NumbersUSA Director of Government Relations Rosemary Jenks stated that if fast-track passed, Congress would not reject the Trade in Services Agreement, which could make the US “open up it’s immigration laws” on Monday’s “Laura Ingraham Show.”
Jenks said, “We have had Ambassador Froman, the US Trade Rep., go to Congress on multiple occasions and assure members of Congress that the United States is not negotiating immigration in TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Well, we know that there is in fact an immigration chapter in TPP, but it looks relatively harmless. What he failed to tell us, and members of Congress, is this whole other agreement, that is largely about immigration, the TiSA, the Trade in Services Agreement, it’s about the movement of people across borders to perform services. And, it’s all services. It goes from garbage collectors to high-skilled computer programmers. And, this agreement, which it is absolutely clear the Untied States is a part of, would force the United States to either open up it’s immigration laws, in other words, allow people from the partner countries, and there are 27 — 23 of them, plus the European Union, to come into the United States and perform services. In other words, take jobs from Americans. So, the US Trade Rep. apparently just flat out lied by parsing words to Congress about this agreement, but I will tell you [Rep.] Paul Ryan (R-WI) and [Sen.] Orrin Hatch (R-UT), the House and Senate, respectively, leaders of this push for the mantra of free trade, know full-well about TiSA, because they have both mentioned it and it is by name covered by the fast-track bill.”
Jenks added that Ryan’s argument that fast-track would put Congress “in the driver’s seat,” and that “you cannot put any immigration in here, you can’t put any climate change in a trade agreement” wasn’t true, although she pointed out that Ryan could think that “temporary entrance guest workers are not immigrants.”
Jenks later argued that the chances of a trade deal being rejected due to an immigration provision is “Zero. The history is that no trade agreement has ever been stopped once fast-track authority has been given, and this fast-track authority, in particular, specifically limits the way that a trade agreement can be stopped by saying that the disapproval or the action to stop it has to come from Paul Ryan, the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee or Orrin Hatch, the Chairman of the Finance Committee. Now, those two get to decide whether the TPP and TiSA, and whatever comes next abide by the terms of the fast-track deal. Those two, no other member of Congress can decide that.”
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