(FreedomBeacon.com)- The EAGLE Act was defeated by Republicans last week despite being backed by Wall Street billionaires. The bill was defeated by an uncanny alliance between the GOP and the liberal faction of the Democratic Party, according to Breitbart. The liberals rejected the legislation’s preference for Indian visa workers.
The EAGLE Act’s “Section 7” was reportedly disguising a massive outsourcing scheme that would have made temporary worker programs permanent, so that jobs currently maintained by foreigners would be barred to Americans.
“Congress is using an immigration ploy to lock Americans out of a growing part of the labor market,” Rosemary Jenks, the director of government relations at NumbersUSA said of the proposal.
Last week, however, the section backed by Wall Street that reportedly threatened to flood the U.S. labor market with an exploitable workforce was stopped dead in its tracks. Democrats allegedly backed off the bill when they realized they were going to lose on the House floor.
All GOP members turned away as well after Reps. Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise whipped Republicans (not physically) to vote no on the measure.
Ryan Walker, the vice president of Government Relations for Heritage Action, told Breitbart that Section 7 was “appalling.” He said that these bills were usually “gimmes” for Republicans, but they have recently been looking more closely at the bills. He mentioned the business community not having Americans’ interests at heart, and Republicans have finally realized that.
Rep. Tom McClintock called the bill “a big fat middle finger to America’s working families.”
Opposition from Republicans primarily came when conservative activists and immigration reformers lobbied the members following the statistic that one in six GOP voters listed immigration as their priority for the 2022 midterms.
New York Democrat Rep. Yvette Clark sided with Republicans as well, saying that she “cannot support efforts that would perpetuate the current inequities in our immigration system.”
