House focuses on farm laborers, ‘dreamers’
WASHINGTON — The U.S. House on Thursday passed two bills that could build fresh momentum for comprehensive immigration reform that has eluded lawmakers and successive presidential administrations for some 35 years.
But while the bills may have some bipartisan support, they face an uphill battle in the Senate and fall short of President Joe Biden’s vision for a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Western Pennsylvania lawmakers from both parties already
have cautioned a key constituency advocating for reform — the Pittsburgh tech community — against expecting too much.
“I’m not sure it’s going to be in the tech space, unfortunately,” Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Centre, said this week on the Pittsburgh Technology Council’s “Business As Usual” online program. “I think tech’s going to be swept up in a very partisan bill that Republicans have not been invited to the table on.”
Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills, told the same audience last week that lawmakers would be forced to consider a “piecemeal” approach to immigration, sidelining comprehensive reform to keep the Democratic caucus together — to say nothing of getting any GOP support.
“I’d prefer that it’s a big package that addresses everything, but I think that’s looking unlikely at this point,” Mr. Doyle said.
‘Dreamers,’ laborers
The legislation advanced Thursday aims to tackle parts of the immigration issue, which has long caused gridlock in Congress.
The first bill, called the The American Dream and Promise Act, passed by a 228197 vote. That measure would create a pathway to legal status for roughly 2.5 million people, including those who were brought to the country as children, known as “dreamers,” and who currently receive protections from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
The bill would grant conditional permanent resident status for 10 years and cancel removal proceedings if people meet certain requirements. Those requirements include being physically present in the United States on or before Jan. 1, 2021, being 18 years old or younger on the initial date of entry and not having a record of crimes such as domestic violence, sexual assault or human trafficking.
All four Pittsburgh-area Republicans voted against the bill.
“I am sympathetic to those who were brought to our country at a young age illegally, but granting them citizenship tells the world that our borders are open and we will reward lawbreakers,” Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Butler, said in a statement.
Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters, said the measure would “further incentivize illegal immigration” while failing to strengthen border security.
The second bill, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, passed by a 247-174 vote. That measure is aimed at helping American farmers
secure the foreign workforce they need by streamlining the H-2A work visa system.
The bill would create a process for foreign farm laborers to earn temporary status if they have worked at least 180 days in agriculture over the past two years. Spouses and children also would be eligible to apply for temporary status.
The legislation would create a pathway for workers to get a green card by paying a $1,000 fine and work between four and eight additional years in agriculture.
Both bills passed in the House under Democratic control in 2019, but the legislation was never brought up in the Republican-controlled Senate.
More job creators
Audrey Russo, who has served as president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Technology Council since 2007 and hosted the congressmen, is frustrated that lawmakers have become so partisan on the issue.
While she supports lawmakers’ push to address the legal status of undocumented immigrants and farm laborers, Ms. Russo said they were missing the most important piece for Pittsburgh: raising caps on the H-1B visa, the temporary permit that allows U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in high-skill, specialty occupations.
The region’s universities, tech companies and broader business community rely heavily on the H-1B to recruit and retain highly skilled and motivated employees who often go on to start companies, she said. Congress caps H-1B visas at 65,000 each year, with an additional 20,000 for foreign workers who have a master’s degree or higher.
“They’re at loggerheads, and no one wants to talk about the people who create jobs,” Ms. Russo said in an interview this week. “I don’t see anything in here that addresses the crucial point to me: The fact that people who are job creators are immigrants.
… They don’t take jobs away; they’re job creators.”
Even the farm workforce bill, she said, appears to lock foreign workers into farm jobs that few Americans want without a way for them to develop their skills and pursue different pathways into the American labor market or to eventually start a business.
Mr. Thompson, the top Republican on the House Agriculture Committee, supports the farm workforce bill. He voted for it in 2019, bucking much of his party, and co-sponsored it this time around.
Mr. Thompson said he believed the U.S. immigration system should be designed around the country’s labor needs.
“I’m in favor of a meritbased immigration system,” Mr. Thompson said. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a country looking out for its own interests, and that means workforce.”
The bill “really is for the producers,” he added. “Without a workforce, herds are not going to get milked or tended to, and crops are not going to get planted, or they’re going to get plowed under.”
But Mr. Thompson described the DACA bill as a “wish list of all the extreme things” and predicted Senate Republicans would shoot it down.
Long-stalled debate
Congress last passed a bill with broad immigration changes in 1986.
Lawmakers came close to an update in 2013, when a bill, which included a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants and tighter border security, passed the Democratic-controlled Senate by a bipartisan 68-32 vote. The Republican-controlled House refused to consider the bill or negotiate with senators on a compromise package.
In the absence of congressional solutions, presidents from both parties have enacted policies through executive actions. Former President Donald Trump’s administration scrutinized work visas like the H-1B and H-2A, arguing there was fraud in the system that threatened American jobs. Some graduates of Pittsburgharea universities found it difficult to find jobs in the region after graduation, with employers hesitant to go through the H-1B process.
In addition, Mr. Trump blocked access to H-4 visas awarded to the spouses of H1B holders, H-2B visas used by seasonal workers in landscaping and hospitality, and L-1 visas for executives and managers transferred within companies.
Last summer, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh expressed alarm at a Trump administration order that would have required foreign students to take at least one in-person class this fall or leave the country.
The move, which the Trump administration rescinded under pressure from higher education, would have forced schools that chose to hold courses remotely last fall amid the COVID-19 pandemic to send their international students home. According to numbers reported last summer, CMU enrolled 8,669 international students, and Pitt enrolled 4,339 international students. Spokespeople for CMU and Pitt did not return a request for comment for this story.
The influx of migrants apprehended when crossing the southern U.S. border swelled during the Trump administration, leading to backlash by Democrats in Congress angry at the detention policies and the construction of a border wall.
A flood of migrants have now challenged the Biden administration, with Republicans in Congress seeking to spotlight the issue by visiting the U.S.-Mexico border to criticize Mr. Biden’s decision to halt construction on the border wall. Mr. Thompson released a statement Wednesday calling for a return of Trump-era migrant policies and saying Biden officials are “directly responsible for these policy changes and they must take responsibility.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki blamed the Trump administration during Monday’s briefing with reporters.
“We recognize this is a big problem,” Ms. Psaki said. “The last administration left us a dismantled and unworkable system, and, like any other problem, we are going to do all we can to solve it.”