Travis Childers, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Mississippi, became the first Democrat to sign FAIR's Anti-Amnesty pledge on Thursday. The GOP candidate in the race, Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), has yet to sign the pledge.
When we heard that RNC Chairman Reince Priebus was set to announce a new set of principles that Republicans across the country could rally around, the initial thought was that it couldn't be worse than the Autopsy Report that the Party released shortly after the 2012 presidential elections. Back then, Priebus and the Party called on Republicans to embrace "comprehensive immigration reform" eventually leading to the bipartisan, but, thus-far, failed Gang of Eight amnesty bill. Instead, Priebus' speech indicated that Washington could be hearing the message about the impact of mass immigration on American workers.
A new Obama administration program would give refugee status to a limited number of minors from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador who are the “child relatives” of legal immigrants living in the United States. It would not affect minors who want to join their illegally-present parents in the United States or minors who have already entered the country illegally.
A new study from the Center for Immigration Studies has determined that the foreign-born population in the United States hit a record-high 41.3 million in July 2013. The study found that nearly one out of every 6 adults living in the U.S. is foreign-born.
Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.) has cosponsored Rep. Phil Gingrey's (R-Ga.) Nuclear Family Priority Act, H.R.477, that would eliminate the extended family visa categories (e.g., married sons and daughters of citizens, etc.), thus ending "chain migration" as recommended by the bipartisan Barbara Jordan Commission in 1997. Current immigration law allows U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents to sponsor non-nuclear, adult family members, creating an endless chain of mass legal immigration.
Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) has introduced H.R.5520, the SAFE for America Act, that would eliminate the annual Visa Lottery. The Visa Lottery issues 55,000 greencards per year to foreign citizens of countries that have lower rates of immigration to the United States. The greencards are awarded, however, through a random lottery drawing and without consideration of the recipients educational attainment or work skills.
President Obama today said that he received proposals from Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder for immigration actions that can be taken without Congress’ approval. He had previously vowed to take action before the end of summer, but today only said "My expectation is that fairly soon, I'll be considering what the next steps are."
It was much more than lip service. The extended immigration comments by former Sen. Rick Santorum at a recent Iowa presidential audition indicated a deep understanding of what decades of spiked immigration numbers have done to struggling workers and their families.
A new poll from The Polling Company shows overwhelming support among likely voters for significantly lower immigration levels, increased enforcement and an opposition to Pres. Obama's plan to move forward with an executive action that could grant amnesty and work permits to millions of illegal aliens. 74% of likely voters chose Pres. Obama working with Congress on the immigration issue rather than acting alone, and 75% of likely voters want to see more enforcement of immigration laws.
The New York Times concluded its "The Great Divide" series on inequality last Friday with a column by Joseph E. Stiglitz, who moderated the series. In "Inequality is Not Inevitable," Stiglitz pointed to countries like Sweden, Finland, and Norway to suggest that "our policies and our politics" -- not "the inexorable laws of economics" -- are responsible for economic inequality in the United States. Of the more than 600 comments to the article, some readers zeroed in on immigration policy.
Speaking at a Washington, D.C. event, Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte said that immigration law enforcement and border controls must be “up and operating effectively” before the House will vote on any immigration legislation. “Enforcement has to take place first,” he said. Then the House will address legal immigration and figure out “what to do about the people who are not lawfully here.”
A new study by the Center for Immigration Studies says that all of the net jobs added to the economy since 2000 went to legal and illegal immigrants. The study counters the claims by business groups that the U.S. has a shortage of workers and needs to increase immigration levels.
A new survey of Americans from Gallup found that a plurality of Americans support reducing current immigration levels (approximately 1 million per year). 41% of Americans support lowering immigration levels, while only 22% support increasing immigration levels. The Senate-approved Schumer-Rubio amnesty bill, S.744, would nearly triple the number of work permits granted to new legal immigrants over the first decade by doubling legal immigration and granting amnesty to more than 11 million illegal aliens.
Canada's generous guest-worker program has often been held up by Big Business groups as a model for the United States to follow, but the Canadian government has announced plans to scale it back. The government is reducing the number of visas issued, the length of time that workers can stay in the country, and increasing the fees for businesses that wish to use the program. The changes have upset business groups in the country, but comes at the urging of the Canadian citizenry.
A new Rasmussen poll finds only 31 percent favor increasing immigration and that may be because only 18 percent of Americans think legal immigration is running higher than 500,000 per year. The real rate is more than a million per year. 58 percent of respondents either supported lower immigration levels or maintaining current levels.
Daily Caller -- By Neil Munro
Britain’s newest party is set to become the nation’s most popular, outpacing the nation’s pro-immigration establishment parties, according to polls and initial results from Thursday balloting.
“We are facing a political earthquake,” said one political reporter at a major network.
The UK Independence Party has achieved a “stunning success,” said Lynne Featherstone, a member of parliament for a rival party, and a cabinet minister in the coalition government.
Eleven CEO's from some the nation's largest companies have signed on to a new letter to Congress urging passage of immigration reform that includes massive increases in low-skilled foreign workers.
The Amnesty Threat Level is at Code Red this week after our Capitol Hill team got word last week that Reps. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), and Mario Diaz Balart (R-Fla.) are polling their fellow House Republicans to measure support for moving an amnesty bill before the August recess. Reportedly, if they can get enough Republicans on board with their plan, House Leadership will do a formal whip count and move an immigration bill to the floor of the House before the August recess.
A family crosses the U.S. border into Arizona; a student spends his last dime on a flight that will take him to the beginning of an education in the U.S.; an abandoned immigrant mother struggles as a maid to give her children a better life than she had - these are the immigrant stories we read, and for many of us, our hearts are filled with emotion.
A new study from the Center for Immigration Studies asks whether or not there is a shortage of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workers in the United States, and their resounding conclusion is "no". The report released today and written by CIS researchers Steve Camarota and Karen Zeigler found that there are more than 5 million native-born Americans with an undergraduate degree in STEM, but not working in STEM with another 1.2 million degree holders not working at all. Additionally, there are 1.6 million foreign-born residents with an undergraduate degree in STEM that are also not working in STEM fields or working at all.
While most of the media extolled an op-ed written this week by Tea Party Express founder, Sal Russo, calling for amnesty and increases in legal immigration, they missed the extraordinary defense of the American worker by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).
Speaking at an invitation-only event, Pres. Obama's senior adviser, Valerie Jarrett, told attendees that House Speaker John Boehner has made a commitment to the White House to pass amnesty legislation this year. The gathering included investors, elite political donors, hedge fund managers, political and business leaders, and celebrities.
The Obama Administration has proposed a new rule to grant work permits to the spouses of H-1B holders who "are either the beneficiaries of an approved Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker (Form I-140) or who have been granted an extension of their authorized period of admission."
While speaking at an economic roundtable in Washington, D.C. yesterday, the CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers said he knows of 600,000 open jobs in the manufacturing field. He blamed his inability to find workers on our immigration system.
The Obama Administration announced a proposed rule that would give work authorization to the spouses of certain H-1B workers, increasing job competition for the 20 million Americans who want full-time work but can’t find it. It does not appear that these spouses will be counted against the visa cap on the category of job they pursue, so the move would expand immigration by executive fiat.
Congress continues to issue over 1 million green cards and approximately 700,000 temporary guest worker visas a year. The Senate immigration bill and its House counterpart would double those numbers, a fact that tends to go unnoticed in the media. I often wonder if immigration reporters and their colleagues who cover employment and the economy read each other's stories.
Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich opposes increasing the H-1B cap (see below). I wonder if he is aware that the Obama Administration's proposed rule change to give work permits to the spouses of H-1B holders is an attempt to work around the cap.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
By Michael C. Bender -- Bloomberg News
Business lobby tactics have come under scrutiny as their economic message comes up short against more emotional letter-writing and phone-call campaigns from anti-immigration groups including Arlington, Virginia-based NumbersUSA. The only Republicans to mention immigration in campaign ads this year, including newly elected Representative David Jolly in Florida, have done so to highlight support for stricter border security.
This is an abridged version of Charts as edited and included in Dennis Michael Lynch's 2012 documentary, "They Come to America" Roy Beck is the Founder of NumbersUSA which educates and mobilizes Americans around the recommendations of two national commissions that recommended deep reductions in annual immigration numbers.
European political parties that support immigration reduction are gaining ground over concerns the European Union’s open-borders policies are costing jobs, USA Today reports. The voter backlash in one country, Switzerland, will force the government to implement reductions contrary to European Union policies.
The pro-amnesty group Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform will hold a lobbying day on Capitol Hill on March 12th. Unlike prior ILIR efforts, this one targets just House Republicans who are not in favor of amnesty and legal immigration increases.
This past weekend, the Orange County Register ran a Q&A with NumbersUSA's Roy Beck. The interview, conducted by staff writer Roxana Kopetman, touched on the ongoing immigration debate in Congress, our recent evangelical poll and the disparity between church leaders and their followers, and the future of immigration policy in the United States.
Rep. David Valadao (CA-21) made his pitch for increasing immigration in "Reforming Immigration to Protect America's Breadbasket, calling for a "worker visa program" to serve agriculture's needs. But he fails to mention the existing worker visa program for the agriculture industry.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue renewed his call for comprehensive amnesty legislation, and backed it up with a letter to Speaker John Boehner from 636 businesses and related groups. Meanwhile on the left, MoveOn.org and other groups are pressuring Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to jumpstart action with a discharge petition.
The Washington Examiner broke the story on the new national poll of evangelicals by focusing on the disconnect between people in the pews and their highly visible pro-amnesty national leaders.
Biblical teaching about treatment of foreigners is more of a command to apply the law humanely to illegal immigrants than to give them work permits, according to three of four evangelical voters in a poll released here today at the National Religious Broadcasters annual convention.
If you were to do a quick Google news search of “California drought and population growth,” you’d be lucky to find more than a few passing statements buried deep within articles regurgitating the same information. All of the news coverage on the devastating drought focuses on short-term problems and shallow solutions. Most writing about the drought assume that population growth is a factor that won’t help California’s water shortage. Unfortunately, I have yet to find any news coverage that attempts to come up with real solutions to rapid population growth in the We
Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) doubled down on her support for amnesty earlier this week while hosting a business panel in Cary, N.C. She expressed her support of the GOP principles that includes legalization for most illegal aliens saying, "out conference has put forward principles and I want to stick to those."
RUMOR: The 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to children born to parents illegally in the U.S.
According to new data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, nearly 50,000 more illegal aliens were granted deferred action through the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, but the New York Times is reporting that the good news for illegal aliens means bad news for foreign citizens trying to come to the United States the legal way. According to the Times, thousands of green cards for foreign spouses or other immediate family members of U.S. citizens have been delayed while USCIS processes DACA applications.
Swiss voters approved a ballot initiative on Sunday that limits the number of foreign citizens from European Union countries that are allowed to live and work in the country and gives preference to Swiss nationals for open jobs. Although not a member of the EU, Switzerland agreed to the free flow of labor with other EU nations in 2000.
The neoconservative publication, The Weekly Standard, and its editors have a history of supporting immigration reform with amnesty and massive increases in foreign workers. But in the ongoing debate, they've changed their analysis, and it may have helped slow House Speaker John Boehner's most recent push. While most of their recent analysis has strayed from the details and focused more on the strategy and timing for immigration reform, the cover story for their December 2, 2013 issue exposed the true motivation behind Silicon Valley's massive push for reform.
The Obama administration has issued new exemptions to federal immigration law for asylum and refugee seekers that could allow individuals with ties to terrorists into the United States. The exemptions were published to the federal register on Wednesday and would narrow the ban on refugees and asylum seekers who had provided limited material support to terrorists.
In a new report on the state of the economy, the Congressional Budget Office has revised some of its initial projections for Pres. Obama's health care law. The CBO now says that the number of work hours lost due to the law is three times more than their initial estimate. So, if the CBO got Obamacare wrong, it begs the question: could they be wrong on immigration too?
The Mark Zuckerberg-funded group, Americans for a Conservative Direction, has launched another television ad with the hope of advancing the immigration principles that were unveiled at last week's GOP retreat. Zuckerberg is the founder of both Facebook and the pro-amnesty group FWD.us, which helps subsidize Americans for a Conservative Direction. The ads make an enthusiastic push on behalf of the GOP principles, but the information is vaguely presented in an attempt to mislead the American people.
In their January 28 story, "Backing in G.O.P. for Legal Status for Immigrants" for the New York Times, Jonathan Weisman and Ashley Parker provide a nuanced look into the division between the corporatist and populist wings of the Republican Party over immigration. But their good reporting is marred by an inaccurate description of the Senate bill that has the effect (intended or not) of transforming an otherwise well-reported story into an advocacy piece.
House GOP Leaders have relased their principles for immigration reform, which include a plan to legalize at least 11-18 million illegal aliens. The principles do not call for a path to citizenship for illegal aliens except for those who were brought to the country by their parents through no fault of their own so long as they earn a college degree or serve in the military. The priniciples call for border security, mandatory workplace verification, and a biometric entry/exit system, but it's unclear whether those things would have to be in place before legalization is granted.
The president of the union that represents Immigration Service Officers has sent a letter to House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) warning of the problems a mass amnesty bill would create for the agency that process immigration applications. Ken Palinkas said that officers are currently forced to "rubber-stamp applications and have been denied the resources and mission support necessary to carfully screen and vet each application." Palinkas warns that immigration reform would "overload the system."
As House Republicans prepared to leave Washington for a three-day retreat, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has sent them a 30-page memo entitled "Immigration and the GOP Agenda." In it, Sessions argues against House action on immigration reform for any number of reasons that include a lack of trust in the Obama administration, the already high levels of legal immigration, wage stagnation, and the enormous growth in social welfare programs.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., published an op-ed in USA Today that criticizes President Obama for pushing Republicans to pass an immigration reform plan that hurts American workers while claiming to be concerned about their plight. He called upon Republicans to set aside the demands of business groups and “stand alone as the one party defending the legitimate interests of American workers” in the immigration context.
