Alabama Senate candidate Katie Britt releases immigration platform, pledging to put American workers first

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FIRST ON FOX: Alabama Republican Senate candidate Katie Britt on Tuesday released a broad immigration platform that targets both legal and illegal immigration in an effort to "put American workers and Alabama families first" – just as immigration and border security issues look set to be a top issue for the 2022 midterms.

Britt is vying for the Republican nomination for the Senate race that will fill the seat of retiring Sen. Richard Shelby -- for whom she worked as chief of staff. The race was recently shaken up when former President Donald Trump withdrew his backing of frontrunner Rep. Mo Brooks.

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Britt’s immigration policy platform, obtained first by Fox News, outlines a series of measures to not only target illegal immigration, but also to target "stagnant wage growth" that she attributes in part to mass legal immigration created by the overhauls in the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act – championed by then-Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.

"This legislation removed common-sense numerical caps and created a chain-migration system, leading to more than one million immigrants entering America every single year," Britt says in the platform. "This has driven down the wages of Alabamians, especially those without college degrees."

"America’s immigration policies have been good for foreigners who want to come to America. But they have been bad for American workers. That needs to change," she says.

Among the policies outlined by Britt are a number of measures to significantly reduce legal immigration "to a sensible level" and prioritize skill-based immigration over family-based immigration. 

Britt calls for the overhaul of guest worker programs such as the controversial H-1B high-skilled worker program – which critics say is abused by Big Tech companies to bring in cheap foreign labor to replace higher-paid American workers. Britt says the programs "depress wages and rob American workers of job opportunities."

Oct 3, 2021: Alabama Republican Senate candidate and honorary starter, Katie Britt  is introduced on stage during pre-race ceremonies prior to the NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Alabama. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

Her platform calls for businesses to be required to use E-Verify -- a favored program by immigration hawks that allows businesses to check whether their employees have legal status in the U.S. She also calls for changes to the EB-5 investor visa program, tapping into concerns that the program allows for rich investors in countries like Russia and China to access green cards. The program was recently re-authorized with reforms by the omnibus spending bill. 

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Separately her platform promises to support the RAISE Act, a measure introduced by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., during the Trump administration that includes reforms to cut the number of green cards in half and focus the system on merit-based admissions. Former President Donald Trump called that legislation "the most significant reform to our immigration system in a half century." That bill would prioritize workers who speak English, are highly-skilled and have job offers, and eliminate the Diversity Visa program.

Britt also promises to introduce companion bills in Senate to the House’s Birthright Citizenship Act -- which limits birthright citizenship to those born to U.S. citizens or legal immigrants -- and the American Tech Workforce Act --which would drastically reform the H-1B visa program with provisions to raise wages and end the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program.

"On my first day in office, I will take specific steps to not only secure our border, but also reform our immigration system to put American workers and Alabama families first," Britt said in a statement.

Britt's platform is the latest example of how certain parts of the Republican Party are increasingly embracing more hawkish immigration policies not just on the border -- but on the wider immigration system as a whole.

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It’s something that groups that call for lower levels of immigration overall have been urging Republican lawmakers and candidates to do for years -- tying high levels of legal immigration to flat wage growth.

"Illegal aliens and guest workers don’t do jobs Americans won’t do, they accept wages that Americans reject," RJ Hauman, head of government relations at the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) told Fox News. "And the reason wages are low is because the cheap foreign labor supply continues unabated." 

"It’s a self-perpetuating cycle that needs to be broken with true immigration reforms, not just a couple of border security policy changes," he said. "That is the ticket to political success and a more prosperous America."