Commentary: Conservatives and Labor Unite Against H.R. 1044 Green Card Expansion Bill

 by CHQ Staff

 

As early as today, the House is set to vote on HR 1044, the so-called Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act or FHSI.

The FHSI, a long-sought legislative goal of the cheap labor wing of the US Chamber of Commerce and the globalist tech industry, is nothing but a green-card giveaway to 300,000 low-wage Indian contract-workers employed by U.S. companies. Passage of HR 1044 will mean cheaper workers for investors but lower wages for American STEM grads, especially those in computer science and engineering.

A loose coalition of economic nationalist conservatives and pro-labor progressives is working to defeat HR 1044, but the bill’s author, Rep. Zoe Lofgren is a senior House Democrat and close ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Joe Guzzardi, of Progressives for Immigration Reform, says “Lofgren is the notoriously awful, vigorously anti-U.S. tech worker, H-1B advocate who, in her 25-year congressional career, has voted more than 30 times to increase high- and low-skilled visas.”

Mr. Guzzardi says the House version of HR 1044 has 291 cosponsors, mostly Democrats, and has been referred to the Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship. Both bills increase the per-country cap on family-based immigrant visas from 7 percent of the total number of such visas available in a single year to 15 percent, and eliminate the 7 percent cap for employment-based visas.

According to Mr. Guzzardi’s information from a USCIS insider, if the per-country cap were lifted, then for the next 10 years, nearly all of the Green Cards in the ordinary professional worker category would go to Indian nationals. Other companies that want to sponsor workers from the other more than 150 countries that receive employment Green Cards would have to wait at least a decade.

Passing these devoid-of-American-worker-protection bills — as employers, ethnic lobbyists, the American Immigration Lawyers Association and congressional sellouts urge — would allow an unjust system to continue unabated. Dozens of callous corporations that are pushing for the Lee/Lofgren bills have fired U.S. tech workers, and are now screaming about a nonexistent worker shortage says Mr. Guzzardi.

HR 1044 I backed by major tech firms including Google, Microsoft, and IBM, says Forbes contributor Andy J. Semotiuk, and the bill seems tailored to help employment-based applicants born in countries like India and China, and family-based applicants born in Mexico.

Currently, the U.S. grants 140,000 green cards annually to employment-based immigrants.

However, no more than seven percent can actually go to any one country, regardless of population size notes Mr. Semotiuk, who seems to favor more immigration. As a result of this limited number, there is an enormous backlog of applicants from some countries that some say may take decades to clear.

In fact, as of May 2018, over 395,025 foreign nationals are awaiting their green cards under the employment-based category. Of this number, 306,601 are Indian.

Enter the HR 1044 bill, which will supposedly resolve the backlog through a first-come, first-serve process. Immigrants from India and China would get the majority of the green cards, simply because of how many applicants there are from both countries now in the backlog, concluded Mr. Semotiuk.

Roughly 108 Republicans have co-sponsored the green card giveaway, enabled by HR 1044 – even though the Democrats’ legislation is backed by Silicon Valley investors who oppose the GOP.

Democrats also have kept the legislation secret — the bill has had no hearing or committee votes — and it is being quarterbacked by the immigration lawyer who helped Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer write the disastrous “Gang of Eight” amnesty in 2013.

The GOP legislators backing the giveaway include Colorado GOP Rep. Ken Buck, who is the top Republican on the House’s immigration and citizenship subcommittee, and Tennessee GOP Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, the top Republican on the appropriations’ subcommittee on homeland security.

Each year 800,000 young Americans graduate with degrees in healthcare, engineering, software, science, math, architecture, business, or design. However, their salaries and careers are damaged by the government importing 1.2 million foreign workers, mostly from India.

These 1.2 million foreign workers are eager to take Americans’ jobs at low wages, in part, because the federal government also allows employers to nominate them for hugely valuable green cards. Companies save a fortune in salaries by offering this taxpayer-funded bonus to their foreign contract-workers.

Enacting HR 1044 would be a disaster for America’s STEM graduates, putting downward pressure on wages just as the Trump economic boom is giving American workers their first wage increases in decades. It would also be a political disaster for President Trump, were he to sign it, as it would be a clear betrayal of his America and Americans first economic agenda.

We urge CHQ readers and friends to call their Representative (the toll-free Capitol Switchboard is 1-866-220-0044), tell your Representative American workers deserve a raise. Tell your Representative to vote NO on H.R. 1044 or any other bill that increases the importation of cheap foreign labor to compete with American workers and put downward pressure on American wages.

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Background Photo “Capitol Hill” by K3nna. CC BY 2.0.

 

 

 

 

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