By the way, if you don’t followNumbersUSA,you should because they do cover the often tedious goings-on on Capitol Hill. I’m posting this bit of news here because I want to refer to it in a post at RRW shortly.
Here is what Numbers reported in an e-mail last night. See why she pulled the funding measure.
Pelosi Blinks
Good news! House Democrats have pulled funding for the Department of Homeland Security from a spending bill. This is good news because Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee planned to use Homeland Security funding to impose extremist immigration provisions.
Too funny! Have you noticed that Miss Nancy coordinates her masks with her outfits?
Reportedly, Democrats from vulnerable districts didn’t want to have to defend the extremist, immigration-related provisions contained in the bill.
I list those provisions below, so you can see just how extreme they are. These vulnerable Democrats from more moderate districts balked because they knew we would be hammering them if they went ahead!
[….]
…we saw that even she just might temper the radicalism of some of her more extreme colleagues.
Here are some of the worst provisions of the bill that was pulled from consideration:
1) Would have limited ICE detention beds to 10,000, compared to a recent high of 55,000.
2) Would have prohibited detention of families, all but guaranteeing their release and encouraging future surges of family units at the border.
3) Would have prohibited the removal of aliens who have been given Temporary Protected Status but have since lost it.
4) Would have exposed more blue-collar jobs to foreign worker competition and called for an increase in temporary work visas, despite the tens of millions of Americans looking for work.
5) Would have drastically cut funding for immigration enforcement, and prohibited reallocation of funding.
In essence, the bill would have made it take far longer to remove illegal aliens, but at the same time, it would gravely restrict holding them. In short, the bill would have required something close to open borders.
[….]
Politico, the Capitol Hill newspaper, quoted a congressional staffer explaining why the bill was pulled:
“Front-line members raised serious concerns that the Homeland bill was a tough vote in swing districts because of its progressive provisions. At the end of the day, front-liners are our majority makers and there is no reason to force them to take a tough vote.”
Interesting admission about “front-line members.”
Are you in a district with a vulnerable Democrat? If so, find out where he/she stands on NumbersUSA’s immigration scorecardand exploit the bad scores you find there.
So much for the President halting all immigration to the US during the on-going Chinese virus crisis. See yesterday’s post.
Today we have Politico(of all places) describing what is believed to be the direction President Trump’s executive order on immigration might take when it is revealed possibly today.
Trump’s immigration pause falls well short of full ban
On Monday night, President Donald Trump vowed he would suspend immigration into the United States during the coronavirus outbreak.
On Tuesday, he unveiled his plan. It was far short of a full ban. Trump announced that he will sign an executive order blocking most people for 60 days from receiving a permanent residency visa, or green card. But the order will still allow the government to continue processing visas for hundreds of thousands of temporary employees, including farm workers, landscapers and crab pickers — the largest source of immigration.
The order is also expected to carve out additional exemptions for so-called essential employees, including health care workers, and immigrants who come into the United States through immediate family members, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Trump, who will sign the executive order as soon as Wednesday, said the measure will be reassessed in two months.
“It would be wrong and unjust for Americans laid off by the virus to be replaced with new immigrants, labor flown in from abroad,” Trump said at the daily White House briefing, nodding to the 22 million Americans who have filed for unemployment in recent weeks. “We must first take care of the American worker, take care of the American worker.”
[….]
The move angered conservatives who were hoping the president would go further. The Trump administration has already paused most routine visa processing and refugee cases during the coronavirus pandemic, meaning the president’s executive order may be redundant for many already-stalled cases. Moreover, a majority of immigrants seeking green cards are already living in the U.S.
“Briefly delaying green cards for people, most of whom are already in the U.S. and working, and ignoring work visas doesn’t help U.S. workers and doesn’t ease pressure on hospitals, “ said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.“Can’t know for sure until there’s actually something official to read, but this looks more like a political gesture than a serious policy move.”
[….]
“To continue most immigration at this time would show a callous disregard for those Americans who are enduring deep economic suffering,” said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, which supports immigration restrictions.
[….]
Trump’s announcement had his critics decrying the move as a transparent attempt to rile up the president’s base in an election year, while distracting from the ongoing criticism of his coronavirus response.
For me, as goes Stephen Miller, so goes the nation!***
Miller, if you don’t know, was Senator Jeff Sessions chief aide on immigration when Sessions was the Senator holding his finger in the dyke to stem the flood of illegal and LEGAL immigration flooding America. Is Kushner side-lining immigration expert Stephen Miller? The Dems want the “new American” voters and powerful business interesting in the Republican Party want a large pool of immigrant laborers to compete with American workers for jobs (at all levels!).
Now we are learning that Miller, who is one of only a few who went from the campaign to the White House with Trump (and survived, so far) is being sidelined as Jared Kushner, the first son-in-law, wants to practice his bipartisan deal making skills on the issue of immigration. Here is McClatchyreporting on Kushner’s latest play,
Jared Kushner privately working on reshaping legal immigration
And, pushing Stephen Miller to the sidelines?
WASHINGTON As debate in public rages about illegal immigration and a border wall, Jared Kushner has been holding private meetings in the West Wing on ways to overhaul the legal immigration system, according to six people familiar with the conversations and documents obtained by McClatchy.
President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law is operating on at least two tracks — the first is working with a small group studying specific ways to redistribute employment visas and the second is helping lead a series of “listening sessions” with about three dozen interest groups important to Trump to see if there is a position that Republicans can rally around before the 2020 elections.
[….]
What is clear from conversations with participants and both current and former Trump officials is that Kushner has helped kicked (sic) off a fresh discussion on immigration that reflects a new paradigm in the White House. It’s a shift away from priorities of 2017 that sought to prevent the influx of foreign workers who could displace American workers in favor of a new approach preferred by more traditional Republicans, particularly those close to the corporate sector who are desperate to attract more foreign workers to fill U.S. factories and tech hubs.
[….]
According to meeting agendas obtained by McClatchy, those invited to sessions with Kushner come from some of Trump’s core constituencies in the worlds of religion, law enforcement, agriculture and business. They include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Heritage Foundation, Association of Builders and Contractors, Faith and Freedom Coalition, Council on National Policy, George W. Bush Center and Select Milk Producers.
I want to remind readers that the Heritage Foundation may be good on illegal immigration, but they sure did get wobbly on refugees awhile back, so I wouldn’t count on them being your voice at these meetings. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce openly supports more immigration of all kinds. I don’t know what the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s views are on immigration, do you?
Kushner wants a deal!
“He’s a smart guy,” one of the participants said. “But he doesn’t care about the issues. He’s there to find out where the deal is. Where is the sweet spot?”
The senior administration official said the White House is rethinking some policies that it supported before, such as the Sen. Tom Cotton’s RAISE Act, which would institute a merit-based system to determine who is admitted to the country — that the White House continues to support — but would also slash legal immigration. “The president said many times he wants to raise immigration,” the official said.
Such language is concerning to conservative immigration groups. Indeed, between Kushner’s business background and the large number of guests with corporate interests, conservatives are worried that the changes Kushner is pursuing run counter to Trump’s “Hire American” priorities.
“There is a real dance going on in the White House on all the legal immigration issues as they work on their vision for reform,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, who is in regular discussions with the administration. “It’s hard for me to tell sometimes what is based on actual policy goals and what is meant to assuage an interest group and who is just being stroked and whose ideas have been convincing to Kushner and his group.”
Kushner edges-out Stephen Miller!
Adding to that anxiety is the feeling that Kushner has edged out Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief architect on some of the toughest proposals and a favorite in conservative circles, in the policy area on which Miller is best known.
“That is how you have to understand it,” said a former Trump official who remains in contact with White House officials. “And look, Steve may be willing to go along with it, because he’s there for the long game. And there is always other battles to fight. He’s more strategic than people think he is. But there is no doubt that he’s not getting what he wants out of this move.”
The White House emphasized that discussions are still in the early stages. It could take weeks or months before anything is presented to the president. Trump may also decide not to do anything with the information if they can’t get enough buy in.
More here.
While we are beguiled by the media on the subject of the Smollett hoax, a serious policy shift could be occurring in the Trump White House.
By the way, NumbersUSA, the largest grassroots group concerned with protecting American workers by keeping immigration numbers low is very concerned by what they are hearing. See one story here.
What do you do? Let the White House knowwhat you think about the Kushner coup going on under the President’s nose. Do it today and every day! Your job is to make your voices louder than those of the Open Borders forces and thus keep the White House on track!
***Stephen Miller is my barometer. I can’t imagine him staying if the Trump White House gets too wobbly on immigration and if he is fired (like Bannon and others) then you know it’s all over for those of us who want to see immigration numbers lowered.
What do you do?