Thread: Amnesty Victory in Senate

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From: Anne Manetas, Deputy Director, NumbersUSA
Date: 21MAY08 10:45 a.m.


VICTORY: AgJOBS amnesty stripped from Iraq Supplemental


Your Phone Calls Worked!



Friends,

CONGRATULATIONS! You have achieved what some believed to be nearly impossible last week. The AgJOBS amnesty has been stripped from the Iraq Supplemental bill. Here's more good news: the employment-based permanent workers have been stripped from the bill too!

Unfortunately, the H-2B low-sill worker increase is still in the Iraq Supplemental so your phone calls are still needed.

Please keep phoning your Senators throughout the day and ask them to strip the H-2B increase from the Iraq Supplemental spending bill. During your call, you may also want to express how pleased you were to learn that the amnesty and employment-based permanent workers were stripped from the bill.

202-224-3121

Our Capitol Hill team heard initial reports late last night that the AgJOBS amnesty had been stripped from the bill, but we wanted to await confirmation of that before reporting back to you.

Apparently Senate Majority Leader Reid and other Senators were starting to fear a prolonged fight over the immigration provisions, similar to the Senate fight last summer over the "comprehensive" immigration bill. In order to avoid that, Senator Reid stripped the AgJOBS amnesty and employment-based permanent increases from the bill.

Your Phone Calls Made This Happen Our Capitol Hill team is hearing from one Congressional office after another that their phones have been ringing off the hook in opposition to the immigration provisions in the Iraq Supplemental.

There is still a chance we can get the H-2B increase stripped from the bill if Senators come to believe that it is just too controversial. We will come to you again later in the day or evening as we have new information.

BACKGROUND
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 17-12 to attach an amnesty to the Iraq supplemental spending bill. The amendment that passed provides a 5-year visa for up to 1.35 million illegal agricultural workers—but the cap of 1.35 million does not include spouses and children, who would bring the total amnesty to a total of about 3 million.

Rosemary Jenks (Vice President, Government Relations) has outlined the most egregious aspects of the amnesty here. Find it online here http://www.numbersusa.com/PDFs/AgJOBS_Amnesty_2008.pdf.

In short, the AgJOBS amendment would require the Department of Homeland Security to grant “emergency agricultural worker statusâ€

Unfortunately, the H-2B low-sill worker increase is still in the Iraq Supplemental so your phone calls are still needed.

Please keep phoning your Senators throughout the day and ask them to strip the H-2B increase from the Iraq Supplemental spending bill. During your call, you may also want to express how pleased you were to learn that the amnesty and employment-based permanent workers were stripped from the bill.

202-224-3121

Wasn't there also a provision for H-1b visa increases as well?

Can someone confirm or deny? (I'll be looking too).

Also, related to Zeezil's point above, does anyone have any statistics as to what percentage or absolute number of H-2b visa holders overstay and/or abscond from conditions of their visas? This would be extremely useful information to have in communicating with Senate critters.

It seems like this would be a great way for some persons to gain a quick relatively easy access into the country and then when the seasonal work is ended, to just 'disappear' and not go home.

Originally Posted by PhredE

Also, related to Zeezil's point above, does anyone have any statistics as to what percentage or absolute number of H-2b visa holders overstay and/or abscond from conditions of their visas? This would be extremely useful information to have in communicating with Senate critters.

I seem to recall various articles that stated visa overstays account for at least 40% of the illegal aliens in the U.S.

Originally Posted by zeezil

Originally Posted by PhredE

Also, related to Zeezil's point above, does anyone have any statistics as to what percentage or absolute number of H-2b visa holders overstay and/or abscond from conditions of their visas? This would be extremely useful information to have in communicating with Senate critters.

I seem to recall various articles that stated visa overstays account for at least 40% of the illegal aliens in the U.S.

Yeppers on that Zeezil - thanks. I apologize for not being more clear - I was trying to gauge the relative rates at which persons in each visa category tend to overstay: (eg. H-1b overstay rate = X, H-2a overstay rate = 0.8X, L-1 overstay rate = 1.2X, etc)

Why? Because the absolute number of people coming in under these types of visas is LARGE and likely to increasing significantly, that even the same overstay RATE will produce a HUGE number of overstay / IAs in the end.

<- That's what I was trying to say, but didn't because I've only had 1 coffee this morning so far....

Plus, the conditions attached to H-2a/b entry vs. say, an H-1b are vastly different. The H-2a is quick and dirty by comparison, the H-1b is much more detailed and involved.

But perhaps most important is the issue of visa overstays. (Strictly speaking, it is not the visa itself, issued by the State Department, which expires and turns the foreign visitor into an illegal alien, but rather the length of stay granted the alien by the immigration inspector at the airport or land crossing.) Estimates are that as many as 40 percent of illegal aliens are overstayers, who entered the country legally but did not leave when their time ran out, representing perhaps 4 million or more people.
http://www.cis.org/articles/2006/msktes ... 51106.html

Thanks Z. I'm keeping my eyes open for some source info on that too.

I haven't found any breakdowns as the the overstay rates in the different visa categories.

Yeah, it's a big problem. I think the DHS/ICE website has some of those stats, I'll bounce over there and have a look in a second.

It's hard to count that which does not want to be counted (or even publicized, as well).

Thanks.