Short-term Spending, Refugees and H-2B Visas

Congressional Leaders resist pushes to increase refugee funding and H-2B foreign worker visas

The House overwhelmingly approved, with bipartisan support, a short-term spending bill yesterday without any significant changes to the refugee program and without expanding the H-2B guest-worker program. We've been asking you for phone calls and faxes since late last week, and your activism paid off! The Senate is expected to pass the bill over the next few days, but there is some resistance from a handful of Democratic Senators.

The short-term spending bill would fund the government through late-April, so there will likely be another battle then. But negotiations will be with a different administration that's more focused on eliminating fraud within the refugee program and protecting the jobs and wages of American workers.

We faced two threats with this week's fight. First, back in September, Pres. Obama demanded an increase in funding for the refugee program to accommodate an additional 25,000 refugees over last year's already inflated numbers. The White House more recently requested a doubling of refugee funding through the short-term spending bill. The money not only would pay for the additional refugees, but would house and resettle across the U.S. the thousands of border surgers who have illegally entered the U.S. in recent months.

Congress added a small increase in refugee funding, but none of the additional funds can be used to resettle new refugees in the United States nor can they be used by the Obama Administration to house and resettle the border surgers. The other threat came from Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) who insisted that Congress extend a provision from last year's omnibus spending bill that exempts certain returning foreign workers from the H-2B visa caps. The exemption could potentially quadruple the H-2B guest worker program from its cap of 66,000 per year.

Congressional Leaders left the proposed extension out of the spending bill as introduced, but Harris urged the House Rules Committee to allow an amendment to the bill. Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) and the rest of the committee rejected Harris' request.

Again, thank you to all the activists that made phone calls and sent faxes over the last 10 days to help protect low-skilled American workers and to help rein in a refugee program that's riddled with fraud and lacks oversight.

Numbers USA, Roy Beck