Great News for Worksite Enforcement and Border Security

We told you last week that the Trump Administration had called off worksite enforcement at farms, meatpacking plants, hotels, and restaurants. The effect of this order was to grant amnesty to the employers in these industries that had knowingly been hiring illegal aliens, in violation of the law. The New York Times named Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins as the source of the new policy. The immediate pushback on the policy from IAP and the general public created a firestorm on social media.

This Monday, that policy was reversed, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was given the green light to continue with worksite enforcement across the board. This is a huge victory for immigration enforcement and for the rule of law, in general, since it means no employer is above the law when it comes to hiring illegal aliens.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) this week released data on nationwide encounters of illegal aliens for the month of May. To no one’s surprise, our borders remain secure, with the levels remaining flat for the fourth consecutive month.

In another historic marker of border security, CBP announced that it didn’t release a single illegal alien into the United States in May for the first time ever! Last year, in May alone, CBP released 62,000 illegal aliens into the interior.

Further, border czar Tom Homan announced that only 95 illegal aliens were apprehended in 24 hours early this week, which is the lowest ever recorded. 

President Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill is still mired in the Senate. As we noted last week, draft text from all the relevant committees came out last Friday, but none of the text has yet been finalized. Not only does all the text have to go through the “Byrd bath” with the Senate Parliamentarian to ensure it falls under the detailed rules governing budget reconciliation bills, but several provisions are still being negotiated.

On the immigration front, both the House and the Senate versions of the bill include game-changing investments in interior immigration enforcement and border security. With some small variations in funding levels between the Senate and House versions, each provides billions of dollars in critical funding that ICE and CBP need. Without this massive infusion of funds soon, though, ICE will not have the resources to continue the level of interior enforcement necessary to accomplish President Trump’s mass deportations.

Both bills bar illegal aliens from Medicare and Medicaid, as well as SNAP and Obamacare credits. Unfortunately, both bills allow illegal aliens with Social Security numbers (SSNs) to apply for tax credits, including the Additional Child Tax Credit. Five years ago, this wouldn’t have posed much of a problem, but the Biden Administration granted work authorization and SSNs to millions of illegal aliens through its unlawful parole programs and through fraudulent asylum claims.

Finally, both bills include a 3.5 percent tax on remittances to foreign countries. The Senate bill, however, exempts all bank and credit/debit card transactions from the tax, while the House bill covers all remittances. We are waiting on a report from the Joint Committee on Taxation for an estimate of how much less revenue the Senate language is likely to generate.

IAP is working with the Senate to try to fix these shortcomings and to ensure that the funding for interior enforcement and border security is sufficient. Obviously, we won’t make a decision on endorsing the bill until the text is finalized.

Commentary

Repackaging the Immigration Propaganda of the 1990s

A new op-ed from IAP’s Jared Culver responds to a just-released report from an organization called Unleashing Prosperity that calls for a massive new influx of foreign workers. As Jared notes:

“[I]n the real world, the Unleashing Prosperity apologia for flooding the labor market is nakedly naive and out of touch with reality. This pathetic retread of failed arguments is remarkable only in its obstinacy. It is scary that many so-called respectable thinkers still feel free to peddle this nonsense without fear of contradiction by the compliant media that drinks from the same corporate trough as the propagandists for open borders.”

Immigration News

U.S. Senate Confirms Rodney Scott as Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection

This week, the Senate confirmed our friend Rodney Scott as the new Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Commissioner Scott began his career in the Border Patrol in 1992 and is, without question, the best man for the job. We are confident that the border will remain secure under his watch. 

So far, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee has failed to vote on the nominations of Joe Edlow as Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and Rob Law as Under Secretary for Strategy, Policy, and Plans at DHS. These stellar nominees deserve swift confirmation so that the agencies that handle immigration enforcement have leadership fully in place.

Trump administration enhances social media vetting for student visa applicants
Secretary Rubio continued his efforts to strengthen our immigration system at the Department of State this week. We have long been concerned with potential national security issues arising from the student visa program, with student visa holders leading mass protests on college campuses in favor of terrorist organizations, and a long history of “students” from hostile countries coming to stay and work. Members of Congress, like freshman Rep. Riley Moore (R, WV-02), have introduced bills to cut off student visas for China and others due to the potential threat. Now, State consular officers have been directed to screen the social media of student visa applicants, looking for “advocacy for, aid or support for foreign terrorists and other threats to US national security” and “support for unlawful antisemitic harassment or violence.” This is a very positive step.

Republican Congressman Calls On Trump To Expand Work Visas
In addition to the handful of Republicans who came out of the closet last week to complain about Pres. Trump deporting their donors’ illegal workers, another Republican Member of Congress is publicly calling for an increase in foreign guest workers to replace the illegal aliens being removed. As Jared points out in the Commentary section above, flooding the labor market reduces wages. Let’s give American workers a chance to fill these jobs at livable wages, just as they did when the Nebraska meatpacking plant was raided last week.

Next Week

Both Chambers of Congress are in session next week, but all eyes are focused on the Senate. President Trump and Majority Leader Thune want to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill before the July 4 recess, which begins a week from Monday. Considering that the text has not been finalized and that negotiations are continuing, this will be a heavy lift.