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Migrant farmworkers with H-2A visas harvest romaine lettuce in King City, Calif., April 17, 2017. (CNS photo/Lucy Nicholson, Reuters)

By Rhina Guidos, Catholic News Service

The U.S. House of Representatives approved two separate immigration bills March 18, clearing an initial hurdle for two groups seeking a path toward citizenship: younger unauthorized immigrants called Dreamers and migrant farmworkers.

Both measures passed in the House along party lines, for the most part, with but will face greater opposition in the U.S. Senate.

The U.S. bishops were among those from various faith-based organizations, including Catholic groups such as the Franciscan Action Network and the Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach, voicing support for the bills: the American Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Modernization Workforce Act.

They are aimed at helping many hardworking immigrants reach their God-given potential, not only for their benefit but for that of the entire country, said the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the bishops migration committee chair in a joint statement released March 19.

Inspired by the life of Christ, the Catholic Church remains committed to ensuring that all persons within our society are given the opportunity to flourish, especially those so often relegated to the margins, the prelates said, calling on the Senate to pass these measures swiftly.

Issuing the statement were Los Angeles Archbishop Jos H. Gomez, USCCB president, and Auxiliary Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville of Washington, chairman of the USCCBs Committee on Migration. Bishop Dorsonville also had written a letter to all House members March 15 urging passage of the bills.

We once again call on legislators from both chambers of Congress to work together to enact broader, vitally needed reforms to address our broken immigration system, the prelates said in their statement. We pledge to work with Congress and the administration on this effort, which we believe is an urgent issue to uphold life and human dignity.

Via a late March 18 news release from the Interfaith Immigration Coalition, a network of 55 national, faith-based organizations with a common call to seek just policies that lift up the God-given dignity of every individual.

As people of faith, we believe that everyone deserves legal protection, especially dreamers, TPS holders and farmworkers, said Scott Wright, director of the Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach.

TPS, or Temporary Protected Status, is given to eligible nationals of designated countries who are present in the United States.

As we urge the Senate to quickly pass these bills, Wright said, we remind them of what Pope Francis said to Congress during his 2015 visit: Let us help others to grow, as we would like to be helped ourselves. In a word, if we want security, let us give security; if we want life, let us give life; if we want opportunities, let us provide opportunities.'

Stephen Schneck, executive director of the Franciscan Action Network, called the House action a positive and welcome step to protect migrants, strengthen our economy, and keep families together.

We heed Pope Francis call to build bridges, not walls and urge the Senate to act swiftly in passing the equivalent bills to help our vulnerable immigrant brothers and sisters, he said.

The National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd also weighed in, calling on the Senate to approve the measures this spring.

In talking about the Dreamers, farmworkers and others covered by the House bills, Lawrence E. Couch, the centers director, said: They held the hands of their parents as they made the perilous journey north. They hand-pick our strawberries. They clasped hands upon touching down in America after fleeing natural disasters. Now it is time long past time for members of Congress to raise their hands and vote for passage of the Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act.

These undocumented youth, TPS and DED (Deferred Enforced Departure) holders, and farmworkers are American in all but a piece of paper, Couch said. They face continuing threats of deportation and have lived so long in uncertainty and with harassment. They deserve peace and the ability to work freely and safely.

In the halls of Congress, political fighting over whether there is an immigration crisis at the border intensified during the debate over the measures.

While neither bill is expected to become law, they serve more as bellwethers of what the battle for immigration reform could look like under President Joe Biden.

Earlier in the year, the Biden administration rolled out a road map toward that goal under the name of the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, introduced in Congress Feb. 18. It seeks to legalize some 11 million unauthorized immigrants currently in the U.S., with a special focus on reunification of families.

It would offer immediate permanent resident status to some groups, such as young adults brought into the U.S. illegally as children, farmworkers and those under a program known as Temporary Protected Status, while also providing an eight-year path to citizenship for others.

The American Dream and Promise Act for unauthorized immigrants has enjoyed strong backing in the past as it seeks to provide young adults brought to the country illegally as children a path toward citizenship.

All House Democrats voted for it, and nine Republicans voted with them. It passed 228-197.

Currently, young people known as Dreamers are protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

The House measure would similarly benefit immigrants in the country under the TPS program, which grants a work permit and reprieve from deportation to certain people whose countries have experienced natural disasters, armed conflicts or exceptional situations so they can remain temporarily in the United States.

Seven Republicans broke ranks and voted for the bill in 2019 in the House, but the proposed legislation didnt have the votes to pass in the Senate.

Early signs show a tough road ahead. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., urged Republicans March 17 against voting for the Dream Act, instead steering the conversation toward the border.

The bill would only worsen the flow of illegal immigrants to the U.S., Scalise said to colleagues in a statement.

The Farm Modernization Workforce Act passed 247-174; 30 Republicans voted for it and two Democrats opposed it. It would allow farmworkers to earn legal status and later they also can apply for permanent residency by showing prior employment and continued work in agriculture.

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House passes two immigration bills with citizenship provisions - The Record

Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi called 17th century Ahom general Lachit Borphukan a freedom fighter who contributed to Indias independence from colonialism, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said medieval saint-reformer Srimanta Sankaradeva had premonitions of illegal immigration in Assam.

The problem of illegal immigration in Assam is widely believed to be an outcome of the British rule, the Partition of India in 1947 and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.

I am proud to be here by the mighty Brahmaputra, in the land of the great Sankaradeva. He was one of the brightest lights of Indias cultural nationalism who saved Assam. If Congress had succeeded with its conspiracy and politics of appeasement, this land would have threatened the national security because of infiltrators, Mr. Adityanath said at a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rally in central Assams Lanka on Wednesday.

He also addressed party rallies at Kalaigaon and Goreswar in north-central Assam.

Sankaradeva alerted people to the issue of illegal immigration. Thats why Congress has never tolerated him. Congress has always resorted to appeasement to capture power, not caring about your progress or welfare. The people of Assam have paid a price for it for a long time, he said.

The Congress slammed the U.P. Chief Minister for his ignorance.

This underlines their knowledge about the culture they claim they are going to protect. Yogi-ji should have brushed up on Assams history before saying Sankaradeva battled infiltration in the 15th century, Bobbeeta Sharma, the chief of the State Congress media department, said.

She reminded the U.P. Chief Minister that the saint-reformer was against idol worship and the exploitation of people by those who followed Manusmriti. Srimanta Sankaradeva believed in the assimilation of society and was against the caste system, she said.

The Assam Pradesh Congress Committee would like to gift some Assam history books to Yogi-ji as well as the Prime Minister who said Lachit Borphukan was a freedom fighter, she added.

A polymath, poet, playwright, socio-religious reformer, Sankaradeva is credited with devising new forms of music, theatrical performance (Bhaona), dance (Satriya) and literary language (Brajavali).

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Assam Assembly Elections | Adityanath links medieval saint to illegal immigration, slammed by Congress - The Hindu

DEMS HAVE IT WRONG ON TRUMP SUPPORTERS

Dems seem to think that if Trump tells Republicans to get the vaccine, they will immediately change their minds about it and line up.

This is quite possibly the biggest misconception that the Left has about people on the Right. They think Republicans are just doing and thinking everything Trump tells them to. But the vast majority were drawn to Trump for his brook-no-arguments demeanor, his way of saying exactly what he thought and damn the consequences or your feelings. Trump supporters do not agree with or even believe everything he ever said, this is the problem with demonizing all of them as carbon copies of the man himself. Many see this attitude as embodying the American spirit, especially now, after seeing that spirit stomped on and disrespected by our leaders and fellow citizens day in and day out.

My prediction: If Trump goes out tomorrow and says Get vaccinated you wont see many Republicans changing their minds at all. I mean, the mans administration was the one that actually presided over the development of the vaccine, remember? In truth, the Left is much more willing to bend to the will of their leaders than the Right. Perhaps they believe Trump actually has that kind of sway over his supporters because their leaders actually do. News flash, he doesnt. Trump never explicitly told his supporters what to think, he just got up there every day and said what HE thought and thats what people responded to.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION SHOULD BE TREATED AS SUCH

It seems rather simple that the answer to a lot of our national problems would be solved if the meaning of illegal was enforced. Illegal means contrary to or forbidden by law. We adhere to the law regarding illegal acts driving without insurance or a license, use of drugs, school attendance for children, voting laws (?), etc. However, we dont enforce the law regarding illegal aliens or a person present in a country without official authorization. I propose that the word illegal or undocumented not be used unless we are going to adhere to its meaning. Enough is enough.

Chuck Schumer is quoted as saying in 2009, People who enter the United States without our permission are illegal aliens and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who entered the U.S. legally.

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Letters to the Editor: Readers write in on Trump, illegal immigration - Tyler Morning Telegraph

The House of Representatives is expected this week to take up one of the most egregious immigration amnesty bills in recent memory, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act.

In 2019, the House passed the bill, but fortunately, it went nowhere in the Senate. Now, the new Congress is taking it up.

The legislation would, among other things:

1) Reward illegal agricultural workers and their employers. The bill doesnt merely allow illegal agricultural workers to become part of the current temporary H-2A agricultural worker program. It goes way beyond that. The legislation creates a special, new legal pathway to citizenship for illegal agricultural workers in the country. Through the proposed system, some illegal agricultural workers could be eligible for their green cards in as little as four years.

2) Provide amnesty potentially for millions. Nobody can reasonably claim this bill isnt amnesty. It allows illegal aliens to stay in the country while they are provided an easy pathway to citizenship, rewarding lawbreakers and punishing legal aliens who abide by the rules to become citizens.

Estimates suggest that anywhere from about 50% to 70% of agricultural workers are in this country illegally. There are likely at least 1.5 million illegal agricultural workers in the country. But thats not the full scope of the amnesty. Theres also the amnesty that would be provided to the workers spouses and children.

3) Create a non-solution for farmers. This amnesty presumably exists in large part to help farmers, but at best it would provide a short-term benefit to farmers who have employed illegal workers. Many of the illegal agricultural workers who get this new pathway will almost certainly move off the farm. That] movement away from the farm is precisely what happened when the United States granted amnesty to more than 1 million agricultural workers in 1986.

4) Undermine the legal immigration system. This amnesty bill would likely do major harm to the current legal immigration systems legitimacy and undermine future reform efforts. It sends a message that the nations immigration laws should serve as no obstacle to illegally working in the country. It is one thing for Congress to reform legal pathways, but its quite another to reward illegal agricultural workers and agricultural employers who have ignored the law altogether.

5) Ignore the pandemic and proper process. When the House passed the agriculture amnesty bill in 2019, there was something consequential that didnt exist then; namely, COVID-19. It was bad for the House to pass the bill then, and it would be unconscionable to pass it now, especially without carefully considering the impact of the pandemic in connection with this amnesty.

Further, the House is rushing the bill to the floor without the new Congress having a chance to discuss this extreme legislation in committee.If the House is going to grant amnesty to potentially millions of illegal workers and undermine the legal immigration system, then it should at least spend a proper amount of time thinking about the implications of taking such a drastic action.

When considering immigration in agriculture, it isnt a binary choice between doing nothing and creating this extreme amnesty bill.

There should be a thoughtful dialogue regarding how to improve the legal immigration system without simultaneously undermining its legitimacy. Legislators should take the time to come up with such a solution.

This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal.

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5 Things to Know About Agriculture Amnesty Bill - Heritage.org

Texas governor Greg Abbott says that if coronavirus spreads further in his state, it will not be because of his order to get rid of masks and business restrictions, but because President Biden is admitting undocumented immigrants who carry the virus. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is also talking up the immigration issue, suggesting (falsely) that the American Rescue Plan would send $1400 of taxpayer money to every illegal alien in America.

Right-wing media is also running with stories of a wave of immigrants at the border, but what is really happening needs some untangling.

When Trump launched his run for the presidency with attacks on Mexican immigrants, and later tweeted that Democrats dont care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, he was tangling up our long history of Mexican immigration with a recent, startling trend of refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (and blaming Democrats for both). That tendency to mash all immigrants and refugees together and put them on our southern border badly misrepresents whats really going on.

Mexican immigration is nothing new; our western agribusinesses were built on migrant labor of Mexicans, Japanese, and poor whites, among others. From the time the current border was set in 1848 until the 1930s, people moved back and forth across it without restrictions. But in 1965, Congress passed the Hart-Celler Act, putting a cap on Latin American immigration for the first time. The cap was low: just 20,000, although 50,000 workers were coming annually.

After 1965, workers continued to come as they always had, and to be employed, as always. But now their presence was illegal. In 1986, Congress tried to fix the problem by offering amnesty to 2.3 million Mexicans who were living in the U.S. and by cracking down on employers who hired undocumented workers. But rather than ending the problem of undocumented workers, the new law exacerbated it by beginning the process of guarding and militarizing the border. Until then, migrants into the United States had been offset by an equal number leaving at the end of the season. Once the border became heavily guarded, Mexican migrants refused to take the chance of leaving.

Since 1986, politicians have refused to deal with this disconnect, which grew in the 1990s when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) flooded Mexico with U.S. corn and drove Mexican farmers to find work, largely in the American Southeast. But this problem is neither new nor catastrophic. While about 6 million undocumented Mexicans currently live in the United States, most of them 78% are long-term residents, here more than ten years.

Only 7% have lived here less than five years. (This ratio is much more stable than that for undocumented immigrants from any other country, and indeed, about twice as many undocumented immigrants come legally and overstay their visas than come illegally across the southern border.)

Since 2007, the number of undocumented Mexicans living in the United States has declined by more than a million. Lately, more Mexicans are leaving America than are coming. What is happening right now at Americas southern border is not really about Mexican migrant workers.

Beginning around 2014, people began to flee warlike levels of violence in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, coming to the U.S. for asylum. This is legal, although most come illegally, taking their chances with smugglers who collect fees to protect migrants on the Mexican side of the border and to get them into the U.S.

The Obama administration tried to deter migrants by expanding the detention of families, and made significant investments in Central America in an attempt to stabilize the region by expanding economic development and promoting security. The Trump administration emphasized deterrence. It cut off support to Central American countries, worked with authoritarians to try to stop regional gangs, drastically limited the number of refugees the U.S. would admit, andinfamouslydeliberately separated children from their parents to deter would-be asylum seekers.

The number of migrants to the U.S. began to drop in 2000 and continued to drop throughout Trumps years in office.

Now, with a new administration, the dislocation of the pandemic, and two catastrophic storms in Central America in addition to the violence, people are again surging to the border to try to get into the U.S. In the last month, the Border Patrol encountered more than 100,000 people. They are encouraged by smugglers, who falsely tell them the border is now open. Numbers released on March 10 show that the number of children and families coming to the border doubled between January and February.

The Biden administration is warning them not to comeyet. The Trump administration gutted immigration staff and facilities, while the pandemic has further cut available beds. Most of those trying to cross the border are single adults, and the Biden administration is turning all of them back under a pandemic public health order. (It is possible that the 100,000 number is inflated as people are making repeated attempts.)

At the same time, border officials are temporarily holding families to evaluate their claims to asylum, and are also evaluating the cases of about 65,000 asylum seekers forced by the Trump administration to stay in dangerous conditions in Mexicothis backlog is swelling the new numbers. Once the migrants are tested for coronavirus and then processed, they are either deported or released until their asylum hearing.

This has apparently led to a number of families being released in communities in Arizona and Texas without adequate clothing or money. In normal times, churches and shelters would step in to help, but the pandemic has shut that aid down to a trickle. Residents are afraid the numbers of migrants will climb, and that they will bring Covid-19. Biden offered federal help to Texas Governor Abbott to test migrants for the coronavirus, but Abbott has refused to take responsibility for testing. (Migrants in Brownsville tested positive at a lower rate than Texas residents.)

There is yet another issue: the administration is having a hard time handling the numbers of unaccompanied minors arriving. Their numbers have tripled recently, overwhelming the system, especially in Texas where the state is still digging out from the deep freeze. The children are supposed to spend no more than 72 hours in processing with Border Patrol before they are transferred to facilities overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services while agents search for family members to take the children. But at least in some cases, the kids have been with Border Patrol for as much as 77 hours. Recently, there were more than 3,700 unaccompanied children in Border Patrol facilities and about 8,800 unaccompanied children in HHS custody.

The Biden administration is considering addressing this surge by looking for emergency shelters for minors crossing the border, activating the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or placing more HHS staff at the border. It has asked for $4 billion over four years to try to restore stability to the Central American countries hardest hit by violence. On March 12, the administration announced that HHS would not use immigration status against those coming forward to claim children, out of concern that the previous Trump-era policy made people unwilling to come forward.

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Political Misdirection: Why Republican pundits blame Biden for the broken immigration system he inherited - Milwaukee Independent