President Trump’s aggressive deportation policies are spawning a new GOP-led policy push in Congress: Specific immigration-law changes to help protect the workforce in the agriculture industry, which relies heavily on unauthorized laborers.
A small but growing group of House Republican lawmakers is encouraging the Trump administration and other factions of their party to pivot toward addressing immigration policy inside the country now that Trump has brought illegal border crossings to effectively zero. The lawmakers argue the party should focus on changing immigration law to allow some workers to gain temporary legal status and make sure people can remain on the job.
“The excuse that we’ve had from not taking steps to pass measures ensuring certainty and availability of workforce has been that the border hasn’t been under control,” said Rep. GT Thompson (R., Pa.), the chair of the House Committee on Agriculture. “That excuse is gone,” he said.
GOP backers of changes warn of food shortages and economic calamity if the uncertainty about immigrant labor isn’t addressed soon, pushing them to pursue a position that potentially puts them at odds with the Trump administration’s goal of mass deportations of people who entered the country illegally. It also risks a replay of more than four decades of failed efforts since Congress’s last successful overhaul.
Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R., Ind.), a rancher, whipped out his phone to show a message from a poultry farmer in his district who was worried about having enough workers not only to raise and process birds but also to move them from farms to stores.
“I have people they call me. They’re like, ‘I’m not sure if my crew is going to show up for work Monday morning, because if there’s a raid, or something like that, right?” said Stutzman, a conservative in the House Freedom Caucus. Of unauthorized immigrants, he said: “If you try to deport all of them, you’re gonna crash the economy.”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), who controls what bills come to the floor, signaled any immigration overhaul would face an uphill battle.
{snip}
Immigration experts estimate that roughly half of the more than two million people employed on farms are working in the U.S. illegally. {snip}
Last month, the administration abruptly announced it was going to pause immigration arrests at farms and hotels, at the urging of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. But the government reversed its position just days later.
Administration officials have repeatedly pledged to hit a goal of arresting a million unauthorized immigrants in Trump’s first year in office, though they have hit less than a fifth of that number so far. Trump’s top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, opposes providing any relief to industries including farms, according to people familiar with his thinking, and would also oppose efforts to create a new, more generous guest-worker program.
{snip}
The post In Twist, Some Republicans Push to Protect Unauthorized Immigrants appeared first on American Renaissance.
American Renaissance
