What A Jobs-Focused State-of-the-Union Address Ought To Say About Immigration
By Roy Beck, - posted on NumbersUSA
What Pres. Obama says -- or doesn't say -- about immigration will be the easiest tip-off to whether his first priority truly is putting Americans back to work. Or whether his talk about jobs is mainly a political ploy to gain back support from Independent voters. Here is what he should say (be sure to send this fax to President Obama with State of the Union suggestions) . . .
No. 1: Urge Congress to pass the SAVE Act in the next 30 days
Thus far, federal spending to put (or keep) nearly 1 million Americans in jobs has cost between $200,000 and $350,000 per job. (See my earlier blogs on Stimulus jobs vs. opening up jobs held by illegal foreign workers.)
But the SAVE Act could put up to 7 million jobless Americans back to work for a cost of no more than a few hundred dollars per job, and probably for less than $100!
The majority of the 23 million U-6 unemployed Americans lack a college degree and are looking for jobs in construction, service, manufacturing and transportation. Those are exactly the jobs currently being held by an estimated 7 million illegal aliens (not counting those working in agriculture).
Every principle of justice calls for those jobs to be transferred to 7 million unemployed Americans.
The vehicle to make that happen already exists and has more than 100 bi-partisan co-sponsors in Congress. The SAVE Act (H.R. 3308 and S. 1505) is even sponsored from within the President's own Party by Rep. Shuler (D-N.C.) and Sen. Pryor (D-Ark.).
The Save Act would immediately begin phasing in mandatory use of E-Verify for every employer in America. It also would institute a key provision that would identify multiple uses of the same Social Security number, driving out illegal aliens who have used fraudulent and stolen IDs to get a job.
This should be easy for Pres. Obama who believes in the E-Verify system so much that he implemented an executive order last summer that requires every federal contractor to use it to keep illegal aliens out of their jobs.
No. 2: Suspend the visa lottery and chain migration of extended families.
The President should also call on Congress to quickly pass H.R. 878 of Rep. Gingrey (R-Ga.) to end chain migration and H.R. 2305 of Rep. Goodlatte (R-Va.) to end the lottery.
If the President isn't willing to permanently end those categories for unnecessary foreign workers, then he should work with congressional leaders to move a bill that would temporarily suspend these categories at least until U-6 unemployment falls below 10% and U-3 unemployment falls below 6%.
There can be no excuse for raffling off 50,000 permanent work permits each year while Americans are suffering catastrophic unemployment.
Nor can there be justification for bringing in more than 200,000 permanent foreign workers each year just because they have relatives already here. Understand that chain migration relatives are not spouses or minor children. Rather, they are adults who have their own lives and families back in the home country. When given a Green Card, each of the chain migrants can bring their own nuclear family, and then their spouses can bring in all their siblings and families, so that aunts, uncles, cousins and in-laws multiplied by in-laws eventually get in line.
The chain immigrants are brought into the country with no consideration of their education, their skills or whether the workplace has any need of them. The fact is that they all immediately become competitors with 23 million jobless Americans in seeking the next job that opens up.
No. 3: Stop issuing work permits in any employment category until jobs have been posted on a nationwide help-wanted website.
All immigration categories combined are adding approximately 75,000 permanent foreign workers to our workforce every month (a total of 125,000 new foreign workers a month get either a permanent or temporary work permit).
No President whose top concern is putting his unemployed fellow citizens back to work would allow this to continue. Pres. Obama may find it difficult to bring these numbers to zero, but he should try to move the number as low as possible.
It is incredible that businesses across America have continued to insist on foreign workers instead of taking a look at the suffering U.S. workers begging for jobs just outside their hiring gates. But that is what has happened, and the Bush and Obama Administration have done everything possible to help the businesses avoid hiring U.S. workers.
This has to stop.
At the very least, Pres. Obama should require that every business applying for a visa for a foreign worker post the job on a central help-wanted website so that all unemployed Americans have first crack at the jobs. And the website should provide a full record of how many Americans a business turns down if it still insists on hiring a foreign worker.
If the President doesn't feel he can do this on his own, he should ask for immediate permissive legislation from Congress.
No. 4: Motivate Congress with this terrifying scenario . . .
The President should look out over the sea of 535 Members of Congress and ask them to imagine going back home to a single Congressional District and holding a rally in the biggest stadium or convention center in the District.
Each Congressional District on average has just over 50,000 U-6 unemployed workers.
Imagine gathering all the U-6 unemployed workers of that District. (The average District has 50,000 of them!)
Imagine standing in front of the 50,000 unemployed workers who are failing to find a full-time job and explaining to them why you want to continue to allow 7 million illegal aliens to keep their jobs, why you want to continue to allow chain migration and the lottery to bring in more people to compete with them for their job search, why you intend to do nothing about the handing out of 125,000 work permits to new foreign workers every month.
The President should tell the Members of Congress that if they aren't willing to gather their unemployed voters, look them in the eye and explain why illegal aliens and new foreign workers have precedence over the 50,000 unemployed in every District, then they should back the three big measures outlined above to put millions of Americans back to work.
All of that is what a President would do if putting Americans back to work were his real top priority and not just political rhetoric.
ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA
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