It should go without saying that people who are in the U.S. illegally should not be eligible for jobs in the federal government. But apparently it needs to be said — at least to liberals in Congress.
An amendment added by Rep. [score]Pete Aguilar[/score] (D-Calif.) to the Appropriations Committee’s Fiscal Year 2018 Financial Services Bill qualifies “dreamers” for federal employment. Specifically, the amendment adds language allowing individuals authorized to be employed under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program [Obama’s Dreamer executive order]. The amendment was adopted on a voice vote.
As the committee is composed of 30 Republicans and only 22 Democrats, at least five Republicans had to vote for the amendment for it to be passed. But because it was approved via a voice vote, we will never know which Republicans those were.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
It used to be that government jobs weren’t great because they paid less than private sector jobs. But that’s all changed. Government salaries are now similar to comparable private sector jobs, and they have great benefits and job security. A government employee effectively has to kill someone to get fired (even then they will probably get off with a warning).
Now that the damage has been done, Rep. [score]Tom Graves[/score] (R-Ga.) has been joined other Republicans in spearheading an effort to strip the amendment from the bill before it reaches the House floor. They are trying to convince the House Rules committee to declare Rep. Pete Aguilar’s amendment improper or out-of-order. The ruling will allow a congressman to request a floor debate and a vote on that particular amendment, which if agreed to by the majority of the House, will remove the amendment from the bill.
If the bill does get stripped, look for [score]Nancy Pelosi[/score] to call House Republicans bigots and Senate Minority Leader [score]Chuck Schumer[/score] to start crying. Let’s just hope that a vote on the amendment is not handled via a voice vote so Americans can tell which members of congress support the rule of law and believe federal jobs should only go to people who are here legally, and which do not.
Cross-posted at The Lid
