national legislation

House passes farm bill that critics say grants 'large-scale amnesty' to illegal immigrants

The House on Wednesday passed a contentious agricultural bill that would likely put more than a million illegal immigrants on a pathway to legal status as part of what supporters say is a vital modernization of the industry’s workforce -- but that immigration hawks blasted as a “large-scale amnesty.”

The Farm Workforce Modernization Act passed 260-165, with support from both Democrats and Republicans. The bill provides a process for undocumented farmworkers to seek a temporary five-and-a-half-year “Certified Agricultural Worker” status if they have worked for approximately six months in the industry in the last two years.

That status can either be renewed indefinitely, or workers (along with their spouses and children) can begin a path to permanent legal status in the form of a green card. That path, according to the legislation, includes background checks and $1,000 fine.

To secure the green card, those who have worked in agriculture for 10 years or more must work for four more years, while those who've spent less than a decade in the sector would have to work eight more years. Once workers receive a green card, they are then free to pursue work in fields outside of agriculture.

The bill also streamlines the H-2A agriculture visa program, cutting processing time and costs for visa petitions. And it calls for the Department of Homeland Security to set up a pilot program that would give H-2A workers the ability to change jobs within the sector if they find work within two months.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., the bill’s sponsor, said that it was a “historic” compromise and example of bipartisanship.

“This bill is a compromise, it’s not exactly what I would have written but it does stabilize the workforce,” she said on the House floor. “We have farmworkers who have been here for a very long time without their papers, living in fear and in some cases being arrested and deported.”

“We need to allow them to get an agricultural visa that is temporary and renewable so they can do the work we need them to do and their employers need them to do,” she said. “We need to stabilize the H-2A program, which this bill does. It simplifies it and also stabilizes wages.”

The bill had support from a number of farm groups, but has faced fierce opposition from immigration restrictionists, who claim that the amnesty component is similar to one in the 1980s that was rife with fraud ...

“The only thing worse than another large-scale amnesty is one that then forces people to continue to toil for poor wages and under poor working conditions for the same unscrupulous employers who hired them illegally in the first place,” Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), said in a statement.

“While Congress continues to do nothing to secure our borders, passing a bill that rewards both illegal aliens and their employers, and calling it ‘modernization,’ is a slap in the face to the plurality of Americans who consider immigration to be the nation’s most pressing domestic issue,” Stein said.

The Heritage Foundation described the bill as a “clear cut example of amnesty,” warning that it "threatens the legal immigration system’s legitimacy and incentivizes aliens and farmers to ignore the legal immigration system in the future if it best serves their needs."

The bill's Republican support, with a number co-sponsoring the measure, raises the possibility that a form of such a bill could have a shot in the Republican-controlled Senate.

But while the bill has bipartisan support, it has also faced criticism from other Republicans lawmakers. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., cited estimates from liberal groups that there are as many as 2.7 million farmworkers in the country, with more than half estimated to be in the country illegally, meaning that more than a million and a half could get a pathway to legal status.

“While the 224 pages of H.R. 5038 make many more changes to the H-2A program — some good and some bad — one need look no further than the first few pages to figure out the real point of this bill: a path to citizenship ...

He also said the bill’s document standards are low and could allow illegal immigrants with multiple DUI convictions and a history of Social Security fraud to get legal status.

As with most bills that include a path to legalization for those in the country illegally, there are some enforcement parts of the bill as well, but they come with major caveats.

While the bill would establish mandatory E-Verify (a DHS-run verification system for employers that has been seen as the holy grail for employment enforcement) for all agricultural employment, Lofgren’s office notes that that would be “phased in" and only "after all legalization and H-2A reforms have been implemented and included necessary due process protections for authorized workers who are incorrectly rejected by the system.” This fuels concerns from immigration hawks that it follows a trend of bills that go "amnesty first, enforcement later."

Adam Shaw is a reporter covering U.S. and European politics for Fox News.. He can be reached here. Read more about House passes farm bill that critics say grants 'large-scale amnesty' to illegal immigrants

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H.R. 5038 won in the House but the battle is not over

Alert date:

December 13, 2019

Alert body:

The vote in the House of Representatives on Dec. 12 on H.B. 5038, Farm Workforce Modernization Act, was: Ayes, 260; Nays, 160. As you might expect all of Oregon’s House members voted in favor of rewarding law breakers. Let’s hope President Trump will veto the bill if it makes it to his desk.

“Farm Workforce Modernization Act” would do George Orwell proud. To return to stoop labor workers instead of mechanization is the anthesis of “modernization.” To reward law breakers at the expense of farmers who obey laws is a slap in the face to the farmers who obey labor laws.

As Roy Beck of NumbersUSA reported: “226 Democrats took the side of law-breaking agri-business employers and their illegal workers against the legal workers in the ag industry. Joining them in supporting the amnesty for employers who have massively broken immigration laws for years were 34 Republicans voting YES. …”

All 5 of Oregon’s Representatives voted to pass this betrayal of U.S. workers, increasing profits for employers by depressing workers’ wages and taking job opportunities away from citizens. Standing up for U.S. citizen workers were 151 Republicans, 3 Democrats and one Independent. You can see the record of the vote, showing how each member voted, here.

Hopefully the bill can be stopped in the Senate. H.R. 5038 authorizes a major amnesty that will have far-reaching, harmful results for our country, now and in the future. This article gives a vivid picture:

FARMING LIKE IT’S 1699; It’s cheaper to invest in congressmen than in automation, by Mark Krikorian, in The National Review Dec. 10, 2019. [Mr. Krikorian is a nationally recognized expert on immigration issues. He has served as Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) since 1995.]

Excerpt:

The House is expected to vote Wednesday on the hilariously misnamed Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which would “modernize” agricultural labor right back to the 17th century.

At the core of the bill are several indentured-labor schemes intended to tie current illegal aliens and future “temporary” workers to farm jobs for four to ten years before giving them green cards. The reason for the indenture system is that farmers know from experience that once the illegal aliens or visa workers get green cards, almost all will flee the medieval labor system that prevails in much of fresh fruit and vegetable agriculture.

Fact sheets on the bill are here and here. It provides immediate amnesty to illegal aliens (and their dependents) who have (or claim to have) worked at least part time in agriculture over the past two years. The number of beneficiaries is estimated to be at least 1.5 million. . . .

See the complete article here.

HR 5038, indentured labor dressed up as “modernization”

A huge amnesty for farm workers is pending in Congress now. It’s already passed in the House.

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The Rotten Fruits of America’s ‘Farm Workforce Modernization Act’/, by Bob Dane, Federation for American immigration Reform, Nov. 25, 2019

Conventional wisdom holds that bipartisan legislation is the best form of law. The “Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2019” is a notable exception.

With 49 Republican and Democrat co-sponsors, HR 5038 sailed through the House Judiciary Committee last week. Because the bill was allowed to advance on a voice vote, there’s no official record of who voted which way.

Lawmakers had good reason to duck for cover while cheap-labor lobbyists and immigration enthusiasts exulted. Expanding the H-2A foreign guestworker program, HR 5038 would grant amnesty and a path to citizenship to more than 1 million illegal farm laborers. And contrary to its title, the bill doesn’t do a thing to “modernize” agriculture in this country. …

In essence, the bill tells illegal farm laborers: Work in unchanging conditions with no wage growth for around a decade and maybe you’ll get a green card. …

While illegal aliens account for 47 percent of U.S. farm workers, agriculture employs less than 1 percent of America’s labor force. Clearly, no one is going to starve if the industry’s illegal-alien spigot is turned off and immigration laws are enforced. We doubt anyone would even notice a difference on their grocery bill.

This counterproductive amnesty scheme has nothing to do with “farm workforce modernization” (in fact, it produces the opposite), and America doesn’t need HR 5038. It’s time Congress raised a bipartisan majority to reverse course and stop this cheap-labor combine.

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HR 5038, The Farm Workforce Modernization Act [analysis and statement of opposition by the Federation for American immigration Reform]

https://www.fairus.org/legislation/federal-legislation/hr-5038-farm-workforce-modernization-act

Contents. - Farmworker Amnesty - Minor Changes to H-2A - Expansion of EB-3 Green Cards - E-Verify Only for Agriculture. - FAIR's Position on the Farm Workforce Modernization Act (H.R. 5038) Read more about HR 5038, indentured labor dressed up as “modernization”

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Petition Pres. Trump to stop H-1B Visa Abuses

Alert date:

September 25, 2019

Alert body:

The H-1B visa program has already displaced U.S. workers on a grand scale. Now comes S.386, pending in the U.S. Senate, which would dramatically change our system for awarding H-1B employment green cards to further enrich businesses such as Intel, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc. at the expense of U.S. workers. This bill, S.386, is misleadingly named the Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act. It’s a companion bill to H.R.1044, which passed the House on July 10, with Oregon’s Congressional delegation all voting in favor of it. Oregon’s Reps. Blumenauer and Bonamici were among the co-sponsors of H.R. 1044. Both of Oregon’s Senators, Wyden and Merkley, are co-sponsors of S.386.

Groups of displaced U.S. workers are now organizing to fight against this injustice. Many of them have been forced to train their foreign-worker replacements or lose any severance payments if they decline to train replacements. Please help U.S. citizen workers by signing the White House petition. President Trump’s office has set up a system enabling the public to initiate petitions, and any petition with enough signatures by a certain date will be reviewed by his office. This petition (https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/petition-not-pass-bill-hr-1044-s386-fairness-high-skilled-immigrants-act-2019) has been posted asking him to oppose both bills.

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Further Reading: Excerpt from a report dated Sept. 18, 2019, by Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies:

This bill is anything but fair to U.S. workers, because it strengthens and perpetuates a system that is actively displacing them. It offers a major concession to employers who have bypassed U.S. workers for decades, without reforming the system to reduce guestworker admissions or prevent employers from replacing U.S. workers. This is one reason that DHS issued a statement opposing the bill when the House considered it earlier this year.

It eliminates a control known as the per-country cap, which meters issuance of green cards so that they are distributed to applicants from all countries before citizens of any one country can go above a certain number. Under this system, applicants from India now receive 20 percent of the employment green cards. Most of the applicants from India hold temporary visas (usually H-1B) as contract workers in technology occupations, and the number of green card applicants greatly exceeds the number of visas available, especially with the per-country cap. But according to USCIS, if the cap were eliminated, citizens of India would suddenly be able to claim nearly 100 percent of the employment green cards — for the next 10 years. So, applicants from all other countries would effectively be blocked for the foreseeable future. This also means that U.S. employers who want to sponsor new foreign workers for green cards from any other part of the world would no longer be able to do so.

The Indian contract workers who are waiting for the chance to apply for a green card may apply for a visa extension and are not forced to leave the United States. And they still have their jobs — unlike the Americans they replaced.

Sources tell us that an actual vote is highly unlikely; instead, a unanimous consent request from a senator is more likely, which allows them to bypass the committee process, hearings, amendments, and, most importantly, a public debate. Reportedly, even at this late hour, most offices still do not have a final version of the legislation to review.

The Senate version of the bill was co-introduced by Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had blocked it from unanimous consent because of concerns that it would reduce the admission of foreign nurses. Reportedly, Sen. Paul has recently agreed to let it come up if it includes a provision that would guarantee admission of 5,000 foreign nurses on temporary visas each year for the next 10 years. This will please U.S. hospitals, which generally prefer to import nurses from abroad rather than expand the number of slots for Americans to enter domestic nursing schools to fill the need. Since when is nursing a job Americans won't do?

The best solution to this issue is not to scrap the per country cap, or to increase the number of green cards, as some have argued, but to enact a merit-based system for awarding employment green cards that rewards the most qualified, talented, and likely to succeed, regardless of their country of origin.

Labor Day, Sept. 2, 2019: Four decades of peanuts for workers, courtesy of Congress

Posted by E Van Staaveren on Sat, 08/31/2019

Enormous levels of immigration over recent decades have caused wages for all U.S. workers to fall behind. Large numbers of citizens’ wages are now so low that they live from payday to payday and cannot save anything for emergencies or for a comfortable retirement. We see widespread homelessness due partly to rents beyond the reach of many low-paid workers.

Who’s responsible for these developments? Congress sets the immigration laws, including numbers of immigrants. Oregon’s Congressional delegation has consistently voted for increases in immigration, lax-to-no enforcement of immigration law, and expensive benefits to illegal aliens, enticing further illegal immigration.

To see the Oregon delegations’ grades over their entire careers, click here.
Here are their grades based on their recent voting records in Congress, as documented by NumbersUSA:

F- : Senator Jeff Merkley, Senator Ron Wyden, Representatives Suzanne Bonamici, Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader

B : Representative Greg Walden

Senator Merkley is up for reelection next year, as are all of Oregon’s 5 Representatives.

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Labor Day: Four Decades of Dramatic CEO Income Growth; Peanuts for Workers

By Joe Guzzardi, Progressives for Immigration Reform, August 29, 2019

Excerpts:

A recent Economic Policy Institute Study titled “CEO Compensation Has Grown 940% since 1978” is a Labor Day lament for American workers whose wages during the same period have only increased a meager 12%. EPI’s analysis found that this exorbitant, unconscionable earnings differential is the major income inequality contributor, and has persisted through equally indifferent Democrat and Republican administrations. …

CEOs have unquestionably taken full advantage of their power to enrich themselves, and suppress lower-echelon employee wages. But another variable that contributes to 40 years of flat wages for hourly workers is the executive suite’s addiction to cheap, foreign labor. With what has been an unbroken inflow of illegal immigrant and legal guest workers, between 750,000 and 1 million annually, corporations have no incentive to increase domestic workers’ salaries – and they haven’t. …

That immigration grows the economy is the age-old, half-truth argument. Sure, more people and more workers create a bigger economy. But immigration does not help the per capita income. Immigration’s benefits accrue to the immigrants and to their employers, and not the general public. The traditional solution to filling job openings is to offer higher wages, not import more cheap labor. With more than 6.1 million people unemployed, that pool should be tapped first.

Congress will soon reconvene, but as it has been for too many legislative sessions, creating a fairer immigration system that protects instead of harms American workers isn’t on the agenda.

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Read the complete article here. Read more about Labor Day, Sept. 2, 2019: Four decades of peanuts for workers, courtesy of Congress

How Democrats flip off US workers in favor of foreigners

Posted by E Van Staaveren on Thu, 07/11/2019

The Democratic party has come a long way since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman. No longer are Democrats protectors of citizen workers against greedy, exploitative employers. Today Democrats fall in line obediently when globalist billionaires tell them what to do.

Our present situation couldn’t be made plainer than in the recent vote on H.R. 1044, the mendaciously labeled “Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act.” It should be called the “Cheap labor for global businesses, Get lost U.S. citizens Act.”

224 House Democrats voted for H.B. 1044 on July 10, 2019, and only 8 voted against it. Among Republicans, 140 voted Yea and 57 Nay. Most House Republicans are certainly not heroes either, but many more R’s than D’s do respect their duty to protect the safety and well-being of U.S. citizens first and foremost.

All of Oregon’s Representatives voted Aye to expanding the employment of foreign workers and giving them an advantage over citizen workers – Reps. Blumenauer, Bonamici, DeFazio, Schrader, Walden.

This article from the Center for Immigration Studies explains the ill effects of H.R.1044 very well: Fact Sheet on HR 1044, Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act.

The bill will still have to go to the Senate, where there’s a chance, small perhaps, that it may not pass.

President Trump’s position on the bill is unknown. He seems to be receiving advice both from business-above-all lobbyists as well as from patriotic spokespersons who care about U.S. citizens and the future of our country. He can be contacted at the White House here. You can contact your Oregon Senators, Wyden here, and Merkley here.

Reply to Rep. Bonamici on H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act

Posted by E Van Staaveren on Sat, 06/08/2019

Below is a letter sent to constituents by Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon Congressional District 1, in support of H.R. 6. It contains many statements that can be challenged. See rebuttal comments in italics, inserted in indented paragraphs below each of her questionable statements.

June 7, 2019

Dear [constituent],

Thank you for contacting me about H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act. I appreciate hearing from you.

I spoke on the floor about this crucial legislation. I shared the stories of two Oregonians, both Dreamers, that are living in and serving Northwest Oregon. It’s long past time for Dreamers like Brenda and Gustavo, Americans in every way except on paper, to live out of the shadows.

They are only “Americans” in the sense that they came from somewhere in the Americas, but not from the USA, and they are living here in violation of our immigration laws. Furthermore, they do not “live in the shadows” – many and their supporters flaunt their presence very publicly.

The U.S. immigration system is broken and our existing policies are hurting families, communities, and the economy in Oregon.

That is true but it’s because excessive immigration and illegal immigration have depressed wages and destroyed job opportunities for citizens, allowing employers to hire illegal aliens who can be easily exploited instead of citizens not so easy to exploit and underpay.

We continue to operate under an antiquated system that has left millions in the shadows, unable to fully contribute.

Those truly “left in the shadows” are the homeless, destitute citizens who cannot get a job because of the easy availability of illegal labor, or who may hold a job, but must accept less than a living wage because of competition from illegal labor. Many citizens are having to live in RV’s; many have no shelter at all.

The United States is a country of immigrants, and our nation has grown stronger because of its diversity.

That is her opinion of the history of the U.S., not a universal opinion or a complete statement of fact.

Unfortunately, instead of developing a smart, humane, and efficient immigration system, President Trump has issued Executive Orders, made statements, and promoted policies that have caused chaos and fear in our immigrant communities and throughout our country.

It’s high time a president did “cause fear” in illegal immigrant communities. Legal immigrants have nothing to fear.

I am a proud cosponsor of the American Dream and Promise Act, which would expand protections for vulnerable members of our communities facing deportation by the Trump Administration. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), Deferred Enforced Departure (DED), and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) are all critical protections that provide legal immigration status to eligible individuals and families.

Her description of the bill fails to disclose the enormity of the numbers that would receive amnesty. Read this for a more realistic description.

The American Dream and Promise Act creates a clear and achievable path to citizenship for those currently living under the threat of deportation,

If they are here illegally, they should be deported asap.

as well as for those seeking to reunite with their families.

For legal immigrants, there is already a legal way to do that.

We should allow those who came here seeking refuge from war and strife, or who were brought to the U.S. as infants or children, to expeditiously obtain lawful status.

Note that she is not concerned with any verification of claims by persons claiming to be refugees, nor with the widespread abuse of young children as free tickets for admission, often by unrelated adults. In her view, anyone in the world who wants to come here should be able to enter at any time. Has she ever advocated reducing the overall levels of immigration?

Rescinding the legal status of these individuals and targeting them for deportation divides families, spreads fear among an already vulnerable population, and drives people into hiding.

If they are here legally, they have no need to fear deportation unless they’ve committed serious crimes or falsified their applications.

This bill passed the House of Representatives with my support on June 4, 2019, and was sent to the Senate for further consideration. Dreamers, TPS, and DED recipients are contributing members of communities across the country.

Let them contribute to their own countries. Let them build the kind of country that U.S. citizens have built, not try to crowd in here and do nothing about problems in their own countries.

Deporting hardworking people with children, businesses, and longstanding ties to this country does not make us any safer.

A significant number of illegal aliens have committed terrible crimes here; some have been terrorists causing massive damage; many are involved in expediting movement of illegal drugs that trigger the current “drug crisis.”

Please know that I stand ready to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass commonsense, compassionate comprehensive immigration reform that will strengthen our economy, enhance our security, and reflect our core values as Americans.

Immigration control is too complicated to’‘reform” in one sweeping bill. See a good lineup of necessary reforms here.

Thank you again for writing to me. If you would like to know more about my work in Congress, please sign up for my newsletter at http://bonamici.house.gov or visit my Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/CongresswomanBonamici.

Sincerely,

Suzanne Bonamici, Member of Congress

Trump administration prepares to release Central American migrants 'across the entire nation'

The Trump administration is preparing to send Central American migrants caught along the southern border to Border Patrol stations "across the entire nation," according to a senior Border Patrol official who confirmed the plans Friday.

With more than 4,500 people being caught each day crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, the agency has run out of room at its Border Patrol facilities in the four border states. The agency has started looking at its facilities around the country, which are mostly along the northern border with Canada and coastal states.

That means states from Oregon to North Dakota to Maine may begin receiving planeloads of migrant families in the weeks to come. On Tuesday, Customs and Border Protection sent its first plane full of migrants from Texas to San Diego.

The official confirmed reports on Thursday that the Florida counties of Broward and Palm Beach are under consideration given the size and capabilities of Border Patrol stations in the South Florida region. But he did not say if the decision is final or when the flights would start.

More: Record number of migrants puts 'severe pressure' on Border Patrol facilities

Asked whether any federal funds would be provided to help local communities deal with the relocation of migrants, the CBP official on Friday said he was not "aware" of any such plans.

The CBP official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to brief reporters on the agency's internal discussions, said politics is not playing a role in its search for places to process and release migrant families despite President Donald Trump's commentsthat he wants to send migrants to so-called "sanctuary cities" that do not fully cooperate with federal immigration officials.

"Due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities," Trump tweeted last month.

Instead, the CBP official said they are searching only for Border Patrol facilities with the space and computer systems necessary to process large number of migrants each day. The official said the agency is not sending migrants to parts of the U.S. closest to their requested destinations, but making transportation decisions solely on each Border Patrol station's ability to receive large numbers of migrants.

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said on Thursday that he was told by local Border Patrol officials to expect flights to start arriving in the area within two weeks, and that South Florida would receive about 1,000 migrants a month.

Officials in both counties complained that the transfers are coming with no apparent plan to house, feed, or care for the migrants after they're released from custody.

Migrants to Florida? Broward and Palm Beach officials worry about migrants dumped in their communities

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican and ardent supporter of Trump, said he didn't know much beyond news reports about plans to release migrants in his state. But he said that if true, it would be a big problem.

"We cannot accommodate in Florida the dumping of unlawful migrants into our state. I think it will tax our resources, our schools, the healthcare, law enforcement, state agencies," he said after a bill-signing ceremony Friday, according to the Miami Herald.

The CBP official could not estimate the average cost of each flight. But on Monday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which operates the flights, issued a public request for a contractor to handle up to 60,000 migrant transfers a year, with the vast majority of them (88%) being transfers by air.

Border Patrol has complained that its facilities have been overwhelmed by the record number of migrant families crossing the border, most of them requesting asylum to stay in the U.S.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is responsible for interior immigration enforcement and has more detention space available, has also said it's running out of space.

That led Border Patrol agents in March to begin releasing migrants directly into local communities, at bus stations, community shelters, churches and other places along the border. That's been happening in Tucson since March.

CBP tried shuttling migrants between Border Patrol stations along the southern border, sending busloads of migrants from the flooded Rio Grande Valley sector in eastern Texas to other Border Patrol facilities in central and western Texas.

Now, the agency is looking all around the country to find more facilities that can help process the migrants. The migrants would be processed, given a date to appear in immigration court and then released into the community. Read more about Trump administration prepares to release Central American migrants 'across the entire nation'

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The answer to ag labor shortages

Posted by E Van Staaveren on Tue, 04/30/2019

Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies makes a persuasive pitch for mechanization in agriculture, ending dependence on humans to do stoop labor and other exhausting manual chores on farms.

In his blog of April 26, “A Robot in Every Field”, he says:

“… An individual farmer is understandably concerned with the next crop, but policymakers should have a longer time horizon. Americans get wealthier when productivity grows, and in agriculture that means, among other things, the development and adoption of labor-saving technologies. …

“Foreign-worker programs that import stoop labor represent an intervention by government specifically designed to prevent the inevitable rise in farm-labor costs in modern societies caused by urbanization and increased employment opportunities elsewhere.

“Increasing wages and benefits will undoubtedly help draw some people into (or back into) the farm-labor force, but it's true that few Americans are going to cut broccoli all day in the hot sun. Even Mexicans aren't going into farm work anymore; as two scholars write, 'Mexico is following the pattern of countries around the world: as its income rises, workers shift out of farm work into other sectors.'

“The solution isn't to give in to the lobbyists and scour ever-more remote corners of the world for people still willing to submit to a medieval-work regime. Instead, we need to allow Julian Simon's scarcity/innovation dance to proceed, so that robots continue to replace humans in the fields. In fact, if the White House feels the need to service the ag lobby, why not propose mechanization-loan guarantees to help small farmers wean themselves off stoop labor? Rather than promise a chicken in every pot, why not a robot in every field?”

Read the complete blog here.

Later, Neil Munro, of Breitbart.com, gathered comments on Krikorian’s proposal, and, in his article of April 28, also describes the current progress of mechanization in agriculture. His article can be viewed here. Read more about The answer to ag labor shortages

Eleventh Circuit Rules DACA Recipients are Illegal Aliens

WASHINGTON - Today the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued the first opinion by a federal circuit court classifying Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients as illegal aliens. The court’s opinion, which closely tracks a friend-of-the-court brief that the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) had filed in the case, makes clear that DACA recipients are “inadmissible and thus removable” under federal law. According to the Court, their deportation has merely been “reprieved” by an Obama-era policy that “encouraged” government officials to “exercise prosecutorial discretion and focus on higher-priority cases.”

In 2016, several DACA recipients sued the Georgia higher education system, which bars aliens who are not “lawfully present” from enrolling in selective state colleges and universities, even if they otherwise qualify for admission. The students argued that they were lawfully present under federal law, which preempted state law. They also claimed that the admissions bar violated their right to equal protection, as Georgia treats aliens who are paroled into the U.S. or granted asylum as lawfully present.

The Eleventh Circuit rejected all of the students’ claims. In its brief to the court, IRLI had exhaustively shown that DACA recipients do not have “lawful presence” as defined anywhere in the Immigration and Nationality Act. The court agreed, finding that Georgia’s determination that they lacked lawful presence tracked federal law. And because the court held that DACA recipients are not lawfully present, but are illegal aliens, it did not apply “strict scrutiny” to Georgia’s admissions policy under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. Instead, the court upheld the policy as rationally related to a legitimate state interest.

“This is an important decision,” said Dale L. Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of IRLI. “On many fronts, open borders legal groups have been using DACA recipients to try to blur the distinctions between citizen and noncitizen and between legal aliens and illegal aliens. In blurring those distinctions, they blur the very border of our country, and begin rubbing out the notion that the United States is fully a sovereign nation. Today’s decision is a major check on that effort, and I expect it will reverberate across the national legal landscape.”

The case is Estrada v. Becker, No. 17-12668 (Eleventh Circuit).

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