Friday, June 7, 2019

RALLY ON THE WHITE HOUSE TO END MEXICO'S INVASION - In America Legals are second rate citizens but we still get the tax bills for Mexico's invasion, occupation and looting!


THEY REALLY HAVE NO IDEA HOW MANY HAVE INVADED!


"Meanwhile, Acting Department of Homeland Security 

(DHS) Secretary Kevin McAleenan has admitted that his 

agency is merely acting as a checkpoint for illegal aliens, with 

all adult border crossers arriving with children getting 

released into the interior of the U.S. mere months’ time, these

adult border crossers — now living freely in the country — 

are receiving work permits to take U.S. jobs."




Illegal Immigration Soars to Clinton Levels, 1M Illegals Expected this Year



Flooding the Border
John Moore, Getty Images
JOHN BINDER
6,088
2:49

Illegal immigration at the United States-Mexico border for last month surpassed every month of May under the Bush and Obama administrations, taking the U.S. back to a level of border crossings not seen since President Bill Clinton.

As Breitbart News reported, more than 132,000 apprehensions were made in May by U.S. Border Patrol on the southern border. This is a two-decade record high for illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border in May.
Not since May 2000 has the country seen this level of illegal immigration heading into the summer. In May 2000, more than 166,000 border apprehensions were made at the southern border. Clinton was president at the time.
Illegal immigration last month was more than nine times the level of May 2017 and more than three times the level of May 2018 illegal immigration totals.
This month, Prince Policy Advisors researcher Steven Kopits projects that illegal immigration at the southern border will still cross over to more than 100,000 border apprehensions.
Kopits projects that for calendar year 2019, more than one million border apprehensions will be conducted at the U.S.-Mexico border — indicating that  more than one million illegal aliens will be caught attempting to enter the country. This does not include the roughly 500,000 illegal aliens who are expected to successfully cross into the U.S. this year, undetected by Border Patrol.
Should illegal immigration hit more than a million border apprehensions this year, it would be more illegal immigration to the country than the last two years combined. Such a rate of illegal immigration would also take the U.S. back to levels not seen since Fiscal Year 2006, when President Bush oversaw massive totals of border crossings.
Meanwhile, Acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kevin McAleenan has admitted that his agency is merely acting as a checkpoint for illegal aliens, with all adult border crossers arriving with children getting released into the interior of the U.S.mere months’ time, these adult border crossers — now living freely in the country — are receiving work permits to take U.S. jobs.
Simultaneously, the overwhelming majority of the 42 miles of newly constructed barriers at the southern border has been to replace older barriers — nearly the exact approach that was taken by the Bush and Obama administrations.
Previously, sources have told Breitbart News that the number of miles of new border wall on land that did not previously have a barrier is close to zero. This indicates that DHS has yet to expand the barriers at the southern border.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder



Rally Against illegal immigration & Amnesty at White House Sat June 8

For National Release | June 7, 2019

Share & Discuss this event by email and on (FACEBOOK HERE) . (ALIPAC HERE) .. (TWITTER HERE) .. (GAB HERE)

(Washington, DC) Activists and guest speakers from across America will demonstrate against illegal immigration and Amnesty legislation near the White House in the southwest corner of Lafayette Square this Saturday, June 8 from 11am to 4pm.

Several major news outlets plan to attend and Couy Griffin and Leo Portugal of Cowboys for Trump plan to ride horses into DC and over the memorial bridge to arrive at the event between 11-12 noon.

Only racially inclusive peaceful organizations and activists are invited along with members of the media and public. Americans of many races and walks of life are working together to pressure lawmakers to stop Amnesty and illegal immigration on June 8.

Rally speeches will be recorded and released at a later date and organizers hope to live stream the entire event on the Facebook pages of Raymond Herrera of We The People, America
 (View LiveSTREAM HERE)and William Gheen, President of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, (View LiveStream HERE) starting at 11:10am Saturday, June 8.

Supporters are encouraged to watch the event from home and share the live streams with others during and after the broadcast.

The 
Stand Up America and Stop Illegal Immigration Rally will call on lawmakers in Congress and the White House to stop trying to pass legislative Amnesty for illegal immigrants and bring the current unprecedented flow of fake asylum seeking illegals at our border to a stop.

Stopping DACA Amnesty, Dream Act Amnesty bill
 HR 6Catch and Release Presidential policies, birthright citizenship, fake asylum seeker claims, drug smuggling, de facto Amnesty, ballot access, work permits, and taxpayer flights for undocumented immigrants will be addressed along with other grievances.

Articles about illegal immigration written by
 best selling author Ann Coulter and Daniel Horowitz of Conservative Review will be read at the podium to accompany the distinctive speeches of the speakers listed below.

The current speaker list for the event includes, but is not limited to:


Raymond Herrera and Wes Parker of We The People, America

William Gheen of ALIPAC

Ivan Garcia-Hidalgo of the Hispanic Leadership Council

Stewart Rhodes of Oath Keepers

Angel Family member Jeanne Reid, whose brother was killed by an illegal alien

Hessie Harris & Shakil Hamid of Help Save Maryland


Johsie Cruz Candidate for Congress (R-GA/4) & Latinos for Trump of Georgia

Carlos Alfredo Torres Latinos for Trump of Georgia


Couy Griffin and Leo Portugal of Cowboys for Trump 

Virginia Kreiger of Angel Families

"While presiding over the largest drug epidemic in U.S. history, members of our leadership continue to support, protect and enable the Mexican drug cartels, human traffickers, criminal gangs and criminal illegal aliens that are killing approximately 50,000 of our children every single year. The primary duty of our governance is the protection and security of the people, in this respect our leadership has failed miserably," said Virginia Kreiger of Angel Families.

"The goal of those who seek open borders and universal amnesty is the disenfranchisement, displacement, and replacement of American citizens. We will never surrender our religion, identity,country, traditions, heritage or history," said Hessie Harris of Help Save Maryland.

“I am a Trump supporter. But I have a duty, under my oath to speak out. President Trump is NOT utilizing his power as Commander-in-Chief to secure the border. For just one example, he could federalize the New Mexico National Guard and deploy them back to the border now that the leftist Governor of New Mexico has pulled them off. Why hasn’t he done that?" said Stewart Rhodes of Oath Keepers.

Rhodes added, "And he can also deploy the regular US military to the border, in strength, to actually seal it between ports of entry. By failing to use his powers as Commander-in-Chief, he is failing in his duty to defend this nation and to see that the laws as faithfully executed. He can’t blame that on Congress or the courts. He hasn’t even tried.
"


Americans who oppose illegal immigration and legislative Amnesty for illegals like the Dream Act Amnesty HR 6 which passed the House this week are encouraged to attend and bring American flags and appropriate signs.

For more information about the Stand Up America and Stop Illegal Immigration protest in DC at the White House on June 8, or to schedule interviews with guest speakers, please visit
 www.ALIPAC.us

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AMERICA: YOU’RE BETTER OFF BEING AN ILLEGAL!!!

This annual income for an impoverished American family is $10,000 less than the more than $34,500 in federal funds which are spent on each unaccompanied minor border crosser.

study by Tom Wong of the University of California at San Diego discovered that more than 25 percent of DACA-enrolled illegal aliens in the program have anchor babies. That totals about 200,000 anchor babies who are the children of DACA-enrolled illegal aliens. This does not include the anchor babies of DACA-qualified illegal aliens. JOHN BINDER

“The Democrats had abandoned their working-class base to chase what they pretended was a racial group when what they were actually chasing was the momentum of unlimited migration”.  DANIEL GREENFIELD / FRONT PAGE MAGAZINE 

the depression is already here for most of us below the super-rich!


Trump and the GOP created a fake economic boom on our collective credit card: The equivalent of maxing out your credit cards and saying look how good I'm doing right now.

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Trump criticized Dimon in 2013 for supposedly contributing to the country’s economic downturn. “I’m not Jamie Dimon, who pays $13 billion to settle a case and then pays $11 billion to settle a case and who I think is the worst banker in the United States,” he told reporters.
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"One of the premier institutions of big business, JP Morgan Chase, issued an internal report on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the 2008 crash, which warned that another “great liquidity crisis” was possible, and that a government bailout on the scale of that effected by Bush and Obama will produce social unrest, “in light of the potential impact of central bank actions in driving inequality between asset owners and labor."  
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"Overall, the reaction to the decision points to the underlying fragility of financial markets, which have become a house of cards as a result of the massive inflows of money from the Fed and other central banks, and are now extremely susceptible to even a small tightening in financial conditions."

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"It is significant that what the Financial Times described as a “tsunami of money”—estimated to reach $1 trillion for the year—has failed to prevent what could be the worst year for stock markets since the global financial crisis."
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"A decade ago, as the financial crisis raged, America’s banks were in ruins. Lehman Brothers, the storied 158-year-old investment house, collapsed into bankruptcy in mid-September 2008. Six months earlier, Bear Stearns, its competitor, had required a government-engineered rescue to avert the same outcome. By October, two of the nation’s largest commercial banks, Citigroup and Bank of America, needed their own government-tailored bailouts to escape failure. Smaller but still-sizable banks, such as Washington Mutual and IndyMac, died."
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The GOP said the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" would reduce deficits and supercharge the economy (and stocks and wages). The White House says things are working as planned, but one year on--the numbers mostly suggest otherwise. 







Reports: Rising Rental Costs Block Americans’ Career Moves, Income Gains



CHICAGO, IL - MAY 31: A "For Rent" sign stands in front of a house on May 31, 2011 in Chicago, Illinois. According to the Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Index home prices fell in March in 18 of the 20 metropolitan areas monitored by the index, reaching their …
Scott Olson/Getty Images
NEIL MUNRO
 224
7:36

Rising urban rents are reducing the economic incentives for young people to migrate into bigger towns and cities for better-paying careers, say U.K. and U.S. studies.

“Work from the US has shown that while there are higher earnings to be found in more productive states, the [economic gain from] moving to these better-paying areas have diminished since the mid-1990s because higher housing costs have absorbed much more of the gain,” says the British study titled “Moving Matters: Housing Costs and Labor Market Mobility.”
The British study and the subsequent media coverage carefully ignored the most important factor in rising housing costs: the growing influx of international migrants who are raising the demand and prices for housing.
The British report notes that the rising housing costs hit young British people the hardest, making it more difficult for them to form their own families. Because “moving matters especially for those at the beginning of their working lives, we can see once again that the housing choices of today’s younger people are bearing down on their living standards to a greater extent than they did for previous generations at the same age,” the U.K. study said.
The left-wing Guardian described the study:
More young people are getting stuck where they grew up or went to university because they cannot afford rents in places where they can earn more money, according to the Resolution Foundation think tank. It found the number of people aged 25 to 34 starting a new job and moving home in the last year had fallen 40% over the last two decades.
Whereas previous generations were able to move to big cities such as London and Manchester or regional hubs like Leeds and Bristol to develop their careers, the current millennial generation is enduring a slump in mobility caused by rising rents, which can wipe out the financial gains of a move.
The study also says the rising rents are pushing more people into longer commutes:
Those that choose to move to cheaper housing cost areas but stay in the same job – or to move both job and home but to live in a cheaper area further away from where the job is located – will need to travel further to work each day … [and] the average travel-to-work time for all age groups has increased over time, from 25 minutes for 25-34 year olds in 1996, for example, to 32 minutes in 2017.
The British study matches a 2017 U.S. study about widening wage gaps in the United States that said that “rising housing prices in high-income areas deter low-skill migration [by Americans into wealthier cities] and slow income convergence” between rich and poor.
The U.S. study titled “Why Has Regional Income Convergence in the U.S. Declined?” noted:
Lawyers continue to earn much more in the New York area in both nominal terms and net of housing costs, but janitors now earn less in the New York area after subtracting housing … for lawyers in the New York area, housing costs are equal to 21% of their income, while housing costs are equal to 52% of income for New York area janitors. While it may still be worth it for lawyers to move to New York, high housing prices offset the nominal wage gains for janitors [who move to New York] …
In the mid-twentieth century, low- and high-skill workers moved from low-income to high-income places. In recent years, as high-skill workers move to high-income places, low-skill workers leave. We call this phenomenon “skill sorting”.
Like the U.K. study, the U.S. study does not identify the impact of international immigration on housing costs.
But many other studies show that immigrants concentrate in coastal cities and that immigrants spike housing costs. Both factors combine to help price Americans out of coastal cities — and so deny them the decade-by-decade benefit of better careers and rising real estate wealth.
Investors also admit that immigration boosts housing and real estate prices. Breitbart News reported in May:
EIG’s April 2019 proposal for more imported workers and consumers admits that the current immigration policy favors large cities, saying:
It currently serves to increase the regional disparities highlighted above: the fastest-growing decile of counties has proportionally more skilled immigrants than the slowest-growing one by a factor of eight. What is more, the 20 most populous U.S. counties currently contain 37% of the country’s skilled immigrants compared to only 19% of the country’s total population.
More broadly, the 5% of counties with the highest home prices have over half of the country’s skilled immigrants, and 90% of skilled immigrants live in the top one-third of counties with the highest housing prices.
The group also admitted that more immigration raises housing prices, which is bad for home buyers, such as young married Americans seeking to start a family. “Cheaper housing is good for first-time home buyers and renters,” says the EIG proposal, which is titled “Could a Heartland Visa help Struggling Regions?”
The problem is made worse because new legal and illegal immigrants can move faster from one city to another when employers begin to hire many people for a new factory or a construction project. The migrants move faster than natives because they have fewer family ties to keep them in one area, but also because their tight ethnic networks provide them with critical contacts needed to win jobs, apartments, and social support in unfamiliar cities.
Also, poor immigrants will gladly pool their wages to crowd into expensive apartments near their U.S. jobs, such as in South Arlington near Washington, DC.  But that common sense practice also spikes rental prices and so blocks the arrival of young Americans who do not want to lower their living standards when they move into the bigger cities. This displacement process keeps many Americans out of urban careers and housing markets, even as real estate investors loudly cheer for more immigration and more renters.
These housing factors were not relevant in the decades before the 1965 immigration law, when it was common for poor Americans in West Virginia and other heartland states to follow their relatives down the “Hillbilly Highway” to jobs in Detroit, Baltimore, and other industrial cities. Their internal migration helped create the suburban middle-class from the 1950s onwards — but that middle-class is now shrinking amid rising immigrant numbers and rising housing prices.
Immigration Numbers:
Each year, roughly four million young Americans join the workforce after graduating from high school or university.
But the federal government then imports about 1.1 million legal immigrants and refreshes a resident population of roughly 1.5 million white-collar visa workers — including approximately one million H-1B workers — and approximately 500,000 blue-collar visa workers.
The government also prints out more than one million work permits for foreigners, tolerates about eight million illegal workers, and does not punish companies for employing the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants who sneak across the border or overstay their legal visas each year.
This policy of inflating the labor supply boosts economic growth for investors because it ensures that employers do not have to compete for American workers by offering higher wages and better working conditions.
This policy of flooding the market with cheap, foreign, white-collar graduates and blue-collar labor also shifts enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors, even as it also widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, and hurts children’s schools and college educations. It also pushes Americans away from high-tech careers and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions. The labor policy also moves business investment and wealth from the heartland to the coastal citiesexplodes rents and housing costsshrivels real estate values in the Midwest, and rewards investors for creating low-tech, labor-intensive workplaces.











Carson is Right to Favor US Citizens in Public Housing 
By Jessica M. Vaughan 
Fox News, May 21, 2019 . . . 
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jessica-m-vaughan-carson-is-right-to-favor-u-s-citizens-in-public-housing 

Public Housing for Illegal Immigrants Is Transparently Unfair 
By Betsy McCaughey 
The New York Post, 
. . . 
https://nypost.com/2019/05/21/public-housing-for-illegal-immigrants-is-transparently-unfair/ 

 

DUH: HUD Housing Should Put Americans First

https://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2019/05/22/duh-hud-housing-should-put-americans-first-n2546701

We no longer live in a constitutional republic. We live in an idiocracy.
Only in modern-day America, under the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, is the basic proposition that federally subsidized public housing should benefit American citizens and legal residents slammed as "despicable" and "damaging."
Those are the hysterical words used by Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York City to condemn the proposal discussed by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson on Tuesday to ban government aid to residents of HUD who shelter illegal immigrants. The rule change would end a Clinton-era regulation that allowed immigrants to obtain aid without having to disclose whether they were here legally. The Trump plan could free up an estimated 32,000 public housing slots, according to HUD, as 1.6 million applicants nationwide wait to be considered.
Democratic Rep. Juan Vargas of San Diego County couldn't believe Carson could be so "mean-spirited" in prioritizing law-abiding people over law-breaking ones.
Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of Los Angeles called the illegal alien prohibition "cruel."
Only in America are American public servants, who are sworn to uphold American laws and the U.S. Constitution, hounded by open borders liberals about putting Americans first. Instead of being forced to defend their own twisted and treasonous priorities, Democrats got an assist from open borders tools in the media making hay of Carson's unfamiliarity with some stupid real estate acronym. The squirrel-chasers at Newsweek sputtered: "Ben Carson doesn't know what an REO property is, thinks he's being asked about Oreos." Politico clucked: "Ben Carson confuses a real-estate term and a cookie."
Fake news narrative set: He's dastardly, dumb and hates immigrants!
Carson had patiently explained at the House Financial Services Committee hearing that families with illegal immigrants would still have up to 18 months to defer eviction and find somewhere else to live or to move back to their home countries. But that (undeserved) generosity was met with still more unhinged cries of "What about the children?" from the "America Last" Democrats whose first allegiance is to thousands of anchor babies born here to irresponsible border-trespassers, visa overstayers and deportation fugitives. They put their own children at risk in the first place. Not us.
You want to engage in "What about-ism?" What about the native-born military veterans? What about the elderly? And what about the destitute citizens down on their luck waiting for public housing slots to open up?
In Maloney's city, it reportedly takes an average of 99 months for a HUD applicant to secure an apartment.
In Waters' city, the waiting list for low-income Americans seeking Section 8 vouchers is 40,000 people and up to 11 years long.
In Vargas' county, the region now boasts the fourth-highest homeless population in the nation.
It is "only logical," Carson pointed out, to put Americans ahead of the 32,000 HUD-housed residents deemed ineligible because of their immigration status. But logic is toxic to the Make America Disappear Lobby.
When I hear the impassioned paeans of Democrats on behalf of illegal immigrants fighting for their federal Section 8 vouchers, I am reminded of the most notorious deportation-evading denizen of government-subsidized housing: Zeituni Onyango, President Obama's illegal immigrant aunt, who died of cancer in 2014.
Remember? Onyango was a beneficiary of the welfare state run amok, and a perfect symbol of open borders ingratitude and metastatic entitlement. She overstayed a temporary visa for 14 years, never going home to Kenya. Screw our rules. Onyango had no job skills, no special talent and no claim of persecution. She didn't value the American dream. She was a dependency nightmare. She collected $700 a month in welfare benefits and disability payments totaling $51,000. Somehow, Onyango also drummed up money to apply for asylum and finagled her way into federal and state public housing in Boston.
She gamed the system under both Democratic and Republican administrations, dragged out her phony "asylum case" three times, dodged two deportation orders, illegally donated to her nephew's presidential campaign along the way, and then eventually secured a green card in 2010. Such are the perks of illegal immigrant privilege.
In a raging interview she gave to a Boston TV station before she died, Onyango savaged and taunted her American hosts. "If I come as an immigrant, you have the obligation to make me a citizen," she spouted. "I didn't ask for it," she retorted when asked about her public housing benefits. "They gave it to me. Ask your system. I didn't create the system."
Well, Obama's ingrate aunt was right about that: She didn't create the system. Idiocrats built it. Idiocrats are defending it. And idiocrats would rather mock Carson's ignorance of a real estate acronym than own up to their own suicidal stupidity.
Here's the only acronym you need to know if idiocrats prevail: R.I.P., America. R.I.P.
Michelle Malkin's email address is writemalkin@gmail.com. 

HUD Secretary Ben Carson Says He Has Duty to End Housing Assistance for Those Living with Illegals

(Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) grilled HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson on Tuesday about his plan to crack down on illegal immigrants who live in subsidized housing.

During the House Financial Services Committee’s HUD oversight hearing, Maloney complained that by ending subsidies for people living with illegal immigrants, Carson would be responsible for evicting 55,000 children who are U.S. citizens in households with “mixed immigration status.”



Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) complained in her opening statement that she was concerned about Carson’s “recent cruel proposal to terminate housing benefits for families that include individuals with mixed immigration statuses.”

“Of course, existing law prevents federal housing programs from subsidizing individuals with ineligible immigration status. Prorated rental assistance allows mixed immigration status families to remain to together while exclusively subsidizing only those family members with eligible status. The Trump administration proposal puts mixed status families at risk of being evicted, separated, and left homeless,” she said.


The proposed rule, submitted to the Federal Register on May 10, 2019, has a comment period that ends on July 9.

Maloney called Carson’s proposal “despicable,” adding that is “among the most damaging proposals” she’s ever seen in public policy.


MALONEY: Mr. Secretary, the D in HUD does not stand for deportation. I am afraid that a recent proposal of yours will bring nothing but despair to thousands of American families by throwing children out of their homes. Simply put, we cannot create affordable housing for Americans by throwing other Americans out into the street with no place to go. I am very proud to represent Queensbridge Houses, which is the largest public housing complex in the entire country, along many other public housing complexes. So I’ve been working with public housing tenants since 1981, standing up for tenants’ rights, fighting against spending cuts, and exposing and ending corrupt mob contracts, but your plan to create vacancies by making 55,000 American children homeless is among the most damaging proposals I have ever seen in public policy, and quite frankly, I find it despicable.
You know that the current laws already prohibit federal housing programs from subsidizing undocumented immigrants. Individuals who are not eligible for housing assistance do not receive subsidies. By evicting mixed-status households, you will rip apart families and be throwing children onto the street, and where will the 55,000 children go>? Where will they live? What agency will care for their health and education?
Is your plan to have ICE put 55,000 more children on cages on the border? Not in my district, and not on my watch. This is a horrible plan. New York City now spends more than $600 million per year to support 8,200 children in foster care and $4.5 billion more every year to tackle homelessness. Have you considered how you would support the newly homeless families and children? Will they be going to foster care? What’s your plan?
CARSON: As far as what we’re doing with housing, the law that has been provided through Congress states specifically that the secretary of HUD may not provide housing assistance to people who are here illegally. It also states specifically that the secretary has the duty to end assistance if he finds that someone is violating that. So we are following the law …
MALONEY: But by law, already, I agree with you. You don’t provide subsidies to people who are here illegally, but these children were born here in America, and even if their families are illegal, it’s a mixed family in terms of legality.
The children are legal, so you could have the situation where the parents are deported, and the children, they leave the children here – American citizens – and who is gonna to take care of these children? Do you have a plan to take care of these 55,000 children, which is HUD’s number that came forward with that they project could be hurt by this plan. Do you have a pland for how to take care of these children? Yes or no?
CARSON: There are hundreds of thousands of children, as well as elderly and disabled people on the waiting list who are legal American citizens.
MALONEY: But Mr. Secretary, these children are legal American citizens. They were born in America. They are legal citizens.
CARSON: As I was saying, there are hundreds of thousands if not millions who are waiting on the list. Do you suggest that we prioritize people who are illegal citizens—
MALONEY: You’re gonna pick one American citizen over another. Again, these children are American citizens. They are legal, and what is your plan to take care of them?
CARSON: If you read the rule carefully, you will see that it provides a six-month deferral on requests if they have not found another place to live, and that can be renewed two times for a total of 18 months, which is plenty of time for Congress to engage in comprehensive immigration reform so that this becomes a moot point as does the DACA situation and a hundred other things.
The fact of the matter is, Congress has the responsibility for making the laws that govern this, and they have the ability to change that, and if in fact, you want to explain to the American citizens, who’ve been on the wait list for several years in your district in New York, why we should continue to support families that are not here legally, I would be happy to join you and helping to explain that to them.



America’s Housing Crisis Affects Everyone

In our new project “Betting the House: Affording a Home in America,” HuffPost wants to help you tell your housing story.
By Kimberly Alters
10/15/2018 02:50 pm ET
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The American dream is supposed to play out like this: a pleasant house in an appealing color scheme, surrounded by a white picket fence; a lush patch of grass out front; a triumphant family photo beside the “SOLD” sign in the yard.
Here’s the reality: 11 million Americans spend more than half their paychecks on rent for homes they don’t own, in counties that aren’t the ones they work in. More than 550,000 people in the U.S. are homeless altogether. For those Americans who can afford to buy a home, they’re paying a larger percentage of their wages for the same property than they would have in years past, since pay increases aren’t coming as fast as price increases.
The problem is worst for people at the lowest end of the market. America’s housing stock is laughably depleted, and affordable units are demolished all the time to make way for more lucrative luxury condos. Just 57 percent of homes sold between April and June of this year were affordable to Americans making the median U.S. income of $71,900, according to HousingWire. For the renters most in need, there are only 35 units available for every 100 extremely low-income households.
This all boils down to one thing: No matter where or how you live, America’s housing crisis probably affects you. We at HuffPost want to know how. Maybe you found an apartment you love, one you can comfortably afford — but now you live more than an hour from your workplace. Maybe your best housing option didn’t line up with your child care needs. Maybe you’re skimping on other life expenses, like groceries or car repairs or a trip to the movies, just to make sure you’ve got enough left each month for a rent or mortgage payment.
Underlying these individual plights are society-wide concerns, like gentrification and discrimination. Communities of color are routinely victimized by landlords — including, at one point, by the man who is now the president of the United States. We’ve covered how changing neighborhoods affect long-term residents’ health, how black women have suffered acutely from the cycle of eviction and how transgender renters are left in the lurch thanks to discriminatory landlords.
Now, HuffPost wants to hear from you — your frustrations, your confessions, your struggles. In the survey below, you can add your voice to our investigation. Share your experiences with us, and we can help you tell your story — the real story of housing in America.

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San Francisco Voters To Decide Whether To Tax Tech Giants To Fight Homelessness

And tech CEOs from Twitter and Salesforce are arguing about it on social media.
MASHABLE TECHSan Francisco is among the 10 U.S. metropolitan areas with the largest homeless populations.
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The CEOs of two major tech companies in San Francisco ― Marc Benioff of Salesforce and Jack Dorsey of Twitter ― began squabbling Friday over one of the city’s most pressing issues: What should the city do to address its growing homeless problem? 
Their back-and-forth centered on Proposition C, a city ballot measure that would tax the city’s wealthiest businesses to fund the city’s underperforming homelessness services such as permanent housing, mental health programs and shelter beds. 
Here’s what you need to know about the contentious proposal.

How much money are we talking about?

Prop C would tax businesses at between 0.175 and 0.69 percent of their gross annual receipts to fund homelessness initiatives if the businesses receive over $50 million in gross annual receipts.
About 300 to 400 businesses would be affected, but many view the proposal as taking particular aim at the city’s booming tech industry. 
SMITH COLLECTION/GADO VIA GETTY IMAGESA woman with her belongings looks over at AT&T Park in San Francisco.
If passed, the ballot measure would raise as much as $300 million for homelessness services, nearly doubling what the city currently spends to help the 7,500 individuals and 1,200 families living on its streets. San Francisco is among the 10 U.S. metropolitan areas with the largest homeless populations.
Prop C mandates that half of the money it generates should go toward permanent housing; one-quarter toward mental health and addiction services; 15 percent toward homeless prevention programs, such as rent assistance and eviction defense; and 10 percent toward emergency shelters ad hygiene programs. 
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How will Trump's administration impact you?

What effect would it have on homelessness and businesses?

In a report assessing the ballot measure’s claims, San Francisco’s Office of Economic Analysis determined that Prop C would likely succeed in reducing homelessness in San Francisco, “improving health outcomes and reducing the use of acute and emergency services in the city.”
But on the flip side, the report found, the tax hike could cost the city 725 to 875 jobs a year over the next two decades ― a net estimate found by factoring in both the jobs lost because of higher business taxes and the jobs gained by increased spending on construction and homeless services.
Prop C is expected to result in an estimated 0.1 percent loss of city GDP.

Who supports it?

Benioff has been the tech industry’s most vocal Prop C advocate and recently pledged at least $2 million to help it pass. He also called out Dorsey for acting in his own financial interest without providing another solution. 



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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), the San Francisco police commissioner, the San Francisco Board of Education leaders and some of the city’s progressive supervisors support Prop C.

Who’s against it?

Dorsey, who is also the CEO of the San Francisco-based mobile payments company Square, sided with San Francisco Mayor London Breed against Prop C on the basis that San Franciscans should listen to the mayor.


Marc: you’re distracting. This is about me supporting Mayor @LondonBreed for *the* reason she was elected. The Mayor doesn’t support Prop C, and we should listen to her. I support the Mayor, and I'm committed to helping her execute her plan.
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Breed hasn’t laid out an alternative plan, but she has raised concerns about the economic impact of Prop C, as well as the fact that it lacks a precise spending plan and does not plan for oversight or audits on how the money is spent. 
Other opponents of Prop C include Jon Zieger, CEO of the tech company Stripe; State Sen. Scott Wiener (D); and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. 

Affordable housing set for spotlight of next presidential campaign

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/411488-affordable-housing-set-for-spotlight-of-next-presidential-campaign

 

NAOMI JAGODA 159



© Getty Images
Affordable housing is poised to become a more prominent issue in the 2020 presidential race, with several potential Democratic candidates releasing proposals on the topic in recent months.
Housing hasn’t been a top issue in past presidential elections, but Democratic strategists and housing experts say it could be a bigger part of the debate in the coming years as concern grows about how housing costs have increased faster than wages.
“In the last year, I’ve seen more attention to housing costs at the federal level, but also at the state and local level,” said Jenny Schuetz, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), there is a shortage of more than 7 million rental homes that would be affordable to the lowest income renters.
In a number of populous areas, particularly in the Northeast and West Coast, housing is also becoming too expensive for middle-class families, said Schuetz.
Three Democratic senators who many expect to run for president in 2020 — Kamala Harris (Calif.), Cory Booker (N.J.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) — have all introduced bills aimed at reducing housing burdens. The senators also represent states with some of the highest housing costs.
Harris’s bill, introduced in July, would create a refundable tax credit for renters who pay more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities. The bill has several co-sponsors, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand(D-N.Y.), who has also been floated as a possible presidential candidate.
Booker’s bill, introduced in August, would similarly create a refundable tax credit and would also have jurisdictions receiving Community Development Block Grants develop strategies to create more affordable housing supplies.
Warren’s bill, introduced in late September, is the most comprehensive of the three.
It includes provisions aimed at lowering housing prices, such as by authorizing more federal funds to help build low- and middle-income housing and by creating a competitive grant program in which jurisdictions can get access to funds for infrastructure if they loosen their zoning laws. It also includes provisions aimed at making whole people who have been discriminated against in the past under housing policies.
“This bill will help millions of people lower their housing costs and help millions more on the path to making the promise of the American dream become a reality,” Warren wrote in an op-ed in The Root published earlier this month.
Besides Harris, Gillibrand, Booker and Warren, other possible Democratic presidential candidates may also be poised to make housing a key plank in their campaigns. Several people with backgrounds as state and local elected officials in high-cost areas, such as Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, could get into the race.
And Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called for increasing investments in affordable housing during his 2016 presidential campaign and continues to consider the issue to be important. He wrote the preface to the NLIHC’s 2018 report on the cost of housing.
“I think the issue of housing is an issue that has too long been ignored, and I can tell you that in Vermont and throughout this country, it is harder and harder for working people and young people to find affordable housing,” Sanders told The Hill on Wednesday.
A number of groups that fight for affordable housing praised the bills and see potential for them to signal that housing will be more in the spotlight in the 2020 election.
“I think the three bills together are very exciting because people with presidential ambitions recognize that housing is an issue that has to be addressed,” said Shamus Roller, executive director of the National Housing Law Project. He added that he thinks the bills show that every Democratic presidential candidate will have to include addressing housing issues as part of their platform.
Democratic strategists said that housing could be an issue that can help politicians in the party show they are attentive to voters’ needs.
“A lot of taking on Republican incumbents and taking on [President] Donald Trump is showing voters that you care about them, that their issues are your issues and that you’re going to fight for them,” said Scott Mulhauser, founder of Aperture Strategies and a former aide to former Vice President Joe Biden and the Senate Finance Committee.
Experts on Democratic politics also said that housing is an issue of importance to parts of the party’s base, including millennials and minority voters.
“I think many millennials are kind of frustrated because many of them do feel that they’re not making the same economic progress that their parents did,” said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon.
Housing could also become a more prominent issue in Congress next year if Democrats win control of the House. Several likely freshman Democratic lawmakers — including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated a member of House Democratic leadership to win a primary in New York’s 14th District — have made housing part of their congressional campaigns.
Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, said he sees this year’s midterm elections as a tipping point on the issue and that he’s started to hear a “groundswell of conversation” on it.
“It’s always been a surprise to me that housing doesn’t receive more attention in federal elections, and I think this is the year that changes that,” he said.  
The Democratic senators’ bills have little chance of becoming law in the near future, given that Republicans are expected to keep control of the upper chamber and Trump will still be president. They’ve also drawn concern, with critics arguing that proposed tax credits might end up leading to rent increases and primarily benefiting landlords so long as housing supply is limited.
Booker and Harris’s offices pushed back against that criticism. Booker’s office said that the senator’s bill includes safeguards against rent increases. Harris's office said that there are a number of things that need to be done to address the housing crisis, including addressing limited supply, but that the senator's bill is one thing that could be done to help. 
The legislation might not be enacted any time soon, but affordable housing advocates said they were excited about lawmakers offering proposals aimed at reducing housing burdens.
“While these bills differ in scope and specifics, they have in common a reflection of Senators Warren, Harris and Booker’s recognition of the magnitude of our country’s housing crisis, and the kind of bold and ambitious solutions that are necessary to solve it,” said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the NLIHC.
Democrats have been critical of some of the Trump administration’s housing proposals, such as proposals in the president’s budget to cut funding for Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) programs.
But some housing experts noted that both Democratic lawmakers and the Trump administration have expressed interest in encouraging local governments to loosen zoning regulations and increase housing supply.
“It’s about time we take a long, serious, look at all the regulations that have held back America’s affordable housing supply — especially multifamily housing — from keeping pace with demand,” HUD Secretary Ben Carson said in a recent speech in Indiana.

Democrats in swing districts advised to avoid talking about immigration

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/411522-democrats-in-swing-districts-states-advised-to-avoid-talking-about-immigration

 

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© Getty Images
Left-leaning groups are advising Democratic candidates in the November midterm elections to steer clear from discussing immigration in states and districts that President Trump won in 2016.
A strategy memo co-authored by the Center for American Progress and Third Way -- two Washington-based think tanks -- recommended that certain Democrats speak about the topic as little as possible and instead focus on topics that will better resonate with their voters.
Navin Nayak, executive director of the Center for American Progress Action, said that even though the memo was sent to a broad set of districts, it excluded ones with large Latino populations or particularly diverse districts because it’s not intended to provide blanket advice.
“One, the research was done specifically in a handful of battleground states and districts, so it wasn’t applicable universally across the country,” he told The Hill in an interview Monday. “And second, it was really about how to respond to the anti-immigration attacks around sanctuary cities that we've been seeing from Republicans over the last year.”
“In terms of responding to attacks, obviously Republicans will want nothing more than to have a prolonged debate on sanctuary cities, and I think the advice was to respond to the attacks and make sure we're still holding them accountable on a set of other issues we know they're trying to avoid like healthcare and taxes,” Nayak added.
The New York Times first reported on the strategy memo Sunday.
“It is very difficult to win on immigration with vulnerable voters in the states Trump carried in 2016,” said the memo obtained by the Times.
While voters in parts of California and Florida tend to be more amenable to an easier path to citizenship and other protections for immigrants, candidates in states like Iowa and Virginia are highlighting their support for strengthening border security.
Abigail Spanberger (D), who is running against immigration-hardliner Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), recently released an ad distancing herself with the more progressive wing of the party’s call to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“I've spent my career protecting America and enforcing the law. I don't support safe havens for criminals or gangs. Anyone who commits a violent crime should be prosecuted,” she says in the 30-second spot. “Don't let anyone fool you. I oppose abolishing ICE.”
Republicans have largely said they see immigration as a winning issue for the party. Earlier this year, House GOP leadership brought a resolution in support of ICE to the floor in an attempt to force Democrats to go on the record on whether they support the agency.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also brought immigration to the forefront after introducing a bill that would fully fund President Trump’s push to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, crack down on sanctuary cities and increase penalties on criminals that attempt to reenter the United States.

Development is the ultimate deterrent to excessive migration

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THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL



© Getty Images
On Oct. 4, Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) and President Trump had a phone call discussing an investment plan between Mexico, Canada and the United States to aid economic development in Central America and Mexico, with the aim to reduce the flows of illegal migration.
AMLO stated the plan would require over $30 billion in total investments. This plan falls in line with AMLO’s campaign promises to boost economic development in southern Mexico and Central America to lower the rates of migration.
This tentative plan comes less than a month after the Trump administration put forth a proposal to give Mexico $20 million in aid to assist in removals of migrants from Mexico. AMLO’s team rejected the funding, stating that it was not necessary.
There were predictions that Mexico and the U.S. could be on the way to serious conflict in their approach to migration; the Trump administration has implemented strict immigration policies that the Mexican leader has often condemned.
Yet, Mexico has been a reliable and committed partner to the U.S. in terms of security and border enforcement in the past and can be the same dependable and committed partner in economic development as well if the U.S. is willing to find common ground with the incoming Mexican government’s priorities.
Currently, Mexico’s Agency for International Development Cooperation (AMEXID) has Central America as a regional priority, pursuing South-South and Triangular development cooperation as a main strategy. In fiscal year (FY) 2017, the Mexican government allocated $24,684,855 to AMEXID funds, about 6 percent of the total budget for the External Relations Ministry.
For FY 18, U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America provided $165 million and about $153 million to Mexico in aid funding, predominantly for rule of law and security purposes. $30 billion is a significant increase in the funding provided to Central America from Mexico and the United States.
Yet, if both countries were able to invest in the region, they may see some surprising returns that could be more effective than the border enforcement deterrence and deportation strategy.
There are deep structural forces driving people out of the Northern Triangle (Guatemala Honduras and El Salvador) — endemic poverty, corruption and serious security concerns due to gang violence, famine and drought, to name a few.
Economic development has been traditionally seen in the U.S. as a strategy to address the push factors for migrants, as increased development can help alleviate poverty, increase access to markets, reduce food insecurity and build more resilient communities.
An economic development strategy may yield higher returns for Mexico and the U.S. than previously thought. The narrative around Central American migration has largely focused on the extreme and pervasive violence in the country perpetuated by gangs and other transnational crime organizations.
While this violence is quite real and does contribute to push factors, the latest data shows that under-development is playing a greater role in pushing many migrants to leave. According to U.S. Agency for International Development data, the number of Guatemalan migrants arrested at the U.S. border in 2018 nearly doubled.
There are an increasing number of migrants hailing from indigenous areas in the western highlands, where malnutrition rates exceed 65 percent, the highest in the Western Hemisphere. 
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan has stated migration from Guatemala is likely less due to violence and more because of food insecurity. While the homicide rates for El Salvador and Honduras remain some of the highest in the world, Guatemala’s murder rate has reached a 17-year low.
Economic development can also reduce the incentives for young men to join gangs, as one of the reasons for joining is gangs offer more money and status than many of the informal, agrarian or other lower-paying jobs in the region.
The economic development model is also not without its caveats. Primarily, broad-based growth takes a long time; the results of good economic development projects sometimes cannot be seen until many years after an administration is gone.
Development is also not a linear solution. Investing in rural economic growth will only be truly successful if accompanied by other external factors such as favorable trade policies that allow producers to access the international market or increased government transparency and intergovernmental cooperation.
Political alignment on the part of Central American governments is key to truly having an effective development strategy. The governments of the Northern Triangle would need to invest more robustly in anti-corruption measures, infrastructure, roads and institutions that accompany rural economic development. 
Finally, it is important to recognize that economic development actually stimulates more migration in the short term as people’s incomes rise and have greater means to leave an undesirable situation.
It is a good thing if authorities across Central America and Southern Mexico begin to provide people with access to infrastructure, income, education, and freedom of movement, but it has a short-term cost that both administrations should bear in mind.  
Despite the limitations of a development strategy, there is no solution more sustainable to address migratory flows. Development is the ultimate deterrence strategy, as people who have access to economic opportunities, security, education and health services are far less likely to leave than those who do not.
What would happen if both countries invested in other strategies that also deter migration, but have the positive benefit of making Mexico and Central America more prosperous and institutionally strengthened? We may just see some tangible results. 
Rachel Schmidtke is the program associate at the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute where she conducts research on the policies and trends of migration and U.S.-Mexico relations. 

Mexican Gov’t Tries to Avoid Migration Fix

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/06/07/mexican-govt-tries-to-avoid-migration-fix/

Guillermo Arias / AFP / Getty Images
NEIL MUNRO
5:30

President Donald Trump is pushing for a comprehensive immigration reform deal as Mexican officials offer a partial deal that would fall short of the “safe third country” goals sought by the administration.

Midday Friday, on his flight back to the United States, Trump reminded the Mexican government of the trade benefits they could gain if they avoid triggering the five percent tariffs he has promised for Monday.


If we are able to make the deal with Mexico, & there is a good chance that we will, they will begin purchasing Farm & Agricultural products at very high levels, starting immediately. If we are unable to make the deal, Mexico will begin paying Tariffs at the 5% level on Monday!

The “safe third country” deal sought by the administration would extend a routine international practice to the region. It would require migrants in the region to seek safety and asylum in the first safe country they reach, and allow the United States border agencies to reject migrants who cross through Mexico to reach the U.S. border.
The administration’s plan would minimize the ability of Congress, pro-migration legal groups, and cheap labor lobbies to import more migrants for companies and donors because the plan builds on existing laws which allow border agents to return migrants to countries who have signed a diplomatic deal.
A Thursday report in the Washington Post, however, showed that Mexican officials are offering a mix of temporary security measures — extra border police in the south, for example — and a partial diplomatic deal that would require U.S border agencies to accept Guatemalans who claim a fear of murder and torture, even after crossing through Mexico:
The Washington Post sketched the Mexican offer on Thursday:
Any migrants who made it to the U.S. border generally would be deported to the appropriate third country. And any migrants who express a fear of death or torture in their home country would be subjected to a tougher screening standard by U.S. asylum officers more likely to result in rejection.
But that deal could still allow the cartels to overwhelm the border agencies with migrants carrying unprovable claims of death threats — especially if pro-migration groups persuade friendly U.S. judges that Mexico is not living up to its side of the deal.
The public side of the Mexican pushback is coming from Mexican TV personalities in the United States. A May 2 op-ed in the Washington Post said:
Last spring [in 2018], the Trump administration began pushing an idea onto Mexican officials: Mexico should sign a “safe third country” agreement with the United States that would allow the growing wave of Central American immigrants to apply for asylum in the country, effectively authorizing U.S. border agents to summarily turn back potential refugees.
Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen had begun insisting on the possibility of such an understanding with Mexico’s representatives as early as April. She urged immigrants making their way north to “seek protection” in Mexico before considering doing so in the United States. Still, despite Nielsen’s perseverance, Mexican officials didn’t budge. Then-Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray dismissed the possibility. “A safe third country status would turn Mexico into a final destination for immigrants and would invalidate any further bid for asylum in the United States. That’s why we’ve rejected it,” Videgaray said.
The op-ed was written by León Krauze, a Mexican-born news anchor, KMEX, which is Univision’s station in Los Angeles. Krauze continued:
The [current] Mexican government doesn’t seem too keen on the [safe third cuontry] idea, either. In a recent interview, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Martha Bárcena, told me that an agreement like the one described in the DHS report is just “not in the cards right now.” Bárcena acknowledged that U.S. authorities have brought up the possibility of such a deal “on multiple occasions.” Mexico, she told me, remains opposed to the idea.
Jorge Ramos, another news anchor for Univision TV, is also campaigning against the deal, which could sharply reduce the inflow of Spanish-language TV watchers into the United States:


Immigration is not a problem that you can fix like an old car. We can only aspire to manage it. We are talking about human beings who tend to go to safer and richer countries. It is totally unfair to ask Mexico to do what the United States couldn’t do.

Ramos also scolded Mexico’s President, Lopez Obrador, for considering a deal with the United States:
Defending Mexico against Trump is more than an economic issue, it is a matter of national dignity.
epn never understood it. lopezobrador_ you should not forget it.
“EPN” refers to the prior president of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto, who left office in 2018.


Defender a México frente a Trump es más que una cuestión economica, es una cuestión de dignidad nacional. @epn nunca lo entendió. @lopezobrador_ no lo debe olvidar.



“Mexico cannot become Trump’s immigration police.” (On CNN) https://twitter.com/jorgeramosnews/status/1136413314794303488 



Part of the problem is that Mexico’s elite wishes to present itself as welcoming and generous to other Latino populations, said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “Mexico is in a position where it has to choose between trade with the U.S. or maintaining the image of generous humanitarianism in its asylum policy,” he said., adding:
Mexico has expanded the grounds for asylum [in Mexico] far beyond anything the U.N. treaty requires, and that means literally hundreds of millions of people — maybe billions — could qualify for asylum in Mexico. If [migrants] can’t get into the U.S., Mexico might become an attractive option … It is 11th largest economy in the world.
Immigration Numbers:
Each year, roughly four million young Americans join the workforce after graduating from high school or university.
But the federal government then imports about 1.1 million legal immigrants and refreshes a resident population of roughly 1.5 million white-collar visa workers — including approximately one million H-1B workers — and approximately 500,000 blue-collar visa workers.
The government also prints out more than one million work permits for foreigners, tolerates about eight million illegal workers, and does not punish companies for employing the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants who sneak across the border or overstay their legal visas each year.
This policy of inflating the labor supply boosts economic growth for investors because it ensures that employers do not have to compete for American workers by offering higher wages and better working conditions.
This policy of flooding the market with cheap, foreign, white-collar graduates and blue-collar labor also shifts enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors, even as it also widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, and hurts children’s schools and college educations. It also pushes Americans away from high-tech careers and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions. The labor policy also moves business investment and wealth from the heartland to the coastal citiesexplodes rents and housing costsshrivels real estate values in the Midwest, and rewards investors for creating low-tech, labor-intensive workplaces.