Republicans on the Senate Immigration Subcommittee are upset that provisions submitted to the Appropriations committee for submission to the omnibus were rejected.
While many Republicans appeared shocked by the inclusion of the H2B visa expansion measure that will quadruple foreign workers in the U.S. as well as provide funding to resettle illegal immigrants, numerous border security measures were rejected by the appropriations committee.
A measure that funds lawsuits for states that enforce federal immigration law will was rejected. Another measure that withholds funds for attorneys for illegal aliens, including through grant programs, was rejected. A provision that ended funding for sanctuary city programs was not approved for omnibus.
A measure that would defund any of the president’s executive amnesty or immigration polices was not approved for the spending bill.
A provision intended to defund Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was rejected as well as a measure to nix the salaries of any political appointee or any appointee who directed others to violate the Immigration and Nationality Act.
U.S. Alabama Republican Senators [crscore]Richard Shelby[/crscore] and [crscore]Jeff Sessions[/crscore], Chairmen of subcommittees on the Appropriations and Judiciary Committees, proposed immigration language for inclusion in the omnibus last week.
“As we near a vote on the year-end government funding bill, we believe it is essential that Congress take strong steps to restore the security and financial integrity of our immigration system. In recent months, we have seen immigrants in the United States implicated in terrorist activity hailing from countries including Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Somalia, Sudan, Ghana and Saudi Arabia, to name a few. The risk is not limited to Syrian migration, but encompasses a wide-range of countries and the ever-present threat of post-entry radicalization,” Shelby and Sessions said in a joint statement.
Other rejected measures proposed to defund: grant prosecutorial discretion to aliens in removal proceedings, abuse parole authority, grant H-1B Visas to companies that have replaced American workers, new countries in the visa waiver program until implementation of the biometric exit system, the Central American Minors Refugee/Parole Program.
One measure that was rejected requested funds to establish a victims advocacy unit at ICE. The purpose of the unit was intended to be an “advocate for the removal of criminal aliens on behalf of victims of crimes committed by aliens.”
