Media Hides Democrats' 'Historic' Migration Expansion

The immigration expansions in the House-passed Build Back Better bill are “the most historic immigration reforms in more than thirty years” says an investor advocacy group.

But there is minimal coverage in the establishment media of the law that would legalize 6.5 million illegals and also add “millions” of migrant workers, consumers, and voters to Americans’ society, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The “immigration provisions in the Build Back Better (BBB) Act would be the most historic immigration reforms in more than thirty years,” says a statement from FWD.us, a pro-investor advocacy group founded by Mark Zuckerberg.

The group inserted provisions in the bill that allow millions of foreign consumers and perhaps one million foreign graduates in U.S jobs to buy green cards above the annual caps. “These measures would provide long overdue relief to [contract-worker] families trapped in the backlogs, and … making the U.S. an even more attractive destination for highly skilled [job-seeking] people from around the world,” said FWD.us statement, which is now pushing the Senate to quickly pass the visa giveaway

The ‘historic” description is echoed by other groups.

The pro-business, FWD.us-backed Niskanen Center says “these provisions would be largest update to our immigration system in 30 years.”

The Congressional Budget Organization says the bill will allow “millions” of extra migrants to get legal status in the United States.

But coverage of the green-cards-for-cash provision has been minimal in the establishment media — even though the establishment’s reporters know that Senate Democrats are trying to push the expansions past the 50 GOP Senators and the Senate’s parliamentarian.

The minimal coverage is surprising because the reporters are members of the economic class that is most threatened by the cash-for-green-cards rule — house-buying, white-collar professionals who want to get their kids into good universities.

This fast-track process helps investors to do what they prefer: Sideline a generation of outspoken U.S. graduates by instead importing a vast supply of clever and subordinate foreigners who will rationally work as lower-wage, compliant, indentured employees to get their life-changing green cards.

But the silence also reflects the stealth strategy adopted by investors, progressives, and their elite lobbyists and networks of covertly-funded astroturf groups. This stealth strategy is a big shift from 2013 and 2014 when a $1 billion P.R. barrage by pro-migration groups failed to dent the public’s deep and rational opposition to easier migration l0w-wage workers.

So, in 2021, the Associated Press November 19 coverage of the legislation did not mention the green card expansion.

The Washington Post‘s November 19 article did not mention the green card expansion.

The New York Times’ main November 19 article on the House approval of the BBB bill suggested there were no migration provisions:

Democrats must also ensure that the entire plan adheres to the strict rules that govern the reconciliation process and force the removal of any provision that does not have a direct fiscal effect. Those rules have already forced the party to abandon a plan to provide a path to citizenship in the bill for undocumented immigrants.

A sidebar article, titled “Everything in the House Democrats’ Budget Bill,” includes this number-less passage: “Allows individuals to pay a fee to access green cards faster; makes unused family- and employment-based visas from past years available for use, among other changes”

Bloomberg included a mention of the green-cards-for-cash rule, but provided no estimate of the scale:

The bill would … allow some foreigners to fast-track applications to adjust to legal permanent resident status and sidestep some numerical limits on visas, including per-country caps that have left hundreds of thousands of Indians in limbo.

One of Bloomberg’s reporters, however, tweeted:

The legal immigration measures, meanwhile, are MAJOR. Would salvage unused green cards going back decades & allow people to fast-track status adjustments & skip per-country caps that have left hundreds of thousands of Indian nationals (& others) in limbo

Most 0f the bill’s supporters are downplaying the raised immigration numbers.

Indian-born Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) buried the migration expansions as the ninth bullet in her press release, as “humane immigration reform.”

The American Immigration Council, a spin-off of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, downplayed the change:

The immigration provisions included in the House’s budget reconciliation package could transform the lives of millions of immigrants and families across the country …. The House bill also includes critical improvements to our immigration system to help individuals and employers who have been stuck in limbo for far too long finally obtain the security of permanent status in the United States.

Sean McGarvey, the president of the North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU), touted the bill without mentioning the impact of the extra migration on U.S. construction workers:

This historic investment will take unprecedented steps forward by creating middle class jobs in the renewable energy sector, increasing labor protections and penalties for low road contractors and offering working families more access to pre-apprenticeship programs, affordable childcare, early childhood education programs and elder care.

Many polls show that labor migration is deeply unpopular because it damages ordinary Americans’ career opportunities, cuts their wages, and raises their rents. Migration also curbs Americans’ productivity, shrinks their political clout, widens regional wealth gaps, radicalizes their democratic, compromise-promoting civic culture, and allows elites to ignore despairing Americans at the bottom of society.

For many years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration and the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates. This opposition is multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, bipartisan, rational, persistent, and recognizes the solidarity Americans owe to each other.

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