Submitted by: Phil Bulfinch
REVEALED: THE SECRET IMMIGRATION CHAPTER IN OBAMA’S TRADE AGREEMENT
Discovered
inside the huge tranche of secretive Obamatrade documents released by
Wikileaks are key details on how technically any Republican voting for
Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) that would fast-track trade deals like
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal would technically also be
voting to massively expand President Obama’s executive authority when
it comes to immigration matters.
The mainstream media covered the Wikileaks document
dump extensively, but did not mention the immigration chapter contained
within it, so Breitbart News took the documents to immigration experts
to get their take on it. Nobody has figured how big a deal the documents
uncovered by Wikileaks are until now. (See below)
The
president’s Trade in Services Act (TiSA) documents, which is one of the
three different close-to-completely-negotiated deals that would be
fast-tracked making up the president’s trade agreement, show Obamatrade
in fact unilaterally alters current U.S. immigration law. TiSA, like TPP
or the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) deals,
are international trade agreements that President Obama is trying to
force through to final approval. The way he can do so is by getting
Congress to give him fast-track authority through TPA.
TiSA
is even more secretive than TPP. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill can review
the text of TPP in a secret, secured room inside the Capitol—and in some
cases can bring staffers who have high enough security clearances—but
with TiSA, no such draft text is available.
Voting
for TPA, of course, would essentially ensure the final passage of each
TPP, T-TIP, and TiSA by Congress, since in the history of fast-track any
deal that’s ever started on fast-track has been approved.
Roughly 10 pages of this TiSA agreement document leak are specifically about immigration.
“The existence of these ten pages on immigration in the Trade and Services Agreement make it absolutely clear in my mind that the administration is negotiating immigration – and for them to say they are not – they have a lot of explaining to do based on the actual text in this agreement,”
Rosemary Jenks, the Director of Government Relations at Numbers USA,
told Breitbart News following her review of these documents.
Obama
will be able to finalize all three of the Obamatrade deals, without any
Congressional input, if Congress grants him fast-track authority by
passing TPA. Fast-track lowers the vote thresholds in the Senate and
blocks Congress from amending any trade deals—and also, since each of
these three deals are pretty much entirely negotiated already, it
wouldn’t lead to any more congressional involvement or transparency with
each.
The
Senate passed the TPA last month, so it is up to the House to put the
brakes on Obama’s unilateral power. The House could vote as early as Friday
on fast-track, but may head into next week. By all counts, it’s going
to be a very tight vote—and may not pass. It remains to be seen what
will happen in light of leaks about things like the immigration
provisions of TiSA—which deals with 24 separate parties, mostly
different nations but also the European Union. It is focused on
increasing the free flow of services worldwide—and with that, comes
labor. Labor means immigration and guestworkers.
“This
Trade and Services Agreement is specifically mentioned in TPA as being
covered by fast-track authority, so why would Congress be passing a
Trade Promotion Authority Act that covers this agreement, if the U.S.
weren’t intended to be a party to this agreement – so at the very least,
there should be specific places where the U.S. exempts itself from
these provisions and there are not,” explained Jenks.
She emphasized that this is a draft, but at this point “certainly
the implication is that the U.S. intends to be a party to all or some
of the provisions of this agreement. There is nothing in there that says
otherwise, and there is no question in my mind that some of the provisions in this Trade and Services Agreement would require the United States to change its immigration laws.”
In
2003, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution that said no
immigration provision should be in trade agreements – and in fact,
former Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) voted for this resolution.
The
existence of these 10 pages is in clear violation of that earlier
unanimous decision, and also in violation of the statements made by the
U.S. Trade Representative.
“He
has told members of Congress very specifically the U.S. is not
negotiating immigration – or at least is not negotiating any immigration
provisions that would require us to change our laws. So, unless major
changes are made to the Trade and Services Agreement – that is not true,” said Jenks.
There are three examples within the 10 pages of areas where the U.S. would have to alter current immigration law.
First,
on page 4 and 5 of the agreement, roughly 40 industries are listed
where potentially the U.S. visa processes would have to change to
accommodate the requirements within the agreement.
Jenks
explained that under the agreement, the terms don’t have an economic
needs based test, which currently U.S. law requires for some types of
visa applications in order to show there aren’t American workers
available to fill positions.
Secondly, on page 7 of the agreement, it suggests, “The period of processing applications may not exceed 30 days.”
Jenks said this is a massive problem for the U.S. because so many visa applications take longer than 30 days.
“We
will not be able to meet those requirements without essentially our
government becoming a rubber stamp because it very often takes more than
30 days to process a temporary worker visa,” she said.
Jenks also spotted another issue with the application process.
“The
fact that there’s a footnote in this agreement that says that face to
face interviews are too burdensome … we’re supposed to be doing face to
face interviews with applicants for temporary visas,” she added.
“According
to the State Department Consular Officer, it’s the in person interviews
that really gives the Consular Officer an opportunity to determine – is
this person is a criminal, is this person a terrorist … all of those
things are more easily determined when you’re sitting face to face with
someone and asking those questions.”
The third issue
is present on page 4 of the agreement. It only provides an “[X]” where
the number of years would be filled in for the entry or temporary stay.
Jenks
explained that for example, with L visas under current U.S. immigration
law, the time limit is seven years – so if the agreement were to go
beyond seven years, it would change current U.S. law.
This
wouldn’t be unconstitutional if Obama has fast-track authority under
TPA, as Congress would essentially have given him the power to finalize
all aspects of the negotiations, including altering immigration law.
“I
think this whole thing makes it very clear that this administration is
negotiating immigration – intends to make immigration changes if they
can get away with it, and I think it’s that much more critical that
Congress ensure that the administration does not have the authority to
negotiate immigration,” Jenks said.
Breitbart News’ Matthew Boyle contributed to this report.
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