Of course much of Trump’s base would hate it. But after any initial feelings of anger and betrayal, they’d just go into full, cognitively rigid denial. As they do, for example, when confronted with evidence of Republican plans to destroy earned benefits like Social Security.
As part of a compromise to allow farmers to hire year-round foreign guest workers, the House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to create a path to legal status for over a million undocumented farm workers, in what could be the most significant action on immigration in decades.The Farm Workforce Modernization Act, a sweeping, 224-page bill, passed the House by a 260-165 vote. Backed by hundreds of farm groups, and politicians on both sides of the aisle, supporters said the act would end the shadow of uncertainty and fear of deportation experienced by many field workers in the U.S. - New Food Economy
This was a Bipartisan bill ... H.R.5038 - Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2019 had 25 Republicans and 38 Democrats ... including Angie Craig and Collin Peterson.
ReplyDeleteThe vote garnered 34 Republican votes as the anti-immigration folks were pressing everyone to vote against it. Apparently, MN01 Hagedorn, MN06 Emmer and MN08 Stauber got the message ... cause they voted no.
The bill had the support of the Chamber of Commerce and hundreds of agricultural groups -- including Minnesota Area II Potato Council; Minnesota Milk Producers Association; Minnesota Nursery & Landscape Association.
It's too bad that it took so long for the House to act, because now it may die in the Senate.
Too bad, because they could have added this into the year-end package of must pass bills ... if you did not hear, last week, the House approved a Defense spending bill that includes Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act (sec. 7611) which Paulsen had been fighting for and now Phillips has taken up the cause but with little success (credit goes to the Senate who put that section in the bill).
IMO, while the Liberia legislation is good ... there is some bad too. The final spending bill agreed to by party leaders today includes a permanent repeal of the "onerous" 2.3% excise tax on medical devices ... it had been suspended until January 1 2020, and the House Ways and Means Committee included a one-year extension in their legislation, but it sounds like the Senate won .... and now the national debt just keeps growing.