Inside the enormous amount of documents related to the Trade Promotion Authority agreement outed by Wikileaks are important details that reveal that Republicans who vote for the agreement, which would put deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) onto the fast track, would unwittingly also be agreeing to a massive expansion of the executive authority of President Obama with regard to immigration.
The immigration chapter went unmentioned by most of the mainstream media during its coverage of the Wikileaks story; however, Breitbart News claims to have found that the deal would actually alter existing laws relating to US immigration. The president is currently trying to get fast-track authority from Congress with regard to international trade agreements. The TiSA (Trade in Services Act) is far more secretive in nature than the TPP, with no draft text available for Capitol Hill lawmakers to review.
Around ten pages of the document relating to TiSA specifically involve immigration. “The existence of these ten pages on immigration in the Trade and Services Agreement make it absolutely clear in my mind the administration is negotiating immigration – and for them to say they are not … they have a lot of explaining to do based on the actual text in this agreement,” says Numbers USA’s director of government relations, Rosemary Jenks.
If Congress passes TPA, the president would be able to finalize all three trading agreements without the need for input from Congress. The TPA was passed by the Senate last month.