By Nancy Matthis at ADMC.

Yesterday the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 17-12 to add Sen. Diane Feinstein’s five-year amnesty for agricultural workers to the Iraq supplemental spending bill. A vote to pass this could come as soon as today. From Yahoo! News:

A supplemental appropriations bill intended to provide funding for the war effort in Iraq is being used to promote amnesty for illegal aliens and more low-wage guest workers for powerful business interests. The addition of two amendments to the Iraq War Supplemental Appropriations bill will mean that in order to provide emergency funding for our troops in Iraq, senators will be forced to approve an illegal alien amnesty and expand guest worker programs that harm American workers.

The Senate Appropriations Committee today included an amendment offered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that would grant a five-year amnesty to 1.35 million illegal aliens working in agriculture, plus their spouses and children, and allow agribusiness to freeze wages for new guest workers at 2007 levels for the next three years. The five-year amnesty would likely be a prelude to permanent legalization for these illegal aliens.

A second amendment adopted by the committee, sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), would vastly increase the number of unskilled H-2B guest workers permitted to work in this country. The Mikulski amendment would reinstate the exemption for returning H-2B workers from numerical caps on the program.

What we witnessed today in the Senate Appropriations Committee is a cynical attempt to use Americans support for our men and women in Iraq to advance blatant special interest legislation that benefits powerful business lobbies, charged Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Tying amnesty for illegal aliens and still more cheap labor for powerful business interests to support for our troops in Iraq is an unconscionable abuse of the appropriations process.

Roy Beck, of NumbersUSA, said:

At today’s markup of the Iraq supplemental appropriations bill, the Senate Appropriations Committee committed an outrageous act of disrespect for our men and women in uniform and to the citizens of this country by adopting an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that gives amnesty to illegal-alien agricultural workers….

A vote by the full Senate may occur as early as tomorrow, so please contact your Senators now to urge them to work to strip the amnesty from the Iraq spending bill on the floor, as well as the other amendments increasing immigration levels…..

Steve Elliot, Steve Elliott, President of the Grassfire Alliance, notes:

…. the bill would provide legal status to 1.35 million illegal aliens working in agriculture by granting them five-year visas.

Tentatively called the Emergency Agriculture Relief Act of 2008, this is a slight-of-hand, scaled-down version of Feinstein’s AgJobs amnesty bill that she had previously introduced….

… this amendment is just another attempt by the amnesty crowd to do away with our borders. We must be strong and active to short-circuit this latest underhanded attempt….

We are urging all of our ADMC readers who are opposed to amnesty for illegal aliens to telephone, fax and email their senators expressing opposition to this legislation. Support for our troops should not be held hostage to a partisan political agenda.

Telephone Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.

Go here to send an email to your two United States Senators.

Here’s a copy-and-paste email that you can use if you want to save time:

Please oppose Sen. Feinstein’s illegal agricultural worker amnesty!

Please strip the amnesty from the Iraq spending bill on the floor, as well as the other amendments increasing immigration levels.

I am outraged that any Senator would try to sneak this through after an overwhelming majority of Americans expressed their opposition to amnesty for illegal aliens last summer.