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Federation for American Immigration Reform News

Senate Uses Iraq War Spending Bill to Advance Illegal Alien Amnesty and Cheap Labor for Employers, Charges FAIR

WASHINGTON, May 15 PRNewswire-USNewswire — A supplemental appropriations bill intended to provide funding for the war effort in Iraq is being used to promote amnesty for illegal aliens and more low-wage guest workers for powerful business interests. The addition of two amendments to the Iraq War Supplemental Appropriations bill will mean that in order to provide emergency funding for our troops in Iraq, senators will be forced to approve an illegal alien amnesty and expand guest worker programs that harm American workers.

The Senate Appropriations Committee today included an amendment offered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that would grant a five-year amnesty to 1.35 million illegal aliens working in agriculture, plus their spouses and children, and allow agribusiness to freeze wages for new guest workers at 2007 levels for the next three years. The five-year amnesty would likely be a prelude to permanent legalization for these illegal aliens.

A second amendment adopted by the committee, sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), would vastly increase the number of unskilled H-2B guest workers permitted to work in this country. The Mikulski amendment would reinstate the exemption for returning H-2B workers from numerical caps on the program.

"What we witnessed today in the Senate Appropriations Committee is a cynical attempt to use Americans' support for our men and women in Iraq to advance blatant special interest legislation that benefits powerful business lobbies," charged Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). "Tying amnesty for illegal aliens and still more cheap labor for powerful business interests to support for our troops in Iraq is an unconscionable abuse of the appropriations process."

The American public has repeatedly rejected the idea of granting amnesty to illegal aliens and has adamantly opposed increases in guest worker programs that undermine American workers - especially in difficult economic times.

"It is always inappropriate for Congress to sneak unrelated and unpopular legislation past the American public by attaching it to other bills, especially appropriations measures," said Stein. "But to choose this particular bill - the one that pays to maintain our military personnel who are fighting overseas - demonstrates the lengths that this Congress will go to satisfy the demands of big money interests."

FAIR is calling upon the full Senate to strip these two amendments from the bill before putting it to a vote. "The U.S. economy has been shedding jobs at an alarming rate over the past several months. There is no justification whatsoever for this sort of massive amnesty and increase in foreign guest workers," concluded Stein.

SOURCE Federation for American Immigration Reform

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