Free Republic

I’ve been blogging since the Bush presidency, through the war on terror, the rise of Obama, and the rise of Trump. I thought I’d seen it all.I never imagined an Ann Coulter/Lindsey Graham convergence on immigration.Is the man known to righties as “Grahamnesty” turning over a new leaf or is he working an angle here? The question answers itself. “He’s not going to sign a bill that doesn’t have money for the wall. I can tell you exactly how this is going to end. The president is going to challenge Democrats to compromise and if they continue to say...

Sen. Lindsey Graham blasted the media and Trump critics for their attacks on the administration's use of tear gas on groups of migrants trying to cross the southern border. Graham (R-S.C.) said that their "narrative that Trump is a cruel, heartless bastard only works if he uses tear gas on kids." He referenced the Obama administration's repeated use of tear gas at the border, including in late November 2013. "When he uses tear gas, he's protecting the country," Graham said of the left's coverage of Obama's actions.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of President Trump’s most vocal allies on Capitol Hill, endorsed the White House demand for $5 billion in border wall funding in order to avert a partial government shutdown on Friday at midnight. “It’s right to fight for wall funding. The House-passed bill is reasonable. Let’s Dig in!” Graham tweeted, referring to the House measure that includes $5.7 billion in wall funding. That legislation is unlikely to pass the Senate. The South Carolina Republican was echoing remarks he made earlier this month. “He needs to dig in and get the very Democrats who voted for...

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., warned Sunday that a legislative fix to the partial government shutdown won't be passed by the Senate without border security funding. "At the end of the day, there's a deal to be had," Graham said during an interview on CNN's "State of the Union." "But everybody is changing their position here and most Americans are pretty tired of it. So to my Democratic friends, there will never be a deal without wall funding and many Republicans are going to offer something as an incentive to vote for wall funding that you have supported in the past."...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday that President Trump is "open-minded" but non-committal about a potential deal that would include border security funding and offer protections for young immigrants that he has floated to resolve the ongoing government shutdown. Graham said Trump remained adamant that any agreement must include money for the president's desired wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Graham told reporters outside the White House that he spoke with Trump about a possible arrangement that would include $5 billion for border security, renewable work permits for beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and visas for...

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on Sunday said a deal that combines $5 billion for President Trump’s border wall with an extension of legal status for “Dreamers” and people fleeing conflict or natural disasters back home could “save the day in the Senate” and reopen the government. “We need to start talking again,” the Republican told CNN’s State of the Union. “To my Democratic friends: There will never be a deal without wall funding.” He said in return, immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children should be eligible for legal status and authorization to work for three years...

FULL TITLE: LINDSEY GRAHAM BERATES DEMOCRATS FOR ACTING ‘LIKE CHILDREN’ ON BORDER WALL FUNDING, SAYS TRUMP SHOULD ‘BREAK ‘EM NOW’ South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham on Friday berated Democrats who refuse to compromise with President Trump on border wall funding. Fox News host Shannon Bream introduced Graham as having “three words for Republicans on the border wall, ‘let’s dig in,'” then asked the South Carolina senator where things are headed next. WATCH:

Six GOP Senators briefed Jared Kushner and President Donald Trump’s top congressional aide about a plan to swap two amnesties in exchange for border-wall funding. The six GOP Senators included Graham, North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander, Ohio’s Rob Portman, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, and Maine’s Susan Collins. The Senators’ draft offer to the Democrats, however, also includes incentives sought by GOP-aligned business groups, such as an expansion of the H-2B blue collar visa-worker program. Few Democrats support the H-2B visa program but its inclusion could encourage GOP legislators to ignore protests from the GOP’s pro-American base. Several GOP Senators...

A Mexican national wanted for double homicide in Mexico was admitted to the United States through the H-2B visa program, whereby thousands of low-skilled foreign workers are brought in every year to take blue-collar American jobs.

Brian Friend sat at his kitchen table nursing a Friday-night beer this spring when he realized he would need to cancel $80,000 in landscaping contracts because he couldn’t hire enough workers. “It was a low point,” said the 42-year-old Mr. Friend, who runs Sylvan Gardens Landscape LLC in Pittsburgh. Like landscapers across the country, Mr. Friend has faced a severe labor shortage this year, spurred by low levels of unemployment and high demand for visas under the foreign seasonal-worker program known as H-2B. Higher wages and added bonuses haven’t attracted more workers, some landscapers say. Richard Cafaro, owner of family-run...

For nearly 25 years, Donnie and Michelle Massie have been on the ride of their life, traveling with their family-run carnival, Alpine Amusement, across the Midwest. But now they say it may come to an end. The Massies, like other seasonal American businesses including landscaping and crabbing, have for years relied on a federal seasonal worker program — known as H-2B visas — to keep their midway moving. But this year, they were denied the 44 visas they requested to bring in their usual workers from Mexico and South Africa. SNIP In an unprecedented move, the Trump administration shifted the...

The Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Labor (DOL) announced an agreement Tuesday to work together in cracking down on companies that "discriminate" against U.S. workers by hiring foreign workers. The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and the Labor Department will start sharing information on employers, refer issues to the appropriate officials at each department and offer training to each other’s staff under the agreement. Acting Assistant General John Gore said in a statement that the agreement will help the civil rights division’s “ability to identify employers the favor temporary visa holders over U.S. workers who can do the job.” “Employers should...

The H-2B visa-worker program imports roughly 66,000 seasonal workers each year, allowing seasonal companies to lower wages for American seasonal workers and for year-round staff and supervisors. The new amendment will allow CEOs to hire H-2B workers from the two prior years without counting them under the 66,000 annual cap. That legal trick will give CEOs a population of up to 198,000 H-2B workers to help lower wages for a larger number of Americans — even though wages are climbing very slowly in the current good economy, and many younger Americans are far worse off than their parents. The proposed...

Mar-a-Lago seeks to hire 40 foreign waiters and waitresses under the H-2B visa program, which allows American employers to hire foreigners on a seasonal basis if there is not a sufficient supply of qualified Americans.

Trump: "For the farmers its going to get really good. We're going to let your guestworkers come in, because we have to have strong borders, but we have to let your workers in.....But we're gonna let them in because you need them....Guestworkers, don't we agree? We have to have them."

Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen raised the cap on H-2B visas after determining there were not enough qualified US workers to meet the needs of American employers, the department said. The same situation occurred last year, although Homeland Security did not grant extra visas until July.

The new spending bill covering the remainder of the fiscal year includes a provision to again allow the Department of Homeland Security to exceed the annual cap on admissions of unskilled non-agricultural workers. This step, if fully implemented by USCIS, potentially would add as many as 63,000 additional H-2B guest workers next year, nearly doubling the size of this program.

President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort has been granted 70 visas to bring in foreign workers for the winter season, The Palm Beach Post reports. That’s a 9 percent increase from last year, when Mar-a-Lago hired 64 workers under the H-2B visa program. The new visas will go to 20 foreign cooks, 35 waiters and 15 maids and housekeepers for the 2017-18 tourist season, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. They’ll earn hourly wages from $10.33 (for the cleaners) to $13.34 (for the cooks). The temporary visas allow them to work from October 2017 to the end of May 2018. A hallmark of Trump’s presidential...

The cap that President Trump has refused to lift on H-2B visas has forced companies all over the United States to do the unthinkable and hire American workers! What’s worse is that they are complaining that they have to pay American workers more…Tell me again; didn’t someone say that immigration was good for Americans? Is this not irrefutable evidence that the low-skilled (or living in low-opportunity areas) workers are being squeezed out of the job market by workers who are willing to take a lower wage? Isn’t this known as wage-suppression? The fact that employers are hiring people as seasonal...

The latest 1,305-page draft House appropriations bill for 2018 uses a bureaucratic trick on page 732 to help employers cut wages for foreign H-2B seasonal workers — and indirectly, also cut wages for American workers. “Republicans in Congress still haven’t got the message that voters sent last November,” said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for NumbersUSA. She continued: