Jay Walley is pretty reliable (I've met with him on several occasions). He writes regularly for Range Magazine working as a property rights advocate and has reported on on the infiltration of Arab nationals across our southern border for WorldNet Daily.
So, Jay does have a stake in his credibility. Whether or not he is right in this instance I cannot say.
Chile, Singapore Pacts Advance in U.S. Congress
Thu July 17, 2003 06:11 PM ET
By Doug Palmer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A pair of new U.S. free trade agreements with Chile and Singapore advanced with strong bipartisan support in Congress on Thursday, despite provisions on immigrant workers that prompted several senators to ask the Bush administration to pull the pacts.
The House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee voted 32-5 to approve the Singapore agreement and 33-5 to approve the Chile pact. The action sends both agreements to the House floor for an expected vote next week.
Chile's ambassador to the United States Andres Bianchi expressed surprise at the lopsided margin. "I thought it was going to be a tighter vote. It is very positive and I think it augurs well for what may happen next week," he said.
The Senate Finance Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee also approved the pacts, sending them to the Senate floor.
The agreements are the first the Bush administration has negotiated under a trade promotion authority law passed last year. That legislation allows the White House to strike trade deals that Congress can approve or reject but not change.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-4 in favor of the pacts. But several senators strongly objected to a provision providing visas for business professionals, up to 5,400 from Singapore and 1,400 from Chile, to enter the United States each year. They urged the White House to renegotiate the pacts and drop the visa provision.
At time when the U.S. unemployment rate is at 6.4 percent and many unemployed technology workers are complaining of visa program abuses, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat warned of the consequences of the more liberal immigration provisions.
Meanwhile, top Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee said they were satisfied with recent changes made to implementing legislation to address concerns about the visa program. But they told the administration not to include similar measures in future trade pacts.
A total of nine Democrats on the Ways and Means panel voted for the Singapore agreement and ten for the Chile pact. However, they warned that environmental and labor provisions of the two agreements should not be used as a model for a proposed trade pact with Central American countries.
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=3112066