Judiciary Passes Immigration Bill: Border, American Worker Protection Amendments Rejected

By Joe Guzzardi
May 13, 2013

Last Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the Gang of Eight immigration bill, S. 744. During the three week markup process, the committee rejected every amendment that would strengthen border security and protect American workers. Soon after the bill dropped, officially named the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) predicted that “The longer it lays out there, the worse it’s going to smell. The tide is going to turn.”

Back in April, the media, Beltway lobbyists and congressional radicals were giddy with delight over the prospect of amnesty for 11 million illegal aliens and visas for millions more low and high-skilled overseas workers on their way to America to compete with 20 million unemployed or under-employed. The legislation’s many skeptics could hardly get a word in edgewise.

Today, S. 744’s ugly details are public knowledge. If anything, the prescient Sessions underestimated how horrible the bill is. Identifying S.744’s most egregious provision is a daunting task especially since the legislation, among other multiple flaws, allows previously deported aliens to return to the United States to become legal residents and could eventually grant citizenship to convicted foreign national street gang members.

Since the U. S. remains locked in persistent high unemployment, focusing on S.744’s economic devastation may be more important. As currently written, S. 744 would give some employers a $3,000 annual incentive to hire a newly legalized immigrant instead of a native-born American citizen. Great news for recently legalized illegal aliens—they’ll get one of the scarce available jobs. And it’s a terrific benefit for employers who will receive a $3,000 credit. But for unemployed Americans who will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage, it’s terrible.

The $3,000 credit is not the only battle unemployed Americans will face. For those in the high tech sector, Senator Orrin Hatch and S.744 sponsor Chuck Schumer struck a smarmy deal that will leave many American engineers in the lurch.

Hatch’s provision makes it easier for some corporations to avoid offering jobs to Americans and give them instead to foreign-born H-1B visa holders.

As S.744 heads to the Senate floor for June debate, high profile, influential critics including the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the AFL-CIO have ravaged it. Both groups charged the committee with caving in to corporate “profit-driven interests” at American workers’ expense.

In a broader and potentially more damning indictment, the union that represents U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ federal employees has joined the ICE union to oppose S. 744. In his letter Kenneth Palinkas, National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council president, announced that his union has signed onto a letter ICE initiated and subsequently signed by dozens of law enforcement agents nationwide urging Congress to reject the Gang’s legislation.

According to Palinkas, S. 744 would provide legal status to convicted criminals and boost future immigration without adequate protection for citizens. Palinkas concluded that despite the Gang’s promises that the nation would be safer after aliens “in the shadows” went through vigorous background checks, the USCIS is under pressure to rubber stamp all applications. Said Palinkas: “the USCIS has been turned into an ‘approval machine.’”

After weeks of testimony and hearings, S.744 is largely unchanged: Nothing for American citizens but plenty for illegal aliens and their advocates—immigration lawyers, lobbyists, big business and congressional ethnic identity advocates.

In June, the bill heads to the Senate floor where its ultimate fate, unlike it was in the Judiciary Committee, is uncertain.

Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow whose columns have been syndicated since 1986. Contact him at [email protected]