This Issue: Congress ends 117th session without passing EAGLE Act!

The 117th session of Congress unofficially ended today after the House of Representatives approved a $1.7 trillion spending bill to fund the government through the end of next September. The Senate wrapped up its work on the legislation yesterday and headed out of town shortly after.

Congressional Leaders could call Members of Congress back into town anytime between now and January 2, but with the upcoming holidays and all must-pass legislation now complete, there's very little chance that'll happen.

Our primary focus this month has been on stopping the jobs-killing EAGLE Act. The legislation would allow most temporary foreign workers to stay and work in the country permanently, taking thousands of job opportunities away from American workers across all wages.

The massive pouring of opposition to the legislation from NumbersUSA activists across the country helped kill the EAGLE Act ... for now. Twice, House Leaders had scheduled votes on the bill, only to pull it from the floor because they didn't have enough votes to pass it.

Still, the massive tech lobby, and other big business interests groups, want the legislation to pass, so it's likely that it'll resurface in the future.

As for the massive spending bill, Senate Leaders hit a snag on Wednesday after Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) demanded a vote on an amendment that would have required Title 42 to stay in place. Title 42 is the COVID-era policy that allows the Administration to rapidly expel illegal border crossers. Today, there are literally tens of thousands of migrants waiting in Mexico for the policy to end, so they can storm across the border.

The Lee amendment threatened the omnibus spending bill because a number of swing-state Democrats had indicated that they would support the amendment. But most, if not all, House Republicans planned to oppose the spending bill, and most House Democrats oppose the Title 42 policy, so its inclusion in the spending bill would lead to its doom in the House.

Senate Leaders scrambled and ultimately allowed Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) to offer an amendment that would provide additional funding to speed up the processing of illegal border crossers, giving the swing-state Democrats cover to vote against Lee's Title 42 amendment.

In the end, Lee's amendment was defeated 47-to-50 and the Sinema/Tester amendment was defeated 10-to-87. The massive defeat of the Sinema/Tester amendment proved that it was nothing more than a show vote to protect the few Democrats that have expressed any concern over the ongoing border crisis.

We were also fearful of a few other troublesome provisions being added to the omnibus spending bill. The biggest threat came from the Afghan Adjustment Act that would have granted green cards to some 70,000 Afghans who were able to board planes as we were leaving Afghanistan. These Afghans don’t qualify for the Special Immigrant Visa ( SIV) program for translators who assisted U.S. Armed Forces, the SIV program for those otherwise employed by the U.S. government, or the P-2 Refugee Program. Instead, Secretary Mayorkas paroled them into the United States without properly vetting them, according to the Inspector General of DHS.

Thankfully, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) opposed the legislation, and that was enough to keep it from the final spending bill.

Thank you to the thousands of NumbersUSA activists who took time this year to contact their Members of Congress and give voice to those who can't. We're hopeful that we'll have some opportunities in the next Congress to pass legislation that both ends the worst border crisis in history and improves our immigration system for all Americans.

All of us at NumbersUSA wish you and your families a joyous and safe holiday season!

Chris Chmielenski NumbersUSA Deputy Director