Immigration in the Lame Duck: Per-Country Cap, Dreamers and Farmworkers

Summary

Before the 118th Congress is sworn in on January 3, the current Congress will likely consider several immigration measures in the “lame duck” session with the backdrop of a historic meltdown at the border. In this week’s episode of Parsing Immigration Policy, experts at the Center join Mark Krikorian, the Center’s executive director and host of the podcast, discuss the issues to watch for in the closing weeks of the 117th Congress.

George Fishman, a senior legal fellow, and Jessica Vaughan, the Center’s director of policy, focus on three specific measures. First, the "Equal Access to Green cards for Legal Employment" (Eagle) Act, supported by Big Tech, which would dispense with per-country caps for employment-based green cards and offer permanent work permits to many ostensibly temporary workers on green-card waiting lists.

Second, there is a bipartisan effort to provide green cards to so-called Dreamers, adult illegal immigrants who came as minors, many of whom have work permits through the legally dubious DACA program. This push is driven in part by the likelihood that DACA will soon be declared unlawful by the courts.

Finally, the panel discusses the possibility of a farmworker bill containing both an amnesty for illegal aliens and an expanded guestworker program. The last farm worker amnesty, crafted by current Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer when he was in the House, was the most fraud-ridden immigration program in the nation's history.

Host

Mark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

Guests

Jessica Vaughan is the Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies.

George Fishman is a Senior Legal Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies.

Related

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Rough Outline of Poorly Thought-Out Sinema/Tillis Amnesty Emerges

Schumer Calls for DREAM Amnesty

DACA: Delinquent Aliens, Criminal Aliens

The EAGLE Act: Will Congress Vote Against the American Worker and for Cheap Foreign Labor for Big Tech and Corporations?

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Intro Montage

Voices in the opening montage:

• Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference.
• Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad.
• President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act.
• Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech.
• Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977.
• Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview.
• Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview.
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019.
• Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance.
• Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor.
• Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".