'Amnesty' Bill for Illegal Immigrants Raises Concerns Amid Impeachment Chaos
The House of Representatives passed a farm bill Wednesday that critics claim offers a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
The Farm Workforce Modernization Act passed 260-165.
Democratic and some Republican lawmakers supported the bill, which overhauls the H-2A agricultural visa program, Fox News reported.
However, the bone of contention in the bill was its provision for illegal immigrants to be granted temporary five-and-a-half-year “Certified Agricultural Worker” status after working at least six months in the agriculture sector over two years.
The bill allows illegal immigrant workers who achieve this status to also protect their spouses and minor children from deportation.
Those who hold “Certified Agricultural Worker” status can file for legal permanent residence, which can lead to citizenship, by coughing up a $1,000 fine.
Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa told The Hill the proposal was “amnesty. It’s just that simple.”
Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said he hopes he can broker a deal with House sponsors and Senate leaders to have a revised bill considered in the Senate that will address the shortcomings of the legislation which passed in the House.
“While the 224 pages of H.R. 5038 make many more changes to the H-2A program — some good and some bad — one need look no further than the first few pages to figure out the real point of this bill: a path to citizenship for an unknown number of illegal immigrants who do some work in agriculture, along with their families,” he said when the Judiciary Committee met to consider the bill last month.
Collins referenced the impact of the House impeachment inquiry when asked before the full House vote if Republicans were going to unify in opposition to the bill.
“Frankly, I’ve been a little bit, if you haven’t noticed, tied up with something else,” he said, according to the McClatchy News Service.
In critiquing the bill prior to Wednesday’s vote, the Heritage Foundation said much the same as Collins in his assessment of the legislation.
“This new proposed legislation, however, is first and foremost an illegal immigration bill. Instead of simply reforming the legal immigration system to address agricultural labor, the bill allows existing illegal immigrants working in agriculture to get legal status and a pathway to citizenship. As such, the bill is a clear-cut example of amnesty,” the conservative think tank said.
The Heritage Foundation said the law would set a harmful precedent.
“There is also nothing that could do more harm to legal immigration than this amnesty that threatens the legal immigration system’s legitimacy and reason for existing. Future legal immigration reforms would be far less effective than they otherwise would be since aliens and employers would know that end-runs around the law would not just be ignored — they might even be rewarded,” the organization said.
But Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa of California, who cosponsored the legislation, said the bill was not amnesty.
“The biggest trouble on our side is somebody says the ‘A’ word and you run for the hills,” he said.
“Those that are here, you know, we all acknowledge that many are not here legally, but it moves them to legal status without giving away the farm. It doesn’t hand out citizenship. It doesn’t hand out federal benefits,” he added.
As the bill moves to the Senate, it does so with a brief summary of its prospects from Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, who said, “It doesn’t have a chance of becoming law.”
Republican Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington, who cosponsored the bill, was more optimistic.
“The president has indicated strong support for doing something in this area,” he said. “I talked to him personally a couple of weeks ago and he was very supportive of the general idea.”
LaMalfa said the bill’s bipartisan support is a counterpoint to the impeachment drama.
“If people, when they watch how nasty this place is on the news or the perception of it, if they can watch how this bill has been put together, they’d think, you know, have a little more faith in people being able to work together,” he said.
“It’s been kind of amazing. It makes me feel good.”
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