Republicans are botching their opportunity. Washington is under their complete control, President Trump’s masterful leadership is guiding the helm, and they still can’t get anything passed. The few bills that Congress has managed to introduce are antithetical to the party’s values.

The House Republicans are expected to approve a massive guest-worker program Wednesday. Americans are struggling to put food on the table yet Congress is looking out for foreigners. They were elected to fix the Democrats’ mistakes, not continue them.

“The H-2C guest-workers would be cheaper than Americans because they would be paid a little above minimum wage. Also, they would not get housing or transport costs, the Earned Income Tax Credit, or even a guarantee of full-time work,” Breitbart reports.

“The guest-worker bill may also deliver cheap replacement workers to urban restaurants because it includes employees who process food ‘for further distribution.’ That term is broad enough to include urban workers who prepare and package bulk food for use in restaurant chains which serve fast food or sandwiches.”

Republicans want to allow over one million low-income, low-skilled foreign workers to enter the country as farm workers. Nevermind the fact that are Americans who are desperately looking for the work.

Their plan is akin to slavery. Instead of forcing employers to pay reasonable wages, they’re allowing them to dictate the terms of the labor market. The immigrant farm workers earn barely enough to survive.

“It might be two families together in a trailer, six or seven people in a room. It can be dismal, but we don’t complain, because we always have in the back of our minds that at any moment, we could face deportation,” one such worker told Modern Farmer earlier this year.

Almost half of America’s agriculture labor force is composed of illegal immigrants and foreign-born workers. Food prices are being artificially lowered. Food isn’t cheap because of America’s abundance, but because of the government’s willingness to turn a blind eye to indentured servitude.

“For far too long, the broken H-2A guest worker program has buried American farmers in red tape and excessive costs without delivering access to a stable and reliable workforce,” said Rep. Robert Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and author of the bill.

“It’s clear that the current program is outdated and broken for American farmers, and it’s well past the time to replace it with a reliable, efficient, and fair program that provides American farmers access to a legal, stable supply of workers, both in the short- and long-term, for seasonal as well as year-round work.”

If farmers need more workers, they should start hiring Americans. It’s not true that Westerners won’t work in the fields, we’re just not willing to do it for below-poverty wages. If the work was paid appropriately, farmers would have no trouble hiring locally.

Instead of $8 an hour, try $15. Try $20. Farm labor is brutal, back-breaking work. Laborers deserve fair compensation just like everyone else.

“The U.S. pork industry is suffering from a serious labor shortage… We commend Congressman Goodlatte for sponsoring this important legislation, which allows undocumented workers already in the United States to continue working in vital agriculture jobs,” National Pork Producers Council President Ken Maschhoff gushed.

“The U.S. pork industry needs a viable agriculture workforce to remain globally competitive… The current visa programs are not working for pork producers or for the broader agriculture community. The Goodlatte bill will rectify this.”

Republicans aren’t in office to pad pork producers’ profits. Americans felt that the government was focusing its interest on big business rather their needs. President Trump was elected because Americans desired change.

The Republican bill isn’t even popular among liberals.

“I don’t see the Democrats being able to support that bill … [because it ensures] quasi-serfdom,” said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

“For both cynical and good reasons, they don’t want the [guest workers] to be indentured serfs to a tied to a job — which they really are — and at the same time, they want to make them citizens so they vote for Democrats.”