House Pushes Amnesty, Subsidy for Lower-Tech, Cheap Labor Farms

House leaders will introduce a farmworker amnesty plan on Wednesday that will provide citizenship to at least one million illegal migrants and to a future flood of visa workers who agree to work on U.S. farms for eight years.

The “Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2019” amnesty would create two huge streams of low-wage labor for farm companies and likely for meatpackers and other agricultural employers.

One stream would be from the population of one million existing farmworker illegal aliens who will be amnestied and redefined as “Certified Agricultural Workers” so they can get green cards and citizenship after several years — regardless of the “public charge” rule which bars welfare-reliant migrants from citizenship.

The second stream would come from illegal aliens who sign up to be legal H-2A visa farmworkers and from a treasure box of 40,000 green cards per year for employers to pay their lower-wage H-2A workers.

The bill also changes the existing H-2A farmworker visa program by setting a 3.25 percent cap on annual wage growth and by allowing some H-2A workers to work year-round for dairies or non-agriculture companies.

ICE accuses Dem lawmaker of joining ‘rioting crowd’ in Arizona, interfering in mass arrest

Trump rips Indiana GOP leader over redistricting fight, warns Republicans could face ‘MAGA primary’

Ukrainian woman charged over Russian-backed cyberattacks; $10M reward offered for others

Walz urges Noem to ‘reassess’ immigration enforcement strategy in Minnesota after alleged citizen arrests

Obama surprises Chicago students in Santa hat for holiday library storytime reading session

Activist group hits federal judge with judicial misconduct complaint for attending Trump rally

Elite College Football Program Rocked, Head Coach Fired in Salacious Scandal

Former music teacher allegedly groomed and had inappropriate relationship with teen student

Democrat Notches Party’s First Win in Decades in Major Red State Mayor’s Race

Charity Group Begs Trump for a ‘Christmas Miracle’ After USPS Rejects Hundreds of Care Packages Meant for Overseas Troops

Watch: Trump Drives a Stake Through the Heart of Fake News That He’s Ticked at Hegseth and Noem

Moderate Republicans buck leadership with bid to force vote on Obamacare subsidies as premium cliff looms

Burgum calls California a ‘national security risk’ as Energy chief warns blue states are skewing cost averages

Walz says he would ‘welcome more’ Somalis as fraud investigation intensifies

New Polling Puts Trump in Landslide Lead When It Comes to the Economy, Defying Democrats’ Biggest Mid-Term Narrative

The “modernization act” will preserve the pre-modern, lower-tech, lower-productivity sectors in the agricultural economy by allowing dairy, fruit, and berry companies to avoid investment in labor-saving, productivity-boosting machinery.

Mass immigration ensures mass discrimination against American employees, both blue-collar and white-collar, says panel. But D.C. people don't care because they want mass migration. https://t.co/8kqHk86XTB

— Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) October 29, 2019

The amnesty legislation will likely be welcomed by progressives even though it will cut the marketplace wages for Americans and for H-2A farmworkers and will also reduce the economic incentives for investing in new labor-saving machinery or techniques, such as vertical farms.

But the amnesty side of the bill would help Democrats by creating a new immigration path for at least 150,000 workers and their families each year. The new inflow will add to the current inflow of 1.1 million legal immigrants who help suppress wages and raise real-estate prices, and it will help turn more GOP-held districts in Democratic blue.

The lead GOP legislator backing the bill is Washington state Rep. Dan Newhouse, who owns fruit orchards in Washington state. The bill is likely to be backed by a small number of GOP legislators from dairy districts. The farmers in their districts want cheap migrant labor because milk prices are low, robotic cow-milkers are expensive, and the cost of migrant labor is rising in President Donald Trump’s “Hire American” economy.