This Issue: Senators open to including House-approved immigration increases in anti-China bill

Fri, Mar. 25^th

The Senate began consideration this week of the America COMPETES Act -- legislation that passed the House earlier this year and contains a number of provisions that would expand legal immigration.

While the legislation's primary purpose is to promote American innovation and competitiveness against increasing competition from China, House lawmakers used the opportunity to create a new and unlimited visa program for foreign investors and their family members and workers. Additionally, the legislation would:

* provide an unlimited number of green cards to foreign citizens who hold a doctoral degree from a U.S. institution of higher learning -OR- an equivalent degree from a foreign university;

* create a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) for Hong Kong residents, totaling 25,000 new green cards over 5 years;

* create a special refugee program for Hong Kong citizens; and

* provide Temporary Protected Status to Hong Kongers currently in the U.S.

The Senate isn't expected to approve the House-passed legislation; instead, the two chambers will form a bipartisan conference committee comprised of both House and Senate Members to work on compromise legislation.

Unfortunately, a new report this week from Roll Call indicates that there is some support on both sides of the Senate aisle to include the House's immigration provisions in the final legislation.

"If there's broad support for the provisions, then I'm absolutely open to including it," said Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., another co-sponsor on the Senate bill. "More broadly in terms of skills-based immigration reform, I think it's essential to maintaining our national competitiveness."

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Judiciary Committee that has jurisdiction over immigration matters, said he was "certainly open" to the House-passed immigration provisions on high-skilled visas.

Democratic Senators, including Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, and Mark Kelly of Arizona also expressed an openness to the immigration provisions in the report.

Once we learn of the conference committee conferees, we'll be contacting NumbersUSA activists in those districts and states with customized actions they can take. We're also posting new actions for all Senators on your Action Board urging them to oppose the immigration provisions in the America COMPETES Act.

CHRIS Chmielenski
NumbersUSA Deputy Director

Epoch Times: NumbersUSA Scientific Director Leon Kolankiewicz spoke about our new national sprawl study.

"The rate of sprawl in this century has slowed down fairly substantially from what it was in the '70s through the 1990s. That's the good news, and it's for a variety of reasons, some of which are not so good--the 2008 meltdown, for example," said Leon Kolankiewicz, scientific director for NumbersUSA and the lead author of "From Sea to Sprawling Sea," in an interview with The Epoch Times.

"The bad news, if I could put it that way, is that population growth represents an ever-larger share of the forces driving that urban sprawl."

Breitbart: NumbersUSA Director of Government Relations Rosemary Jenks commented on the immigration provisions in the America COMPETES Act.

"It's insanity -- the idea that you would create a bill that supposedly improves America's competitiveness [against China] by outsourcing all of the [skilled] labor is just nuts," said Rosemary Jenks, government relations director for NumbersUSA. "It's dystopian."

Judge Blocks Biden's Attempt to Halt Certain ICE Deportations

Thu, Mar. 24^th

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Thu, Mar. 24^th

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Increasing Immigration is not a Key Issue for Many Hispanics

LISA IRVING

Thu, Mar. 24^th

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Biden Administration's Immigration Agenda's Most Consistent Theme is Judicial Failure

JARED CULVER

Thu, Mar. 24^th

Another day, another court enjoining the Biden Administration. The issue this time was spelled out strikingly by Judge Michael Newman. He wrote, "At bottom, that is what this dispute is about: can the Executive displace clear congressional command in the name of resource allocation and enforcement goals?" He's talking about enforcement priority memos where the Biden Administration argued they didn't have to follow the law and remove criminal aliens because it was just too expensive.

Senate Showing Possible Support for Immigration Provisions from House COMPETES Act

Fri, Mar. 25^th

A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators is now showing a disappointing openness to dramatically increasing the number of higher-skilled foreign visa workers able to take jobs here in the United States by including the House's immigration provisions from the COMPETES Act in the final Senate version of the bill.