War Supplemental Bill Includes Amnesty for Illegal Ag Workers

(May 20) The Senate Appropriations Committee last week voted 17-12 to attach an amnesty to the Iraq supplemental spending bill (H.R. 2642). In short, the AgJOBS amendment, which was sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), would require the Department of Homeland Security to grant “emergency agricultural worker status” (i.e., amnesty) for up to five years to as many as 1.35 million illegal aliens, plus their spouses and children (bringing the total amnesty to about three million), if the illegal alien:

Could show by “a preponderance of the evidence” that he worked 863 hours or 150 work days (defined as 5.75 hours of work per “work day”), or earned at least $7,000 in agricultural employment between January1, 2004, and December 31, 2007;

Filed an amnesty application with a “qualified designated entity,” or with DHS directly if he is represented by an attorney or a nonprofit organization, during an 18-month application period that would begin six months after enactment of the amnesty;

Was not a known terrorist or convicted criminal; and

Paid a “fine” of $250.

Click here to see a more detailed analysis by NumbersUSA.

The full Senate began general debate on H.R. 2642 today, and could vote on the immigration-related portion of the bill tomorrow (May 21). Please contact your Senators now to urge them to strip the amnesty from the bill, as well as the other measures increasing immigration levels.

One such measure sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) would exempt from the annual cap of 66,000 any H-2B nonagricultural seasonal workers who were admitted during the previous three years. This could increase the number of H-2B workers to over 400,000 by FY 2011. Another measure sponsored by Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) would “recapture unused” employment-based visas from the past couple of decades. Since any employment-based visas that are not used in one year are added to the number of available family-based visas for the following year, there are no “unused” employment-based visas, and so there are none to “recapture.” However, this deceptive manipulation of visa numbers would add an estimated 218,000 employment-based visas to the annual cap of 140,000.