Email from NumbersUSA I just received (2/14/2019):
Budget bill would dramatically weaken interior enforcement
Dear friends,
We need your urgent activism this afternoon!
The Senate is expected to vote on a DHS spending bill that actually increases guest worker visas and encourages the smuggling and trafficking of children.
The budget bill agreed to by a Congressional conference committee would prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement from detaining or removing the sponsors of unaccompanied alien children -- even though, in most cases, the sponsors are the very people who actually paid the cartels to smuggle the children into the United States.
This is a de facto amnesty that will serve as an incentive for more people to put their children in harm's way.
Please call your THREE MEMBERS OF CONGRESS and urge them to OPPOSE THE BUDGET DEAL and instead SUPPORT A CR (continuing resolution) to keep the government funded to allow for more time for negotiations.
Capital Switchboard -- (202) 224-3121
Since the Senate is expected to vote first, please call your two U.S. Senators before calling your U.S. Representative. Contact information for your Senators can be found here:
https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact
In addition to a de facto amnesty for sponsors of UACs, the bill also:
- Authorizes DHS to double the number of H-2B, low-skilled guest worker visas that can be issued
- Reduces funding for detention beds
- Freezes the hiring of additional ICE agents
NumbersUSA has notified Congress that we will be scoring against the bill. Here's what we sent out:
NumbersUSA Will Score Against the Conference Report to Accompany H.J. Res. 31
Among the many problems in the Conference Report to Accompany H.J. Res. 31 is a provision (Sec. 224) which prohibits ICE from cooperating with Health and Human Services to detain or remove illegal alien sponsors of unaccompanied alien children (UACs). These sponsors often are the very people who actually paid the cartels to smuggle the children into the United States, putting them at great risk of kidnapping, sexual assault, murder, or even being abandoned in the desert to die. According to ICE, close to 80% of the sponsors or household members of sponsors of the 224,000 UACs HHS has released since 2014 are in the country illegally. While most smugglers face felony charges for smuggling, this provision would exempt these sponsors--even if they have been convicted of certain other crimes--from the consequences of their immigration crimes.
NumbersUSA cannot remain silent in the face of a bill that condones and encourages the smuggling and trafficking of children. Section 224 is exactly the kind of "loophole" that led to the humanitarian crisis on our southern border, and, if enacted, it will be an incentive for more people to put their children in harm's way.
Similarly, NumbersUSA cannot support the war on ICE that some in Congress are waging, and that is reflected in the provisions of this bill that reduce funding for detention beds and freeze hiring of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations field personnel. We strongly support the men and women of ICE ERO who put their lives on the line everyday to protect our communities, and Congress should, too.
Further, this bill shows contempt for the most vulnerable American workers by authorizing DHS to nearly double the available H-2B visas for the remainder of FY 2019. Wages in most H-2B industries have only barely begun to increase in our booming economy. Americans working in these jobs deserve to see their wages rise. Moreover, there are still more than 50 million working-age Americans who are outside the labor force and need to be brought in. Employers should recruit them, rather than importing cheap foreign labor.
While 55 miles of new fencing, restricted to the Rio Grande Valley and restricted in design, may be better than nothing, it cannot be worth the safety and lives of children or the economic success of American workers.
Vote NO on the Conference Report to Accompany H.J. Res. 31
CHRIS CHMIELENSKI, NUMBERSUSA DEPUTY DIRECTOR
