Senate Rejects FAIR-Supported Immigration Amendments to Bipartisan Infrastructure Package

Within the 50-50 deadlocked Senate, all focus continues to be on passage of the infrastructure bundle. The invoice, negotiated by senators in each events, comprises $550 billion in new spending for roads, bridges, airports, harbors, and public transit. Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) plans to have the Senate model handed throughout the subsequent week.

Senators are at the moment within the technique of providing
amendments to the laws. Two Republicans every supplied an modification
associated to immigration enforcement and border safety, however failed to succeed in the
vital 60-vote threshold for inclusion within the bundle.

Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) launched S.Amndt. 2245, which might have prohibited the cancellation of previously-appropriated contracts for the border wall. That is in direct response to the Biden administration’s wasteful cancellation of billions in border safety spending that the earlier Congress already appropriated American tax {dollars} for. The Senate voted down this modification by a vote of 48-49, with three senators not voting. Intriguingly, Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) voted in favor of this common sense modification, and was the one Democrat to take action.

The second immigration-related modification got here from Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.). His modification, S.Amndt. 2233, would have prohibited Federal funding for any entity that fails to enroll in and adjust to the E-Confirm program. The E-Confirm program is a free and profitable on-line program that permits employers to immediately examine a potential worker’s I-9 type in opposition to information from the Social Safety Administration (SSA) and the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS). Research present that E-Confirm is efficient at deterring unlawful hiring and really reduces the inhabitants of unlawful aliens in states and localities the place its use is necessary for all employers.

Senator Lankford’s modification failed by a vote of 53-45, with two Republican senators not voting for unrelated causes. All Republicans current voted in favor of Senator Lankford’s modification, however the proposal additionally attracted the votes of 5 Democrats: Senators Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Tim Kaine (Va.), Mark Kelly (Ariz.), in addition to Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock – each from Georgia.

Senators Hassan, Warnock, and Kelly all face
aggressive re-election contests in swing states in 2022. However it’s intriguing
to notice that Senators Kaine and Ossoff, who aren’t up for re-election,
supported this measure. Additional, supposed reasonable Senators Manchin and Kyrsten
Sinema (D-Ariz.) voted in opposition to this modification.

Did these Democrats help Senator Lankford’s
modification as a result of they knew it will fail, or does this sign true help for
the most effective enforcement mechanism at the moment accessible? The truth that 5
Democratic senators voted in favor of any type of enforcement mechanism –
particularly E-Confirm – is an effective signal. As supporters of true immigration reform,
we are able to solely hope that it comes from real help of this system, and never
from the need to attain low-cost political factors. Sadly, it’s possible the
latter.