More than 150 Democratic-aligned advocacy groups are demanding vast benefits for illegal migrants, including amnesty, asylum, and the thwarting of ICE and the Border Patrol, regardless of the huge damage to Americans.
But their pro-asylum focus clashes with Democrats who are working with business groups. This corporatist group fears that loose asylum rules would restart the televised border and asylum chaos that crippled President Joe Biden’s administration.
“The midterms offered important lessons, but Democrats cannot afford to repeat the immigration mistakes of the Biden years,” reads an X post from Latino advocate Andrea Flores, who is working with FWD.us, a lobbying shop for many wealthy West Coast tech investors.
“Every candidate needs a plan for what comes next,” said Flores, who worked as the group’s vice president for immigration and campaigns from 2023 to 2025. She also worked for President Joe Biden’s administration as it opened the southern border in 2021.
The alliance of 150 progressive and ethnic groups that expressed their demands in a letter to “members of Congress” dated November 9 is mostly outside the network of business-related groups close to the billionaires who fund FWD.us.
The alliance’s November 9 letter argued for mass migration via open borders and sidelining ICE officers:
Congress must prioritize a bold agenda that includes citizenship pathways without unnecessary and harmful compromises, redirects funding away from harmful slush funds to address affordability, advances meaningful reforms and protections for immigrant families, and conducts aggressive oversight of the abuses.
Their statement was focused on the preferences of migrants, not Americans, saying, “Congress must transform our immigration enforcement system to ensure communities [of illegal migrants] never again experience the horrors they are enduring.”
The statement rejects — or ignores — citizens’ needs for a 50-state union that protects their societies and livelihoods from the mass migration sought by Wall Street and investors.
The 150 signers of the letter are a medley of diversity in America, including progressive-run unions and anti-progressive ethnic lobbies for Muslims, Sikhs, Koreans. Haitians, Latinos, and others. These groups want easy asylum rules because asylum is a main gateway for people without job offers or families in the United States.
The member groups include the Hamas-related Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the AFL-CIO’s Economic Policy Institute, the Georgia Hispanic Construction Association, the investor-funded Haitian Bridge Alliance, the Mennonite Central Committee U.S., the National Education Association teachers’ union, the Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, The Sikh Coalition, and anti-Israel United We Dream and We Are CASA.
The alliance’s immigration policy preferences share the outcome of taking power, wealth, and opportunities from the 300 million ordinary Americans who benefit from lower migration and tight borders.
The business-backed groups’ stances on immigration do the same thing, but they favor a different strategy.
They are worried that the progressive agenda will cause another Biden-like rush for the border, accompanied by chaotic scenes on TV and the subsequent election of pro-American legislators in 2028.
“Any Democratic plan needs to address the border,” Flores wrote in a November 13 article at Time.com, adding:
The four governors [of “all four southern border states”] should develop a border security compact that sets shared priorities for state-level border operations, economic development, asylum reform, and preparations for future migration emergencies, and then use that compact to press Congress and the administration for action.
Democrats should push for small and big legislation on all fronts, including amnesties — “a pathway to permanent residence and citizenship” — according to Flores, who grew up in a New Mexico border town alongside other Latinos and Americans.
But Democrats must also push for many extra labor pipelines, she insisted:
Democrats should argue that legalizing undocumented immigrants who have had no chance to access legal status because of a civil immigration violation can be a solution to problems Americans experience every day, from the shortage of workers building new homes to the rising cost of child care. A functioning immigration system should bring in the workers communities need while providing a way for undocumented immigrants already doing those jobs to obtain legal status. These new legal pathways should reflect the needs of the economy, including visas for care workers and construction workers.
…
Democrats should advance legislation giving legal status to the families of service members and challenge Republicans to oppose it. They should do the same for construction workers needed to build new housing. And they should introduce a bill allowing states to request more visas for industries facing labor shortages and shrinking populations, building on legislation introduced by Senators John Curtis and Mark Kelly. Advance existing bills that help keep rural hospitals open by bringing in the doctors and nurses their communities need. Put each proposal before Congress, ask Republicans to sign on, and give Trump the opportunity to sign it. If he refuses, show Americans what they lose by his inaction.
The dangled labor pipelines would create strong economic incentives for many business groups — and some legislators — to lobby in favor of the amnesty sought by Democrats. That clear incentive is needed because GOP and Democratic legislators know that migration’s impact on jobs and wages makes it radioactive for many voters — even though that impact is hidden by establishment reporters.
The federal government already operates many labor pipelines that have quietly shifted millions of jobs, plus enormous wealth and many executive-level careers, to imported foreigners, including Indians, Chinese, and Mexicans. The programs also shift massive wealth from young to old, children to parents, from poor to wealthy, and from wages to stock values.
The labor pipelines include the H-1B, H-2B, H-2A, L-1, F-1/OPT, F-1/CPT, H4EAD, TN, O-1, E-2 and E-3 visa programs. Those programs keep at least 1.5 million migrants in jobs needed by American graduates, encourage illegal migration from India, and transfer enormous wealth to older Americans and Wall Street. They also shifted power toward Democrats in 2026, likely in part because many potential GOP voters are angry at the establishment’s support for their replacement by foreign workers.
Many Democrats, including Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX), are touting the “Dignidad Act” [Dignity Act], which creates a massive amnesty and many labor pipelines. On November 11, she framed the act as a blend of progressive and economic goals:
I am a progressive Democrat. I have very aspirational dreams and hopes for immigration reform. But I am also a pragmatist. And as we continue to have Donald Trump in the White House and without a super majority in the Senate, we need Republican support. So any comprehensive immigration reform must be bipartisan.
I am deeply committed to ensuring that the Dignity Act is reintroduced in 2027. To my incoming freshman colleagues: this is the only bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform bill in the House in over a decade.
“To Republicans and Democrats alike who did not like the Dignity Act [in 2026] because it didn’t meet their goals: we are going to reshape it in the coming weeks,” Escobar said.
Escobar spoke on November 11 at a Capitol Hill event co-hosted by American Business Immigration Coalition Action (ABIC). The group shares resources and events with Flores’ FWD.us lobby. An ABIC subsidiary, American Families United, brings binational spouses in binational couples to lobby the Hill.
Business groups have many reasons to support the Dignidad Act, according to the lead GOP sponsor, Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL). In April 2026, she declared:
When people tell me that I am trying to help big business to have cheap labor, I’m going to answer them: It’s not [just] big business, it’s not only agricultural or construction or hospitality or health care or manufacturing — it’s more … Who else? The farmers, people in the dairy business. We all like milk, right? Well, there are 150,000 jobs available in agriculture right now … Manufacturers! I don’t know anyone in the manufacturing world, but I do know that the National Association of Manufacturers decided to do a public press conference to support [the] Dignidad [bill] … It’s agricultural, construction, hospitality…
There are some GOP legislators who would like to support the Dignidad bill, despite the defeat or retirement of 15 of its 20 Republican supporters in the 2026 election. For example, on November 11, Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN), a cattle farmer, supported a type of caste society where many migrants would work but not be citizens: “…there’s a way…down the middle here: No citizenship but keep people here working.”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.