Pair of Wreckless Amnesty Bills Pass Through House:
Last week House Democrats rammed through two amnesty bills on the House floor: H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act, and H.R. 1603, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. Taken together, these amnesty bills would legalize more illegal aliens than the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act amnesty legislation and give Mr. Biden his signature immigration promise.
The American Dream and Promise Act places so-called “Dreamers,” Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients, and others on a pathway to citizenship in exchange for exactly zero substantive enforcement measures. The bill provides amnesty to nearly three million illegal aliens. Further, the bill contains no enforcement provisions to address the current crisis on the southern border.
The Farm Workforce Modernization Act is an effort to provide amnesty to over two million illegal alien farmworkers, despite already having an unlimited agricultural guestworker program, the H-2A. Notwithstanding the catchy title, the bill does nothing to actually modernize America’s agricultural workforce. Despite the assertions by some of my colleagues, nothing in the bill “modernizes” America’s agricultural workforce. True modernization of U.S. agriculture would entail providing farmers with incentives to invest in mechanization and automation of their farms, reducing the need for immigrant workers in the first place. These efforts would enhance American agricultural competitiveness - this amnesty does not.
There is a reason that Nancy Pelosi wants Congress to vote on these two bills on the same day. They are related, and both bills will give illegal aliens a pathway to citizenship. When combined, these two bills will provide amnesty to more than 5 million illegal aliens. Worse still, they will have accomplished this in the middle of a border crisis that the Mr. Biden and his administration created and are choosing to ignore. Large-scale amnesty for illegal aliens would be bad policy, even under the best of circumstances.
I voted against both bills. To learn more about these two bills, click HERE to read an opinion editorial I recently penned.