Inside the Guest-Worker Immigration Expansion for Which No Republican Will Take Credit

By Published on January 7, 2016

One of the shortest measures in the $1.15 trillion government-funding bill passed last month generated outsized controversy in conservative circles. Tucked away on page 701 of the 2,009-page spending bill is a provision that some say quadruples the number of H-2B visas available to guest workers this year. Its inclusion drew the ire of several House and Senate conservatives and sparked accusations that Speaker Paul Ryan had broken his pledge to keep immigration reform off the table until 2017. Much confusion has surrounded how the measure was included in the omnibus, with lawmakers and pundits alike claiming bitterly that the House slipped it in at the last minute. The truth is more complicated: The measure sat quietly for seven months after the Appropriations Committee approved it in July, never reaching the House floor for a vote. When it wound up in the massive omnibus spending package passed through Congress before Christmas, several lawmakers complained that they were blindsided by the provision, and they argued that Republican leadership was continuing to ignore voters’ concerns about immigration’s negative impact on wages.

Read the article “Inside the Guest-Worker Immigration Expansion for Which No Republican Will Take Credit” on nationalreview.com.

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