Legal Immigration And Border Enforcement Reform This Year
October 10, 2023
Dear LIBERTY Campaign Members,
We hope you’re having a good week. Below are some of the latest LIBERTY Campaign news and some helpful resources for your organization’s advocacy efforts.
LIBERTY FACTS OF THE WEEK
~230,000
According to a Fox News report yesterday, this is the number of unauthorized migrant encounters on the Southwest border in the month of August. While U.S. Customs and Border Protection has yet to release the official numbers from last month, 230,000 would mark an increase of more than 25% from the 183,503 enforcement encounters on our Southwest land border in July. This cannot be allowed to continue unabated.
Draft Social Post: Unofficial estimates show unauthorized migrant entries on the southwest border rose by over 25% from July to August. Only Congress can stop this madness, which is why we are #CallingForLIBERTY https://www.callingforliberty.org/
70%
This is the federal percentage estimate of the number of U.S. cropworkers that were born outside of the country. This likely underrepresents the number of foreign nationals in agriculture, as this federal data source does not include the increasing number of H-2A workers in American agriculture. Nevertheless, if 7 in 10 cropworkers are not from the U.S., it shows how much our nation relies upon immigrants for food production. Given the labor challenges American farmers face today, we need reform to maintain the security of our nation’s food supply.
Draft Social Post: 7 in 10 of America’s cropworkers were born outside the U.S. We cannot feed ourselves without immigrants. We are #CallingForLIBERTY to address the significant workforce challenges that American farmers face every day. https://www.callingforliberty.org/
Recent Administrative Announcements
Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security publicized its proposed H-2 modernization rule. Unlike the U.S. Department of Labor’s proposed rule for temporary agricultural workers that was published in the Federal Register last week, the DHS proposal contains several provisions that will be helpful to employers of H-2A and H-2B workers. The rule will provide greater opportunities for H-2 workers to change employers while they’re working in the U.S., allow employers to seek seasonal workers from every country as opposed to only a select group of countries that are approved by the federal government, and provide seasonal workers with extended periods of time for them to stay in the country and find new jobs when their initial employment opportunity in the U.S. concludes. These regulatory changes will help employers meet their seasonal workforce needs.
This proposal also contains enhanced worker protections and site visit authority. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce will be examining the costs associated with these new compliance burdens against the benefits of the proposed flexibility measures that will help seasonal businesses obtain needed workers and will file comments on this proposal. If your organization would like the U.S. Chamber to highlight how this proposal would affect your members, please don’t hesitate to reach out, as we would be happy to include your thoughts in our comments to DHS.
Social Toolkit
Keep the drumbeat going by using the sample messages and graphics in our LIBERTY Social Media Toolkit below.
Thank you for your support and engagement on this critical issue. If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact our team. More importantly, when your organization promotes the LIBERTY Campaign through an event or produces new content, please let us know so the U.S. Chamber can help amplify your efforts.
Sincerely,
Jon Baselice