hurled back and forth in a “war of words.”
However, what the media somehow managed to ignore was that on February 7, 2019 Zoe Lofgren, the Chairperson of the House Immigration Subcommittee, and former immigration lawyer, introduced a bill, H.R. 1044: Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019.
Of course many bills get introduced during the course of a congressional session so, perhaps this bill was introduced but escaped detection.
The Center for Immigration Studies published a disconcerting analysis of this bill.
Clearly this bill does not provide good news for American high-tech workers or their families, nor does it provide good news for American college students who are running up huge student loans to acquire STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics) degrees to qualify them for high-tech jobs.
Under the provisions of H.R.1044 hundreds of thousands of nonimmigrant (temporary) foreign workers from India, in particular, who are currently working in the United States under the infamous H-1B visa will be fast-tracked for lawful immigrant status and provided with Green Cards. In other words, they will become a permanent part of the U.S. labor pool.
Chinese investors will be able to more easily acquire lawful immigrant status by investing in the United States, increasing China’s already huge “footprint” in the United States.
There are additional provisions that are problematic.
Yet this bill went largely ignored by the mainstream media that even on July 10, 2019 when that legislative disaster was passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 365-65, 57 Republicans voting against the bill.
Furthermore, the bill was voted on without a single hearing and without any amendments being added.
However, the Western Free Press certainly took note of this legislative betrayal in an article entitled, GOP Legislators Back Bill to Replace American Workers. The subtitle completed the infuriating picture, H.R. 1044 would flood the country with Indian tech workers and Chinese investors.
Here is an excerpt from the Western Free Press report:
House Resolution 1044 is a bill that will substantially change the scope of the U.S. immigration and green card distribution system. For starters, it removes a safeguard that prevents green card figures from being monopolized by people from a single country. This safeguard, known as the “per country cap,” ensures that visas are available to a diverse global pool of workers from a variety of different occupational industries. Such significant reform to our immigration system shouldn’t be fast-tracked but that’s just what happened Wednesday when the measure passed 365-65 with 57 Republicans voting “nay.”
GOP Legislators who backed the bill praised how it will help foreign workers, companies, and investments. The 65 Legislators who voted against it likely did so because it doesn’t do enough to help American workers and recent graduates. The bill will head to the Senate where Republican Senators are pushing a mirrored version of this bill.
H.R. 1044, called the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, would over-flood visas from two types of applicants: Indian tech workers and Chinese investors. It’s not necessarily shocking that House Democrats were fanatical in their support for the bill but it should be newsworthy that several “America First” Republicans supported it, especially given the impact that H.R. 1044 will have on American workers.
The bill essentially rewards tech employers who replace American workers with lower cost contract workers who entered the country on temporary on visas. It creates a fast track to green cards for 300,000 Indian contract workers that are currently backlogged in waiting lines.
As I noted in a previous article, 55, on April 30, 2009 the Senate Judiciary Committee then chaired by Chuck Schumer, conducted a hearing on the topic, Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2009, Can We Do It and How? Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank testified. His prepared testimony included the following infuriating excerpt that addressed the need and benefits to be derived by massively increasing the number of H-1B visa workers:
An accelerated influx of highly skilled immigrants would bridge that gap and moreover, carry with it two significant bonuses.
First, skilled workers and their families form new households. They will, of necessity, move into vacant housing units, the current glut of which is depressing prices of American homes. And, of course, house price declines are a major factor in mortgage foreclosures and the plunge in value of the vast quantity of U.S. mortgage-backed securities that has contributed substantially to the disabling of our banking system. The second bonus would address the increasing concentration of income in this country. Greatly expanding our quotas for the highly skilled would lower wage premiums of skilled over lesser skilled. Skill shortages in America exist because we are shielding our skilled labor force from world competition. Quotas have been substituted for the wage pricing mechanism. In the process, we have created a privileged elite whose incomes are being supported at noncompetitively high levels by immigration quotas on skilled professionals. Eliminating such restrictions would reduce at least some of our income inequality.
In a joint effort, demonstrating true collusion, the Democrats and Republicans have united to shaft Americans!
President Trump must be made aware of the irreparable damage this would do to Americans by undermining his promises and goals and the dreams and aspirations of Americans.
It is time for legislation with a somewhat different name, the “Fairness for High-Skilled Americans Act!”
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