This Issue: 'Heroes Act' prioritizes foreign workers over unemployed Americans

Fri, May 15th

The House of Representatives will vote today on legislation that would create extra foreign worker competition and reward illegal immigration and the employers who profit from it.

Dubbed by sponsors as the Heroes Act, the massive 'relief' bill being pushed by House Democratic Leadership provides little relief for the more than 35 million Americans who have filed for unemployment over the last two months by instead:

  • giving work authorization to certain illegal-alien workers,
  • extending the visas of nonimmigrant foreign workers currently working in the U.S., and
  • fast-tracking the admission of foreign health care workers despite the fact that 1.4 million American health care workers have filed for unemployment in recent weeks.

Our Capitol Hill team sent the following scoring notice to all House Members.

House Democrats prioritizing foreign workers, legal and illegal, over unemployed and underemployed Americans in the middle of a crisis is shameful...

Is it too much to ask that House Democrats stand for working-class Americans and protect the jobs of our own medical professionals, or are legal and illegal foreign workers really their only "Heroes?"

Stand with American workers, and vote NO on HR 6800.


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called the Heroes Act a "marker", knowing that it has little-to-no chance in the Republican-held Senate. Still, it puts the priorities of House Democratic Leadership front-and-center. It is frightening that they think it is a good political move with voters to signal that they care more about rewarding foreign workers (both illegal and legal) than about getting unemployed Americans back to work. Thanks to all of you who have been contacting your Democratic U.S. Representatives to remind them of how terrible their leaders' rhetoric sounds to the average American.

Not all Democrats side with Leadership

There may be some break in the ranks today. At least five House Democrats have come out and said that the Heroes Act goes too far and doesn't do enough to help America's unemployed get back to work.

Reps. Kendra Horn of Oklahoma, Tom O'Halleran of Arizona, Joe Cunningham of South Carolina, Xochitl Torres Small of New Mexico, and Anthony Brindisi of New York all have concerns, but only Rep. Horn has announced that she'll vote no.

The Progressive Caucus has also complained that the bill doesn't go far enough, but most observers still expect the Heroes Act to pass through the House.

At least one Republican, Rep. Peter King of New York, has said he'll support the measure. Rep. King represents a district that has been hit hard by the pandemic, but he's also been supportive of amnesty and foreign worker increases over the years.

For our activists with House Reps. sitting on the fence, we've posted new actions on your Action Board. We'll also post actions after today's vote, responding to how your U.S. Rep. voted.

New Actions
CHRIS Chmielenski
NumbersUSA Deputy Director
Action
Check your Action Board this weekend for opportunities to respond to the House vote on the Heroes Act.

Click on the red button to view your Action Board.

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Action Board
Candidate
Comparisons
Many primaries have been delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but we continue to add races to our candidate comparison pages.

Go to our locator map and click on your state to compare the immigration positions of candidates running for Congress.

If you have seen something from a candidate that we don't have, please let us know.

(States where Primaries are not for another three or more months may not yet have comparisons posted.)
NUSA in the News
Daily Caller: Numbers USA, a nonprofit that advocates for less immigration into the United States, criticized the bill's provisions regarding foreign workers.

"House Democrats prioritizing foreign workers, legal and illegal, over unemployed and underemployed Americans in the middle of a crisis is shameful," said Numbers USA president Roy Beck.

Beck also derided a provision in the bill that would "expedite the permanent importation of foreign health care professionals, apparently to take the jobs of the tens of thousands of American health care professionals who have been laid off or furloughed during the pandemic."

CNN: Roy commented on Pres. Trump's green card pause, and Sen. Tom Cotton's letter asking to expand the pause to guest workers.

Since the release of the proclamation, there's been various requests that have come out from the Trump administration for input for an expected follow-up order, said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, a group that advocates for reduced immigration.

"We gave our rationale, went through the long list of each visa, with our various contacts in the administration," he added....

"Basically in the most respectful way possible, these four senators are telling the President, 'here's the way you stick to your principles or you can choose to go with some of your other White House advisers who are dragging their feet,'" Beck said.

Immigration Levels Were Hurting U.S. Workers Before COVID-19, Now What?
Article Image
Eric Ruark
Fri, May 15th

No American has to be told the economy is in a severe downturn and that unemployment has increased precipitously. Those facts are plainly evident. The questions in front of us no one knows the answers to are: How many of these jobs will be lost long-term, and how long will it take the economy to "recover."

House Bill Would Grant Amnesty to Illegal Aliens
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Wed, May 13th

House Democrats unveiled their wish list Tuesday for Covid-19 relief in the form of the HEROES Act, H.R. 6800. The bill will likely receive a floor vote on Friday and is expected to pass. But even House Democrats acknowledge that the bill is more about messaging and has no chance of passing the Republican-controlled Senate.

Canadians hint at scaling back immigration due to pandemic fallout
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Tue, May 12th

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting unemployment could lead to immigration to Canada being cut for the first time in a decade.

GOP lawmakers press Trump to suspend visas over coronavirus job losses
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Tue, May 12th

A number of House Republicans have joined some of their Senate colleagues in writing their own letter to Trump urging that "unaddressed guest worker programs" represent a "greater threat" than did green cards to American jobs.

U.S. unemployment rate soars to 14.7 percent, the worst since the Depression era
Article Image
Fri, May 8th

The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 14.7 percent in April, the highest level since the Great Depression, as most businesses shut down or severely curtailed operations to try and limit the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
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