The United States Chamber of Commerce, representing some of the nation’s largest multinational corporations, is throwing its support behind an amnesty for millions of illegal aliens introduced by Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL) and other lawmakers.
On Tuesday, amid record-breaking illegal immigration levels, Salazar joined Reps. Veronica Escobar (D-TX), Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon (R-PR), Hillary Scholten (D-MI), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), Kathy Manning (D-NC), and Mike Lawler (R-NY) to introduce an updated version of her amnesty plan that failed to gain traction last year.
The Chamber of Commerce, a donor to Salazar, praised the amnesty and foreign visa worker expansion as a win for big business looking to inflate the United States labor market to drive up foreign competition, keep wages low, and add more consumers to whom products are sold.
“This proposal contains the types of bipartisan solutions needed to secure our borders, fix our asylum system, and help American companies meet their workforce needs,” Chamber of Commerce Vice President of Immigration Policy Jon Baselice said in a statement. “We look forward to working with the bill’s sponsors to get these desperately needed reforms to our nation’s broken immigration system enacted into law.”
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The plan couples nationwide mandatory E-Verify, a biometric entry-exit system, and a crackdown on asylum fraud, among other things, with an amnesty for the nation’s 11 to 22 million illegal aliens who can pass a background check and pay outstanding taxes.
Illegal aliens applying for the amnesty would pay $5,000 in restitution and be put on a 12-year track to eventually secure a green card and then gain naturalized American citizenship after following a set of procedures including studying English, paying more restitution, and earning community service points.
Also, the plan blows wide open legal immigration caps on the H-1B, H-2A, and H-2B visa programs, while raising per-country caps for overall immigration from its current seven percent to 15 percent.
Already, the U.S. gives green cards to more than a million legal immigrants every year in addition to over a million temporary work visas to foreign nationals. Together with illegal immigration, legal immigration levels have driven the foreign-born population to its largest number ever.
The plan is unlikely to garner support among House Republicans, as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has repeatedly made clear that he will not consider any amnesty plans.
McCarthy, along with others in House GOP leadership, has been intensely critical of the Chamber of Commerce. In February, for example, McCarthy shot down any chances that executives at the Chamber would have influence with House Republicans’ majority.
“The priorities of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have not aligned with the priorities of House Republicans or the interests of their own members, and they should not expect a meeting with Speaker McCarthy as long as that’s the case,” a McCarthy spokesman said.
An amnesty for illegal aliens is critical for many of Salazar’s largest donors, who include real estate developers looking to build more housing and Wall Street-linked financial firms focused on driving up their consumer base and the inflow of foreign workers.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter here.