Wikileaks reveals immigration provisions in trade bill. Didn't Paul Ryan say these provisions were an "urban legend"? http://t.co/HNFa7lKdzO
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) June 10, 2015
Yes, he did. And the White House confirmed it, as you can see from these NewsMax links:
Opponents of giving the Obama administration broad authority to negotiate a trans-Pacific trade deal, including Republican senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, are pushing a new argument: It could trigger a flood of immigrants into the country.So what's the substance of this urban legend? From FAIR's immigrationReform.com websiteSessions’ argument – essentially, that the administration could use the authority to expand immigration – was dismissed as an “urban legend” by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, whose panel oversees trade.
Trade pact foes: Deal could cause flood of immigrants
GOP leaders and White House officials are working to douse the latest threat to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
By Seung Min Kim, Politico, May 5, 2015
On June 3, WikiLeaks released parts of the TISA (Trade in Services Agreement), which is related to the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) agreement. However, it is still a separate agreement and would be ratified separately. One of the TISA annexes/sub-sections they posted covers “Movement of Natural Persons”, linked here: https://wikileaks.org/tisa/The focus of the Movement of Natural Persons annex appears to be business visitors and intra-company transfers. Most of the proposed agreement deals with standards for visa applications (30-day deadlines for processing, fee schedules, etc.).
There are red flags throughout the document including:
Secret Immigration Provisions of Trade Deal Revealed by Wikileaks, By Karl Filippini, June 4, 2015
- A prohibition on “Economic Needs” testing, aka, labor market certification on B-1/L-1 visitors;
- Creating a presumption that all spouses of L-1/B-1 visitors who stay for 12 months should also get visas;
- The proposal appears to forbid mandatory face to face visa interviews as burdensome;
- The language about “independent professionals” is very non-specific and it could be an attempt to allow self-petitioning;
- Finally, the total impact is uncertain because even after the agreement is signed every signatory needs to publish a schedule of industry sectors that they will allow business visitors, contractual service professionals and independent professionals to enter.