(UnitedVoice.com) – US presidents have expanded their executive power for decades. However, the Biden Administration appears to be making it a cornerstone of its policy-making efforts. With that in mind, it’s not surprising that the White House lawyers and US Solicitor General spend excessive time defending President Joe Biden’s actions in courthouses scattered from coast to coast.
New DOL Rule
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach (R) recently resisted a new Department of Labor policy that will take effect on June 28, 2024. Two private agricultural entities, Miles Berry Farm and the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, joined the lawsuit with the Attorneys General of 16 other states. They include Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Idaho, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
Multiple State Attorneys General Sue Biden’s Labor Department
On June 11, the Kansas Attorney General’s Office issued a press release announcing the lawsuit over the president’s temporary farm worker rule. Kobach, the private entities, and the state attorneys general filed the civil action (lawsuit) in the US District Court for the Southern District of Georgia’s Brunswick Division. The plaintiffs accused the DOL of granting rights to immigrant farm workers under the H-2A Visa Program that were not afforded to American workers.
The 31-page complaint noted that the new DOL rule, 89 FR 33898, gives foreign H-2A farmworkers collective bargaining rights, paving the way for US farms to import migrant laborers to take jobs from American workers.
The plaintiffs explained that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935 provides those bargaining rights to some American workers. However, Section 2(3) of the NRLA explicitly excluded individuals employed as agricultural laborers, work supervisors, independent contractors, and domestic workers.
The lawsuit claimed the DOL appeared to believe the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) granted the federal agency the authority to defy congressional authority and create 89 FR 33898. The plaintiffs pushed back on that legal theory, arguing that Congress had already determined that agricultural workers don’t have collective bargaining rights.
“Only Congress can rewrite the NLRA,” the complaint stated, adding, “The Defendants cannot do it through the rulemaking process.” The lawsuit also noted that the DOL’s new rule provided “NRLA rights” to foreign workers — “Rights that American farmworkers… do not have under federal law.”
“Once again, Joe Biden is putting America last,” Koback wrote in his press release, adding the president was “giving benefits to foreign workers.” At the same time, Americans struggle to survive the president’s “horrible economy.”
“I stand with American workers,” Koback concluded.
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