Come One, Come All; S. 744 Invites the World

Come one, come all. For anyone from any nation who might feel overlooked in the expansive S. 744, the Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act, the solution is simple. Hire a lobbyist and go for it. Be sure to request special considerations, too. After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

S.744 is a staggering 867-page bill chocked full of goodies for just about everyone except, of course, American citizens. If passed, 11 million illegal immigrants would receive, at the least, provisional permanent residency with work authorization; at the most, citizenship. Millions of more overseas workers, both high and low-skilled, will get visas even though their presence will put more downward pressure on Americans’ wages. Non-immigrant work visas will also give work authorization to spouses. By the end of the decade, 33 million new workers may be competing in the job market for what, assuming the current level of job creation, would be about 15 million jobs.

Even at 867-pages, the bill wasn’t inclusive enough to satisfy Ireland, South Korea, Poland and Canada. Ireland and South Korea want special guest worker provisions. Poland wants to be added to nations on the visa waiver program that allows visitors to waltz right on in.

Canada wants its citizens who are 55 or older and not working to stay in the United States without visas for as much as 240 days each year, up from the current 182. In case that strikes you as an innocuous request, the fastest growing religious population in Canada is Islam. [Survey Shows Muslim Population Fastest Growing Religion in Canada, by Jordan Press, National Post, May 8, 2013]  

Ronil Hira, a Rochester Institute of Technology public policy professor identified the biggest drawback to the something for everyone legislation. Said Hira: ‘This could turn into a stealth immigration policy. Every country is going to try to negotiate its own carve-out.” [Some Countries Lobby for More in Race for Visas, by Eric Lipton, New York Times, May 8, 2013]

The Senate had already been hard at work to offer special benefits to other countries like Tibet, Hong Kong and some African countries. Read Hira’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee wherein he expressed astonishment about inviting more cheap foreign-born labor into the U.S.

Money may not be everything but it goes a long way in Washington D.C. South Korea hired four lobbyists and will spend, annualized, $1.7 million to have its agenda pushed. And as the Center for Immigration Studies’ senior research fellow Jerry Kammer wrote in his backgrounder (read it here), industry is “lavishing millions on its lobbyists” to press for more workers even though 20 million Americans are unemployed or under-employed.