The Senate’s staunchest opponent to comprehensive immigration reform has authored a 25-page memo for the new GOP majority, that urges his party to reject “an extreme policy of sustained mass immigration” and called on lawmakers to instead focus on the needs of the American worker.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., delivered the memo to his fellow Republicans in the Senate and he is hoping the document will be a central part of the immigration discussion expected during this week’s House-Senate GOP retreat in Hershey, Pa.
The memo is comprised of polling data and other factors that Sessions said the GOP can use “to fight the most well-funded and powerful network of special interests you will ever confront.”
It delves into the issue of weakened border enforcement, citing a 23 percent reduction in deportations of illegal immigrants from the U.S. interior, for example.
But mostly the document focuses on the impact of increased immigration on the economy and American jobs.
The newly empowered Republican Congress has yet to determine how it will proceed on immigration reform beyond legislation that would strengthen border security.
Last year, House Republicans rejected a comprehensive immigration reform plan passed by both the GOP and Democrats in the Senate. The bill called for increasing work visas, expanding a guest worker program and providing a pathway to citizenship for people living here illegally.
Sessions and other conservative GOP lawmakers in both the House and Senate fear the Republican leadership will green-light a similar plan this year.
Such a plan is backed not only by the Hispanic voting bloc coveted by the GOP, but also big businesses and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Those in favor of comprehensive immigration reform say it will increase jobs and boost the economy and the tax base.
Sessions argues in his memo that the party should reject the influence of those groups. He cited polling that supports a GOP argument in favor of American workers who he said would be hurt by immigration reform because it would actually suppress wages and reduce jobs across the earning spectrum.
“Hard-hit working people need to see Republicans go into the ring and throw some real punches on their behalf,” Sessions wrote.
He defined the GOP’s looming immigration debate as “our chance to stand up and fight for millions of loyal struggling citizens who have been neglected … who pay their taxes, fight our wars, follow the rules, love their country and only expect in return that their country will defend their legitimate interests.”
Sessions said technology companies who say they need foreign workers to fill positions are, in fact, laying off thousands of workers. Increasing visas will simply allow them to lower wages, Sessions argued.
He called the claim that America is suffering from a shortage of people who specialize in science, technology, engineering and math a “hoax” perpetuated by big business.
The tech companies’ promotion of visas for foreign workers, Sessions argues in the memo, “is driven by its desire for cheap, young and immobile labor.”
Sessions concluded the memo with “three essential questions” that encapsulate the immigration debate, among them, “Should American immigration laws serve the just interests of the country and its citizens?”
