Eli Kantor is a labor, employment and immigration law attorney. He has been practicing labor, employment and immigration law for more than 36 years. He has been featured in articles about labor, employment and immigration law in the L.A. Times, Business Week.com and Daily Variety. He is a regular columnist for the Daily Journal.
Telephone (310)274-8216; eli@elikantorlaw.com. For more information, visit beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com and and beverlyhillsemploymentlaw.com
As the omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus spreads throughout the country at astronomic rates, the United States is bracing itself for a winter surge. Federal officials have implored the public to get vaccinated, and if eligible, to receive a booster shot — now one of the few known ways to mitigate the effects of the omicron variant. Public health officials have warned us all that without prudent action, the rapid spread of COVID-19 will soon overwhelm our local medical resources.
The Biden administration’s plea to take robust preventative steps against COVID-19, however, seems lost on its own Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE currently detains more than 21,000 people each day who are awaiting adjudication of their civil immigration proceedings in approximately 200 facilities nationwide. Through its failure to act, ICE has created detention conditions that present a completely foreseeable public health disaster in the making.
Over the course of the pandemic, ICE’s failure to provide basic safeguards like masks, soap and tests to people in detention has led to multiple superspreader outbreaks around the country. Earlier in the pandemic, COVID-19 spread in immigration detention facilities at rates 20 times higher than in the general public, leading to more than 31,000 people contracting the virus. That was before the even more highly contagious omicron variant, which poses an even greater threat.
Recent evidence shows how quickly the omicron variant can spread in a detention setting: in the space of three days alone, the percentage of people testing positive at Rikers Island Jail went from 1 percent to 9.5 percent the next day, and then to 17 percent.
Even more worrisome is ICE’s failure to develop any nationwide plan to provide COVID-19 booster shots to people held in detention. Two months ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that all people in high-risk settings like detention centers should receive booster shots, but ICE’s current COVID-19 policies make no mention whatsoever about the provision of booster shots. An ICE official recently confirmed that the agency had no plan in place to identify detained people who need booster shots and offer them shots on a system-wide basis, or to provide any education about boosters to people in detention.
The result: Immigrants held in detention centers across the country have reported that they have not received booster shots, even upon request. The limited flow of information into detention centers, moreover, also means that some detained people have no idea of the importance of a booster shot, or only learned the importance of and their eligibility for booster shots from advocacy groups.
The danger of ICE’s indifference to the welfare of immigrants in its custody is even more stark given the agency’s troubled rollout of COVID-19 vaccines. Last year, ICE failed to adopt a comprehensive plan to provide vaccines to those in its custody. Its own COVID-19 policies did not even mention the provision of vaccines until 10 months after vaccines became available, and two months after half the U.S. population had been vaccinated. ICE’s heavy reliance on the less-effective Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which provides little to no protection against omicron, makes even more urgent the need to provide booster shots, particularly with mRNA vaccines, to the thousands of people in ICE detention. ICE must immediately ensure that detained people are provided with vaccines and booster shots, with accessible education about the importance of the vaccine.
Most importantly, ICE should immediately begin a rapid and comprehensive push to decrease the number of people held in immigration detention, and release as many people as possible to protect them — and surrounding communities — from these dangerous conditions. ICE has the full legal authority and continuing responsibility to do so, particularly for people who are medically vulnerable to serious illness from COVID-19. ICE detention facilities are already short-staffed; the spread of the omicron variant will only make things worse.
ICE can and must act quickly and seriously to avert the harm and suffering that will result from this next wave of COVID-19. The question is whether ICE will do so.
Eunice Cho is a senior staff attorney with the ACLU National Prison Project.
For more information contact us at http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/index.html
For Luis Rodriguez, it seems like change for immigrants like himself could still happen despite another setback to exclude immigration reform as part of an expansive social and environmental bill.
“The momentum is still there because of this decision,” Rodriguez said. “We can still push for citizenship, and I feel like it’s been one of those seasons where I can finally see change happening as far as obtaining something greater than just DACA — which is temporary — and something more stable like citizenship.”
Rodriguez and other immigration advocates gathered Friday at Federal Plaza in the Loop, urging Illinois Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth to disregard the recent Senate parliamentarian decision to remove immigration reform from the “Build Back Better” bill. The advocates, who held signs stating “We’ve waited too long,” argue that Durbin and other Democratic leaders should still push ahead toward creating a path for immigrants to one day obtain naturalized citizenship.
The advocates plan to join a rally scheduled for Saturday outside of the James R. Thompson Center in the Loop to continue to push for inclusion of immigration reform in the Build Back Better bill. The latest proposal would have allowed immigrants who have lived in the U.S. since at least 2010 to apply for two, five-year work permits.
In a statement, Durbin and other senators stated that they “strongly disagree with the Senate parliamentarian’s interpretation of our immigration proposal, and we will pursue every means to achieve a path to citizenship in the Build Back Better Act.”
For months, advocates in Chicago have pushed for immigration reform to be included in the social and environmental bill, staging a student walkout and protesting outside of Durbin’s home in Chicago.
Glo Harn Choi, a community organizer with the HANA Center, was among a group of immigration advocates who in November temporarily blocked a portion of the roadway along Ida B. Wells Drive near U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s offices in Chicago. On Friday, Choi told the crowd gathered at the Federal Plaza that undocumented immigrants like himself couldn’t wait any longer for relief.
“If they expect us to deliver for them during the elections, we need them to deliver for us in Congress,” he said.
Though Rodriguez isn’t allowed to vote, he told the crowd that he made calls and went door-to-door urging others to vote in hopes it would lead to immigration reform.
The 21-year-old is studying architecture, but he will soon have to take a break from school to raise money to continue his education.
“If I was able to get a green card, that would improve the way of living so much because I would be able to apply for financial assistance if I need it for school,” he said. “I would be able to travel, visit my family members, study abroad, do all these things that have been hindered because of the inability to travel because I’m undocumented.”
Elvia Malagón’s reporting on social justice and income inequality is made possible by a grant from The Chicago Community Trust.
For more information contact us at http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/index.html
Salil Choudhary’s American dream started in India. Choudhary completed his degree at Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh in the mid-1990s, when political and business leaders were consumed with the pending threat of Y2K. Demand for software programmers who could prevent a worldwide systems meltdown was exploding, but America wasn’t producing enough engineers to meet the need. A few years earlier, in 1990, George H.W. Bush had introduced a new temporary work visa called an H-1B, which allowed companies to hire foreign workers for specialty occupations — jobs requiring “highly specialized knowledge” and a bachelor’s degree. As the turn of the millenium approached, businesses began flocking to the program, and Choudhary became one of tens of thousands of H-1B workers hired to work in the U.S. In 2010, he became a citizen.
Now, more than 20 years after moving to the U.S., he is skeptical of the visa program that brought him here. “It’s a big scam,” Choudhary said.
He isn’t alone in that assessment. I spoke with current and former H-1B holders, U.S. workers, union reps, academics, lobbyists, recruiters and immigration lawyers on both sides of the political spectrum. While they differed on the specifics, many said that the program is used not to fill labor shortages, as corporations insist, but to cut costs. Critics say that businesses regularly game the system to pay H-1B visa holders below market wages, both exploiting foreign workers and stacking the deck against American job seekers.
As a candidate,President Joe Biden promised reform, saying“high skilled temporary visas should not be used to disincentivize recruiting workers already in the U.S. for in-demand occupations.” Now in office, his administration isconsidering increasing the wages companies have to pay H-1B workers, which would reduce the incentive for companies to hire foreign workers. This summer, it quietly — and unsuccessfully —defended in court a Trump-era rulethat would have replaced the lottery system currently used to allocate visas with one that prioritizes the highest-paying jobs. Both Democratic senator Dick Durbin of Illinois and Republican senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa had long been calling for the change, saying in a joint letter that the “H-1B visa program is greatly in need of reform.”
But full scale reform is going to prove tricky for a president who campaigned as a champion for both workers and immigrants. Because while many pro-labor groups say the program lines the pockets of the likes of Google and Facebook at the expense of American workers, immigration advocates, along with business interests, oppose measures to rein it in, saying that doing so will hurt American competitiveness by narrowing access to a badly needed pipeline of high-skilled talent. Politically, H-1B reform is pegging two powerful Democratic constituencies against each other. Meanwhile, getting anything through a sharply divided Congress won’t be easy.
In 2015, the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of unions in the country, released a report castigating Walmart for its reliance on the H-1B program “to meet the company’s routine needs for information technology (IT) labor, potentially displacing U.S. workers.” The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), a labor union, has urged Congress not to expand the H1-B program because of “widespread abuse.” (The AFL-CIO declined to comment for this article.)
On the other side, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) has said that increasing the wage scale for foreign workers would hurt American businesses. “Especially in an economy like we have now, where there is a skills gaps and jobs that aren't being fulfilled, I think the H-1B program really helps to address those needs,” said SharvariDalal-Dheini, government relations director at AILA.
Though reforms to high-skilled worker programs tend to be overshadowed by more high-profile immigration issues such as protecting Dreamers and creating a path to legalization for undocumented residents, H-1B reform could drastically change the landscape of business and immigration in the U.S. There are roughly 600,000 H-1B visa holders in the country, the vast majority from China and India. Most of these jobs are in tech, but companies can also use the program to hire, say, Spanish-language teachers or doctors with special skills.
So far, Biden has walked a fine political line, not saying too much but embracing some moderate reforms behind the scenes — trying to navigate what Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor of immigration law practice at Cornell University calls “a political conundrum for the administration.”
“It seems like Biden is trying to thread the needle here,” said Varun Nikore, executive director of the AAPI Victory Alliance, a super PAC dedicated to the political mobilization of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. “Because not only did he campaign on immigration reform, but he was probably one of the most pro labor candidates, and presidents, we've had in a while.”
The Labor Shortage Puzzle
Proponents of the H1-B program say that U.S. firms need access to foreign STEM talent in order to remain competitive, an argument that hinges on the existence of a domestic labor shortage in the tech world. Unemployment in the tech sector is significantly lower than it is for the economy overall, which business groups say is evidence that domestic tech workers are doing pretty well and foreign workers are mostly filling demand above and beyond what the domestic workforce can supply.
The problem is, historically it’s not clear that there has been a labor shortage in tech. Skeptics point to the fact that median wages in the sector haven’t increased everywhere in the country, or all that dramatically. “What happens when there's something in short supply?” said Ron Hira, an associate professor of political science at Howard University and research associate with the pro-labor Economic Policy Institute (EPI). “You have a price mechanism. In this case, it would be wages. So, anything in shortage you'd see wages going through the roof.” The fact that there haven’t been dramatic wage spikes, he says, suggests that claims of labor shortages in the U.S. are overblown.
Instead, Hira and others believe that corporations have become accustomed to paying below market wages through use of the H1-B program.Employers are required to pay H-1B workers the higher of either the actual wage paid to a worker in a comparable role at their company, or the average wage for similar workers based on occupation, geography and experience. Employers select this “prevailing wage” from four levels set by the Department of Labor.
But an analysis by EPI found that, in 2019, employers certified 60 percent of all H-1B jobs at the two lowest levels — leading to questions about whether corporations were classifying these jobs at artificially low levels to avoid paying higher wages.
“We suspect there is misclassification going on,” said Faraz Khan, a legislative representative and researcher with IFPTE. The alternative, he said, is that employers are actually hiring H-1B workers at the lowest skill rungs. “Then the question becomes why are we not creating a policy that encourages employers to fill those lower skill jobs in the domestic labor market."
Wages can be pushed down by other factors, too. H-1B visas are held by employers, which means there are restrictions on the free movement of labor. Foreign workers can’t simply leave the company if their wages aren’t competitive. “I felt like I had no option to negotiate whatsoever,” said a Pleasanton, Calif.-based former H-1B worker and now-green card holder who didn’t want to be identified for fear of professional repercussions. He guesses he was paid 25 to 35 percent less than his domestic counterparts as an H-1B worker.
“People who have been here for 10 years, or even some people who were born and brought up here who’ve been in good jobs making six figures, suddenly they’re losing their jobs just because [their employers] found somebody from India who would do it for $50,000,” said Choudhary.
Critics of the current program say this wage discrepancy is a powerful incentive for employers to avoid hiring U.S. workers. Companies aren't required to look for a U.S. worker to fill a job before pursuing an H-1B unless they are “H-1B dependent” (their proportion of H-1B workers surpasses a certain threshold). And the H-1B program is so popular with employers that since fiscal year 2014, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has received more H-1B petitions in the first five days of filing than the entire annual cap of 65,000 (an additional 20,000 are available for foreign students graduating with a master’s degree or higher from a qualifying U.S. institution). According to previous estimates by the Department of Labor, the cost to companies if the administration were to increase the wage scale for H-1B workers would be well into the billions.
Some argue that the H1-B visa program lifts all boats: There is research showing that an increase in foreign STEM workers as a share of a city’s total employment increases wages for domestic workers more broadly. But for many workers, any aggregate benefits of the program are far outweighed by the costs. In 2015, Disney famously fired over 200 U.S. workers, some of whom said they were made to train their H1-B-holder replacements.
“There are so many people who live for this issue, who vote on this issue,” said Sara Blackwell, an employment attorney who represented workers in the Disney case and campaigned for Trump (though she later said she felt “betrayed” by the former president because he didn’t do enough to reform the H1-B visa program). “But they’re too afraid to say it out loud.”
“A Dirty Industry”
One of the biggest arguments made by tech and other companies against making it harder for foreigners to come in on an H-1B visa is that it would dissuade the “best and brightest” from coming to the U.S. But several of the people I spoke with said that’s not always the case. “It’s a mixed bag,” said the Pleasanton, Calif.-based former H-1B worker about the caliber of the H-1B visa holders he worked with.
In recent years, H-1Bs have been awarded by lottery because the number of visa applicants has far exceeded the annual cap. Immigration advocates say that this shows the scope of the need for high-skilled foreign workers. But critics say that has led to a proliferation of mediocre workers.
There’s also the problem of players who want to cheat the system.
By far the biggest purveyors of the H-1B system are large corporations and third party staffing firms — Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and others — that bid for projects at corporations like Walgreens and Facebook, which rely heavily on foreign workers. These staffing firms recruit and sponsor workers under H-1B visas and then contract them out to U.S.-based companies in need of talent.
Often, these arrangements fill legitimate gaps in the labor force and stay well within ethical and legal boundaries. But some staffing firms,under pressure to gain a competitive advantage, resort to illegal practices. To obtain an H1-B visa, workers are supposed to have a job already lined up. But firms have been known to hire workers without a job match, so that they have the talent ready to deploy when bidding on projects.
If a job doesn’t materialize, less scrupulous firms may dock the worker’s pay or refuse to pay them altogether, leaving them incomeless in a foreign country. Though the practice — known as benching — is illegal, foreign workers eager to remain in the U.S. often feel they have no recourse to recoup what they’re owed. “They’re really after people who are vulnerable,” said the worker from Pleasanton.
Another way third-party staffing firms seek to get a leg up on the competition is by encouraging foreign workers to artificially inflate or outright lie about their qualifications. A 36-year old computer scientist from India who we’ll call Vikram — he did not want to be identified because he still works in the industry—said a staffing firm in Newark, New Jersey urged him to say he had 5-10 years of experience, even though he had just graduated college (he refused). Robert Bouchard, who worked for years as a recruiter at IT staffing firms and now consults and podcasts under the name the H-1B Guy, said that he regularly came across resumes that exaggerated or fabricated an H-1B worker’s skills. (Often H1-B visa workers move through a chain of staffing firms before being contracted out to a specific company.)“I’d say only one out of four resumes that you get from these third party companies is real,” he said.
Another recruiter I spoke with who works for a large staffing firm, but did not want to be identified talking about company business, echoed Bouchard’s experience. “The majority of the resumes I see are bogus,” he said.
“It’s become a very dirty industry,” Choudhary said. “Every rickshaw wallah in India is an SAP consultant now.”
Some of the firmshave been convicted for conspiracy to commit fraud and other charges, but many go undetected. A new report by EPI alleges systematic “wage theft” by HCL, one of the largest IT staffing firms in the country. In an internal strategy presentation released as part of a whistle blower lawsuit, HCL noted that the “cost of local hiring is significantly higher than landed,” (Landed workers are H-1B workers hired abroad and sponsored to come to the U.S.). If HCL is found to have systematically underpaid foreign workers relative to domestic ones, it would likely represent a violation of the “actual wage” rule.
Green Cards, Not Guest Workers
Vikram came into the H-1B program after getting a master’s degree from a U.S. college. He recounted a mangle of bureaucracy, below-market-wages, missed career opportunities and lengthy periods during which he was unable to travel to India to visit his ailing parents — conditions that critics say amount to a kind of indentured servitude.
H-1B visas are good for three years, after which workers may apply for an additional three year extension. After his six years were up, Vikram’s employer initiated the process of applying for a green card for him, but, because of an enormous backlog for people coming from India, the processing time was expected to last at least nine years.
Vikram decided it wasn’t worth it. He still works with his former employers — but now as part of his own business, which he runs from India, charging his American clients half the cost of a U.S. salary.
That so many foreign workers like Vikram spend decades of their careers trapped in the H-1B system reflects its evolution from what was supposed to be a temporary worker program into a backdoor to permanent immigration. But America already has an immigration pathway for highly skilled workers: Employment-based green cards.
“The focus on H-1B, as if it were the way that we get skilled workers into our economy — that's an artifact of the misuse of the H-1B visa,” said Bruce Morrison, a former Democratic congressman who wrote the legislation that created the H1-B program. “The H-1B program is a non immigrant program. And non immigrant by definition is supposed to be temporary.”
His solution is to expand the current limit of 140,000 employment-based green cards per year. “We still have the same numerical limitations that we had in 1990,” said Morrison. Biden’s immigration bill includes a provision that would increase the number of employment-based green cards to 170,000.
“People who have green cards have a right to become citizens,” says Morrison. “They get to vote, they have the same rights as citizens, they can't be exploited in a legal sense. These are real values.”
All of this puts Biden in a tricky position. He will have to move cautiously in a contest that pits one powerful faction of his party against another. His “Build Back Better” bill includes provisions to reduce the green card backlog, but at least Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey has dug in, refusing to support the provisions unless relief is also provided for undocumented residents. “We’re not going to take care of business and not take care of the 11 million in some way,” he said. It’s unclear if other Democrats will follow suit, but the intra-party tension could complicate the president’s ability to rally support for his immigration agenda. It’s also far from certain that any immigration provisions will make it into the legislation anyway after the Senate parliamentarian’s review.
H-1B visas are good for three years, after which workers may apply for an additional three year extension. After his six years were up, Vikram’s employer initiated the process of applying for a green card for him, but, because of an enormous backlog for people coming from India, the processing time was expected to last at least nine years.
Vikram decided it wasn’t worth it. He still works with his former employers — but now as part of his own business, which he runs from India, charging his American clients half the cost of a U.S. salary.
That so many foreign workers like Vikram spend decades of their careers trapped in the H-1B system reflects its evolution from what was supposed to be a temporary worker program into a backdoor to permanent immigration. But America already has an immigration pathway for highly skilled workers: Employment-based green cards.
“The focus on H-1B, as if it were the way that we get skilled workers into our economy — that's an artifact of the misuse of the H-1B visa,” said Bruce Morrison, a former Democratic congressman who wrote the legislation that created the H1-B program. “The H-1B program is a non immigrant program. And non immigrant by definition is supposed to be temporary.”
His solution is to expand the current limit of 140,000 employment-based green cards per year. “We still have the same numerical limitations that we had in 1990,” said Morrison. Biden’s immigration bill includes a provision that would increase the number of employment-based green cards to 170,000.
“People who have green cards have a right to become citizens,” says Morrison. “They get to vote, they have the same rights as citizens, they can't be exploited in a legal sense. These are real values.”
All of this puts Biden in a tricky position. He will have to move cautiously in a contest that pits one powerful faction of his party against another. His “Build Back Better” bill includes provisions to reduce the green card backlog, but at least Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey has dug in, refusing to support the provisions unless relief is also provided for undocumented residents. “We’re not going to take care of business and not take care of the 11 million in some way,” he said. It’s unclear if other Democrats will follow suit, but the intra-party tension could complicate the president’s ability to rally support for his immigration agenda. It’s also far from certain that any immigration provisions will make it into the legislation anyway after the Senate parliamentarian’s review.
Choudhary, for his part, isn’t holding his breath that things will change for him any time soon. In many ways, his story is both a celebration and a condemnation of the H-1B program. He is a pioneer in his field who was able to bring his talents to the U.S. because of the H-1B program and build a life here.
But as a citizen, he says exploitation of the program has made it harder for him to succeed. “The whole [H1-B] model is to bring people who will happily work for 80 hours a week for less money,” he said. “They want somebody who will say ‘yessir,’ ‘yes ma'am.’” When a client expected him to match the long hours worked by his foreign colleagues for no additional pay, he chose to quit rather than be exploited.
Now, after more than two decades working as a computer scientist in the U.S., he is branching out. “I’ve kind of given up on IT for now,” he said. “I’m trying to do real estate investment.”
For more information contact us at http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/index.html
BY DOUGLAS E. SCHOEN AND CARLY COOPERMAN, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS
The Democratic Party has lost sight of how to build a broad-based coalition, and as a result, is finding itself in an increasingly unelectable and unsustainable position, new polling by Schoen-Cooperman Research shows.
Indeed, our firm’s survey among likely 2022 midterm election voters finds that the Democrats’ political prospects are significantly deteriorating. If the Democratic Party continues down its current ill-fated path of embracing progressive policies while overlooking manifest political realities, we will almost certainly see a landslide G.O.P. victory in 2022.
Voters have grown wary of a Democratic Party that they feel is both ineffective at governing and more attuned to their own priorities than to the concerns of the broader American electorate, our data collectively shows. This is a prevalent overarching sentiment among Independents, a decisive voting bloc, and surprisingly, among a sizeable number of Democrats.
Two-thirds of likely voters overall (66 percent) – including strong majorities of Independents (63 percent) and Democrats (59 percent) —agree that President Biden and national Democrats are not only “out-of-touch with hardworking Americans,” but moreover, that they “have been so focused on passing their own agenda that they’ve been ignoring Americans’ day-to-day concerns, such as the rising prices for goods and gasoline.”
Voters also believe that Biden has not been paying enough attention to the country’s most important problems (53 percent), rather than having the right priorities (38 percent). This assessment is even more prevalent among Independents, 58 percent of whom say Biden has not paid enough attention to the most important problems, versus just 27 percent who say the opposite.
To that end, there is an overwhelming sense that Biden is underperforming on important issues and in key roles and that Democrats are to blame for major crises. Consequently, a majority of voters (51 percent) disapprove of Biden’s overall job performance as president, while 46 percent approve.
As inflation has soared, the economy has become a particular area of vulnerability for Biden and Democrats. A majority of voters now believe that Biden’s economic policies have weakened (52 percent) rather than strengthened (36 percent) the U.S. economy.
Further, 71 percent of voters at least partially blame the Biden administration’s policies for rising inflation — including 79 percent of Independents and nearly one-half (46 percent) of Democrats. And between the two parties, voters overall blame Democrats (48 percent) rather than Republicans (31 percent) for inflation.
Additionally, Democrats trail on another key issue of importance: immigration and controlling the surge of migrants at the Southern U.S. border. Six in 10 voters disapprove of Biden’s management of immigration at the border (60 percent) and a majority of voters also blame Democrats (55 percent) rather than Republicans (22 percent) for the crisis.
And as violent crime surges in many parts of the country — a trend that 89 percent of voters are concerned about — nearly one-half of voters blame Democrats (48 percent), while just 27 percent blame Republicans. Strong majorities also agree that Biden and Democrats are soft on crime (69 percent) and overwhelmingly disapprove (62 percent) of the defund the police movement on the left.
Furthermore, on one of Biden’s core campaign promises — unifying the country — a majority of voters disapprove of the president’s performance (54 percent). Biden’s policies are also seen as more divisive (46 percent) rather than more unifying (38 percent).
Ultimately, our data paints a clear picture of a Democratic Party that no longer knows how to connect with voters absent Donald Trump or a Trump-like foe. As a result, we are seeing a demonstrable pro-Republican trend.
Voters’ preference for party control of the House has swung five points in the G.O.P.’s favor since our national poll in August. By a three-point margin, voters now would prefer to see Republicans (46 percent) rather than Democrats (43 percent) control the House. In August, voters preferred Democratic control by two points (46 percent to 44 percent).
The generic congressional vote has also swung three points in the G.O.P.’s favor. Republicans now lead Democrats by two points (45 percent to 43 percent) in the generic ballot — whereas, in August, Democrats held a one point lead (45 percent to 44 percent). Additionally, when factoring in respondents who are initially undecided but are leaning toward voting for one party, the G.O.P.’s generic vote lead grows to three points (48 percent to 45 percent).
To be sure, Republicans beating Democrats by a margin of just two or three points overall would likely be enough for the G.O.P. to take back the House, given Democrats’ narrow majority as well as the anticipated outcomes of redistricting processes in several states with key races.
The trends that we’ve isolated in our poll — which are corroborated in other public polling — send a resounding message to national Democrats: Find your way back to moderate policies and “kitchen table issues,” or suffer potentially one of the greatest midterm losses of any party in recent history.
Most importantly, Democrats should embrace a more restrained approach to spending that does not involve tax increases, though does include precise and targeted cuts and aid for working people.
Beyond that, the party needs to recognize that voters want a limited and focused amount of government that delivers targeted and practical economic and social policies — stronger borders, fiscally responsible welfare expansion and reasonable climate policies.
Without such a course correction, Democrats are almost certain to be brought down by Republicans in 2022 and 2024 and may find themselves in the minority in Congress for years to come.
Douglas E. Schoen and Carly Cooperman are pollsters and partners with the public opinion company Schoen Cooperman Research based in New York. They are co-authors of the forthcoming book, “America: Unite or Die.”
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House lawmakers are calling on the Biden administration to prioritize assistance to Afghanistan in the face of a crippling economic and humanitarian crisis facing the country.
“No one benefits from a failed state in Afghanistan,” a bipartisan group of 39 lawmakers wrote on Thursday, in a letter to the State and Treasury departments, calling for the release of Afghan assets — which amount to an estimated $9.5 billion — that were frozen in the wake of the Taliban’s takeover of the country in August.
The letter underscores concern in Congress the Biden administration could do more to address the growing crisis in the country. That’s been echoed by former senior U.S. military and diplomatic officials who served in Afghanistan.
“We believe the United States has a reputational interest and a moral obligation in vigorously joining efforts to help the Afghan people preserve at least some of the social and economic gains made over the last twenty years,” 11 former senior officials who commanded American military forces or served as ambassadors or top diplomats — wrote in a column Monday published by the Atlantic Council.
State Department deputy spokesperson Jalina Porter responded to a request for comment by The Hill saying, “We're not going to comment on the congressional correspondence from here."
The Taliban’s sweeping takeover of the country — and the overwhelming, deadly and chaotic exodus of Afghans it triggered amid the U.S. pullout of the country in late August — is one of the darkest stains on President Biden’s foreign policy legacy thus far.
The administration has withheld recognition of the Taliban, which is under sanctions as a specially designated terrorist organization. It does hold, however, unofficial talks with the group's representatives in Doha in an effort to address the ongoing violence against Western-allied Afghans and its repression of women and minorities.
"Our focus right now is to work across the table with them to see what kind of progress can be made," national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Friday speaking at the Council On Foreign Relations. "And in the meantime, to put significant resources as rapidly and efficiently as possible, through every channel we can, outside of the government, including international institutions and nongovernmental organizations."
Lawmakers, former officials, and humanitarian organizations support cutting the Taliban off from the international financial system, but they’re raising alarm that immediate solutions need to be found to address the spiraling crisis in the country, where the United Nations estimates 23 million people are in urgent need of food assistance.
“The situation is really so dire that it should be an all hands on deck response,” said William Byrd, a senior expert on Afghanistan with the U.S. Institute of Peace who last month published a number of options to increase assistance to Afghans while cutting out the Taliban.
He continued that “nobody needs to be talking about recognition, about direct money going to the Taliban, wholesale removal of sanctions and unfreezing of reserves, but a lot more can be done within that policy space.”
Byrd further called for a “a strong and coherent approach by the U.S. government to deal with the crisis as best possible.”
Earl Anthony Wayne, a former ambassador and senior State Department official focused on Afghanistan, said that there is a “lack of boldness” on the part of the administration in addressing the unfolding humanitarian crisis.
“There’s a core of very hard-working people at the State Department, and at the [National Security Council] and Treasury, and other places who are working very hard to try and find ways to get more assistance through,” he said.
“But there’s been a lack of boldness, I would say in the United States, even in working with other partners and allies in opening up more rapidly some of these ways to securely get money and assistance into Afghanistan while keeping it from the Taliban.”
Even the Taliban have issued calls to the U.S. and international community to help prevent the country from falling into a catastrophic collapse.
Amir Khan Muttaqi, the foreign minister for the Taliban’s government in Kabul, urged “mercy and compassion” from the global community, while calling for the U.S. to release the billions of dollars in frozen funds.
“Making Afghanistan unstable or having a weak Afghan government is not in the interest of anyone,” Muttaqi said in an interview with The Associated Press that was published Tuesday.
While Mutaqqi advocates for international recognition of the Taliban and direct access to cash, experts say the so-called foreign minister’s media plea signals an opening for increased humanitarian assistance directly to Afghans.
“I do think that they will be more open to having money come in, in ways that they don’t control because they are seeing how difficult the situation is,” said Wayne, who was also a signatory to the column in the Atlantic Council, where he is a nonresident fellow.
Byrd echoed the urgency.
“We’re talking about days and weeks — if things wait for months to ramp up and respond more, more people will likely die,” he said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, in response to a question about the Taliban’s request, said the billions of dollars in frozen funds are “inaccessible” to the administration, in general because of sanctions against the Taliban, but also because those funds have become the subject of litigation by victims of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
“These legal proceedings cannot be disregarded and have led to the temporary suspension of any movement of the funds through at least the end of the year and quite possibly longer,” she said on Monday.
She added the administration is still grappling with how to provide the frozen funds directly to the Afghan people without benefiting the Taliban.
“We're continuing to review. It's a very complicated and challenging issue. But that's the status and the reason why we have not – there is not any update on that at this point in time,” she said.
The majority of U.S. humanitarian assistance has flowed through the United Nations which continues to operate on the ground in the country. The Biden administration has provided about $474 million over the course of 2021.
Still, the UN is appealing for billions of dollars in aid to support 22 million Afghans in 2022, with the spokesperson for the UN secretary general on Monday saying the global body is calling for $4.4 billion.
The World Food Program said on Dec. 1 that there are “three million children who are at risk of severe hunger and the life-threatening consequences of malnutrition.”
Further, the UN Refugee Agency has raised alarm that 3.5 million displaced people in Afghanistan are in need of urgent assistance amid the freezing winter months, lacking “insulated shelters, warm clothes, insufficient food, fuel for heating, and medical supplies.”
“The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is reaching a crisis,” tweeted Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a former Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan and one of the signatories to the House letter calling on the administration to do more.
“We were in Afghanistan for 20 years. We cannot leave the Afghan people in the hands of a brutal, authoritarian regime.”
The lawmakers proposed in their letter at least five actions the administration can take to assist Afghanistan’s economy and humanitarian needs while also reinforcing accountability for the rights of women, girls and minority communities.
They stressed their belief the U.S. has an obligation to the country, after 20 years of military involvement and democracy building that was wiped out with the Taliban’s ousting of the Western-backed government in Kabul in August.
“Nearly 775,000 American troops served in Afghanistan, and thousands of Americans and Afghans alike gave their lives or were wounded,” the lawmakers wrote. “We have an obligation to honor this service and sacrifice by standing by the Afghan people as they continue the fight for human rights and the future of their country.”
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