Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee says the $1.8 trillion spending package approved by Congress on Friday amounts to “a massive new assault on American workers” because it increases the number of visas for blue-collar jobs.
“Buried in the disastrous, 2000-page budget deal Congress passed Friday is a massive new assault on American workers,” Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, said in a statement to The Daily Caller.
“Obama’s job-killing agenda has done enough damage, but this Republican-led deal slaps working families in the face by expanding the number of H-2B visas for foreign blue collar workers by 400 percent,” he said. “Why would Republicans in Washington want to import 250,000 foreigners to steal blue-collar jobs from Americans in trucking, construction and other industries? Why would Republicans support immigration programs that import foreigners to replace American workers and drive American wages lower than the Dead Sea?”
Added Huckabee: ”The Washington establishment carbon-copied this foreign worker language from the Schumer-Obama immigration amnesty bill and because of the Republican Congress, it will soon become law. This is shameful and disgusting.”
The House and Senate both passed the spending measure, and President Obama signed it into law, on Friday.
Prior to the vote, Alabama GOP Sen. [crscore]Jeff Sessions[/crscore] railed against the provision, saying: “These foreign workers are brought in exclusively to fill blue collar non-farm jobs in hotels, restaurants, construction, truck driving, and many other occupations sought by millions of Americans.”