Four business groups are denouncing House Speaker Paul Ryan’s amnesty bill for making modest and popular cuts to the legal immigration programs which provide business with extra consumers, renters, and workers.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Koch network’s Libre Initiative, the Business Roundtable and Silicon Valley’s FWD.us are either opposing Ryan’s bill or demanding huge and unpopular changes to the bill’s less-immigration-for-more-amnesty political trade.
The Chamber conditionally endorses Ryan’s amnesty bill, saying it “should be revised [in the Senate] to eliminate the small reduction in legal immigration in the future,” and to expand the inflow of consumers and workers:
It should provide adequate grandfathering for individuals who have approved visa petitions in the family-based immigrant visa preference categories being eliminated. Finally, we believe the bill could be expanded to address the pending rescission of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for individuals who have previously been allowed to legally live and work in the U.S. for an extended period of time.
The Ryan bill trims future immigration by transferring green cards from future immigrants over to resident illegal aliens and contract workers who will likely bring in fewer spouses, siblings, in-laws, and parents over the next 15 years.
Those gradual and modest immigration reductions — plus the wall and border-law reforms — are very popular in the GOP base, and their exclusion from the final bill would leave the base empty-handed shortly before GOP members face their voters.
The Chamber statement does not endorse construction of a border wall or ending the visa lottery, which suggests the group will not support President Donald Trump’s populist goals in a Senate debate.
The chamber denounced the prior compromise bill developed by Judiciary chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte because it:
would drastically cut future legal immigration—by 25 percent or more—to the U.S. This significant reduction would only exacerbate the struggle many employers face in meeting their workforce needs and would ultimately reduce economic growth.
Amid its complaints about Ryan’s bill, the Chamber is demanding that GOP legislators support Ryan’s amnesty because:
The Chamber supports the compromise legislation crafted by Speaker Ryan and others that would address some critical problems with the current immigration system:
First, the bill would permanently address the plight of Dreamers by allowing them to become lawful permanent residents with the ability to obtain citizenship in the future.
…
[and] this legislation would reprioritize the allocation of immigrant visas to better match America’s economic and workforce needs.
The chamber threatened GOP legislators who vote against the Ryan amnesty, saying “The Chamber will include votes on, or in relation to, these bills in our annual ‘How They Voted’ scorecard.”
The Koch’s Libre Initiative opposes the Ryan and Goodlatte bills, saying:
both bills … fall short of the solution we need. Neither affords the Dreamers the certainty they need to make a full contribution to American communities. Both include arbitrary cuts to legal immigration.
Ryan’s bill should be rejected because it “includes substantial and harmful cuts to legal immigration, and protects only a narrow population of Dreamers,” said the June 19 statement from FWD.us, a lobbying group for wealthy Silicon Valley investors who want to raise the supply and lower the cost of white-collar labor. “We as Americans should expect more and so we oppose this bill.”
The founders of FWD.us include Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and numerous investors, including John Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Microsoft slammed the bill’s core political swap of less immigration for more amnesty; saying:
Microsoft has long held the position that legal immigration makes our country a stronger and better place. While we applaud the long-overdue increase in employment-based green cards, we don’t share the view that this must come at the price of reducing family categories. We do not believe the needs of one immigration category must come at the expense of another. Moreover, we should not be reducing overall legal immigration when our economy benefits from the contributions and innovation of immigrants.
Ryan’s bill was also panned by the Business Roundtable, whose president is Joshua Bolton, former chief of staff to President George W. Bush. “Any bill that includes cuts to legal immigration would be very concerning to U.S. businesses,” said the roundtable’s Tuesday statement:
Such [immigration cuts] would undermine America’s economic competitiveness … [and] Resolving these issues in a manner that reflects American values will boost our economy and is right for our society.
The roundtable did not endorse or denounce the Ryan bill. The roundtable’s board members run JPMorganChase, General Motors, Mastercard, Johnson & Johnson, Walmart, Bank of America, AT&T, and IBM. The board also insisted that immigration policy boost the economy, not Americans’ wages and per-capita wealth.
Both FWD.us and the Roundtable included perfunctory statements about the media-magnified dispute over President’s Trump’s zero-tolerance enforcement of border law, which has resulted in at least 2000 migrant parents being detained as their children are sheltered elsewhere.
The Roundtable said:
Additionally, Business Roundtable urges the Administration to end immediately the policy of separating accompanied minors from their parents. This practice is cruel and contrary to American values.
FWD.us said “Further … children should not be separated from their parents who are seeking asylum.”
The Chamber revealed CEOs’ worries about the growing populist movement, which objects to the subordination of the nation, of families and communities to the transnational economic and political priorities of business groups and post-national progressive CEOs:
The United States is at a crossroads on immigration. Elected leaders must remember that the ability for someone to become an American is unique to our national identity and is part of what makes this nation great. Legislation, such as [Goodlatte’s] H.R. 4760, would not only exacerbate the current immigration system’s problems, but the bill sends an implicit message that America no longer seeks to be the open, welcoming society that it has been for generations. We urge you to vote against H.R. 4760 and support the compromise immigration proposal that would improve border security, provide permanent relief for Dreamers, and institute modest reforms to the immigration system to better serve the nation’s economic interests.
The Roundtable also argues that economics comes first:
Business Roundtable applauds lawmakers from both parties who are working in good faith to reform our immigration system in a comprehensive way. Resolving these issues in a manner that reflects American values will boost our economy and is right for our society.
FWD.us detailed its objections in a Tweet:
Migration Economics
Currently, four million Americans turn 18 each year and begin looking for good jobs in the free market — but the government provides green cards to roughly 1 million legal immigrants and temporary work-permits to roughly 3 million foreign workers.
The Washington-imposed economic policy of economic growth via mass-immigration shifts wealth from young people towards older people by flooding the market with foreign labor. That process spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. The policy also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.
Polls
Amnesty advocates rely on business-funded “Nation of Immigrants” push-polls to show apparent voter support for immigration and immigrants.
But “choice” polls reveal most voters’ often-ignored preference that CEOs should hire Americans at decent wages before hiring migrants. Those Americans include many blue-collar Blacks, Latinos, and people who hide their opinions from pollsters. Similarly, the 2018 polls show that GOP voters are far more concerned about migration — more properly, the economics of migration — than they are concerned about illegal migration and MS-13, taxes, or the return of Rep. Nancy Pelosi.