Business Lobbies Push for Lame-Duck Amnesties

Pro-migration groups are trying to win cheap labor and amnesty laws during the lame-duck session after the election.

“A negative ruling from 5th Circuit on #DACA -[Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] could impact nearly 700k [migrants] …. jeopardize their ability to work legally and possibly put them at risk of being separated from their families,” said a tweet from the FWD.us, an advocacy group created by billionaire investors including Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, and Mark and Priscilla Zuckerberg.

“Congress must act this year,” said the tweet, which ignored President Joe Biden’s policy of halting nearly all deportations. 

The issue is bubbling up because a federal court in Texas is expected to block the award of work permits to the younger illegals by President Barack Obama.

FWD.us funds many of the progressive groups that tout amnesty and visa-worker programs. The high-profile DACA fight helps FWD.us protect its investor priorities, including the continued annual inflow of more than 250,0000 subordinate visa workers into the Fortune 500 jobs needed by U.S. professionals and their families.

“DACA has been threatened in the past, but the current case ahead of the 5th Circuit Court is the most severe threat to date,” FWD.us president Todd Schulte, told NBCNews. 

The media outlet coyly described FWD.us as “a bipartisan political organization that advocates for progressive immigration reform.” The staff of the FWD.us group tries to hide the identity of the wealthy investors who founded and funded the group. But copies exist at other sites.

The chance of a lame-duck amnesty is rising fast, in part because the Senate GOP has agreed to pass a short-term spending bill that must be replaced with another spending bill before a new Congress is sworn in during January. 

Pro-American GOP advocates warned months ago that the scenario would allow retiring GOP Senators — such as Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) or Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) — to betray Americans by pushing cheap-labor deals with businesses and Democrats just before they exit.

Huge changes in immigration laws can be created by very brief legislative language, which can be hidden from the public in complex end-of-year budget bills as corporate media outlets focus on other drama.

Additional advocacy groups are working to pass a cheap labor bill for agriculture companies.

A pending farm bill would exempt farm companies from the U.S. labor market by giving them a pipeline of foreign workers. The pipeline would minimize marketplace pressure to hire Americans or invest in American-made farm robots.

The bill would also allow farm companies to pay their foreign workers with a combination of low wages and the deferred bonus of U.S. citizenship. The bill would also reward the huge prize of citizenship to the sector’s current workforce of several million illegal migrants.

Farm-sector executives met recently to plan a post-election push, according to a September 28 report in the produce industry news site, ProductBlueBook.com:

The House of Representatives already passed the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which provides an effective solution for the agriculture labor crisis. It was supported by nearly all Democrats, which control the House, and about 30 Republicans. Now the Senate must pass the bill, and with the parties split at 50-50, it would take at least 10 Republican Senators to vote for it to get to a filibuster-proof majority.

During a September 27 education session at the [Washington D.C. business] conference, speakers conceded that a bill before the mid-term elections in November was impossible, which means they’re working toward a vote between the election in the new Congress in January, in what’s called the “lame duck session.”

“It’s our best strategy, but it’s not a ‘can’t-lose’ strategy,” said Chuck Connor, president, and CEO of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives.

So far, the bill has been held up by unspoken opposition from GOP Senators amid opposition from mainstream voters and activists in Idaho who fear it would hollow out many towns and communities.

Business groups need to get support from at least 10 Republican senators to pass an amnesty. One likely backer is Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC).

On September 22, RollCall.com reported:

Tillis said in a brief interview last week that the lame-duck period after the midterm elections would be the most likely time for Congress to take up any legislation on green card relief. He also said he sees increasing interest for such proposals in the Republican caucus.

“When you see the labor participation rates and you hear from various industries, and it’s agriculture, hospitality, leisure, construction trades. I mean, we’ve got chronic shortages and they have been sustained,” Tillis said. “So I don’t see how any reasonable person can get to a solution to the problem without this being a key part of it.”

Democrats are eager for a lame-duck amnesty. For example, Sen. Alex Padilla, (D-CA) has drafted a bill that would amnesty every migrant who stays in the United States for seven years. “If something terrible comes out of the Fifth Circuit [in the DACA decision], I think it could be an issue in November,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), told NBC News.

But GOP legislators need some political cover before they can vote for an amnesty. So President Joe Biden may offer token changes on the border to help GOP Senators disguise the giveaway to business interests.

“Not a single one of us — or at least me, I won’t speak for my colleagues — will unless we fix the underlying problem with border security,” Tillis said during a September hearing about bills to fill American healthcare jobs with cheap and compliant foreign nurses.

Wildcard Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) also suggested she would back a lame-duck push for amnesty, according to NBC News:

“The reality is that we have to address both our security needs and our workforce needs,” she said Monday in a speech at the McConnell Center. Referring to Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, she added, “And I hope to be able to partner with my friend John and deliver something in the next few months or a couple of years.”

Sinema and Cornyn have jointly drafted a border bill that could accelerate migration through the border.