NYT
Op-Ed: ‘I’m a Liberal Who Thinks Immigration Must Be Restricted’
17 Jan 2020156
10:00
The nation’s
immigration policies are built on a back-room corporatist bargain between
Democrats and cheap-labor businesses, says an op-ed published in the New York Times .
The
op-ed is headlined , “I’m a Liberal Who Thinks Immigration Must Be
Restricted.” The January 16 article was authored by Jerry Kammer, a former
journalist who now works with the Center for Immigration Studies:
In 2001, when I was the new
Washington correspondent for The Arizona Republic, I attended the annual awards
dinner of the National Immigration Forum. The forum is a left-right coalition
that lobbies for unauthorized immigrants and expansive immigration policies.
Its board has included officials of the National Council of La Raza, the
American Civil Liberties Union and the American Immigration Lawyers
Association, as well as the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National
Restaurant Association and the American Nursery and Landscape Association.
After dinner, the group’s
executive director, Frank Sharry, made a pitch to business allies who wanted
Congress to allow them unfettered access to foreign workers. “You guys in
business get all the workers you want, whenever you want them,” he proposed.
“No bureaucracy.”
“Sold!” yelled John Gay, a
lobbyist for the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Mr. Sharry quickly
added that the deal must include advocacy for “three little, tiny pieces of
paper: a green card, a union card and a voter registration card” for
unauthorized immigrants.
The hotel industry is eager
to use much imported cheap labor, partly because wages and salaries add up to
roughly 50 percent of the sector’s annual costs. Any increase in labor supply
and any reduction in workers’ wages helps the shareholders boost their stock
values.
Sharry
is now the head of America’s Voice, a pro-immigration group that works with the Democratic
Party. In 2013 and 2014, he worked closely with business groups as well as
ethnic and racial lobbies in a failed effort to pass the wage-cutting
amnesty and cheap-labor bill. The “Gang of Eight” bill was strongly backed by
the New York Times
Business
groups are denouncing the New
York Time
David
Bier, a pro-migration advocate at the business-funded Cato Institute chimed in by tweet: “We must restrict immigration because it’s causing social
division.” But no, “immigration” isn’t causing social division. It’s you,
sir–Mr. Jerry Kramer of the org that thinks V-DARE is the same as the NY
Times–who is causing social division.”
The
op-ed was also denounced by Todd Schulte, the director of the FWD.us advocacy
group created by billionaire investors, including Mark
Zuckerberg. He used Twitter to stigmatize Americans who are worried about the
impact of imported labor on their wages, housing, and children, tweeting :
Coming off Bret Stephens
race-science column, The New York Times Opinion Section gives a massive amount
of real estate too… The Center for Immigration Studies, funded and founded by
John Tanton. John Tanton who wrote “The Case for Passive Eugenics.”
The elite effort to
stigmatize criticism “works – it works like a charm,” says Kevin Lynn, the
founder of Progressives for Immigration Reform. He continued:
It is thrown out as a red
herring when they really don’t want to discuss the pros and cons of immigration
… as a way to shut down the debate.
[The impact of migration] is
self-evident when you look at California. If unbridled immigration is somehow a
plus for the productive class [and] is a boon to the environment, then
California should be paradise right now. But California has the highest level
of inequality … The jobs that once paid a good middle-class living now don’t.
You’re scraping by in your construction job.
The
impact of the racism charge may even reach the editorial board at the New York Times
In
interviews with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Tom Steyer, and Sen. Elizabeth
Warren (D-MA), the board members denied a connection between labor supply and
wages. In a back-and-forth conversation about exploitation and immigration with
Sanders, for example, board member Binyamin Applebaum said :
You said that the
exploitation of undocumented workers results in lower wages for domestic
workers … I think that there’s a lot of research suggesting that that’s
not actually the case.
That claim that supply does
not affect wages is often made by investors’ lobbyists and business-tied
consultants.
But the vast majority of
people who deal with the issue plainly say that worker shortages spur wage
raises.
That
responses come from independent
academics ,
the National
Academies of Science , the Congressional
Budget Office , executives , more
academics , New York Times reporters , state
officials , unions , more
business executives , lobbyists , employees, the Wall
Street Journal , federal
economists , Goldman
Sachs , oil
drillers , Wall
Street analysts , fired
professionals , legislators , construction
workers, NYT subscribers , plus Robert
Rubin, the Bank of Ireland . and 2015 Bernie Sanders:
But
the NYT
The NYT
Over several decades,
it’s become increasingly clear that how immigration debates are framed is
important. One of the more subtle anti-immigration tactics — employed by the
Trump, Kennedy and Johnson administrations, as well as some on the political
left — is to suggest that reducing immigration could preserve more jobs for
American workers and lead to higher wages, but economic research has consistently disputed
the notion that limiting immigration would increase domestic employment or
raise average wages. The prevailing view of economists is that immigration
increases economic growth [but] while some workers might benefit from
immigration restrictions, more would suffer.
The NYT contradict the 2016 National
Academy of Sciences report on immigration.
Kingsbury
seems to support the claim that immigration does not affect wages — even though
she won a prize for writing
about low wages in a sector flooded by migrant workers:
“She was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished editorial writing
for a series on low wages and the mistreatment of workers in the restaurant
industry.”
She wrote in February 2014:
meet Hope Shaw, the
38-year-old single mother of three who is assistant manager at Dunkin’ Donuts
on Boston Street. She, too, likes to serve. But her life is one of unrequited
toil. She lives paycheck to paycheck. Her heating gas was shut off last winter
for failure to pay; the electric bill for her Dorchester apartment is
consistently three months overdue. She’s gone without health insurance for more
than a year. “My rent is $1,100 a month,” she says. “Every month I feel like I’m
choosing between paying that or putting food on the table.”
Yet, six days a week, Shaw
leaves her home before 4 a.m. to work a nine-hour shift overseeing the sale of
donuts, bagels, and flat-bread sandwiches, while coping with customers who
expect their coffee to be prepared exactly as they please and only sometimes
drop a penny in the tip can. She’s been promoted twice in the five years she’s
worked at the store, and her hourly pay has gone from $8 to $10. She made
slightly less than $24,000 last year.
In
Trump’s economy, where CEOs cannot easily import extra workers, Dunkin’ Donuts
now pays its assistant managers
almost $14.00 in Salisbury, MA. Admittedly, the crush of low-skill migrants and
high-tech money moving into major cities has pushed up housing costs for
assistant managers, so the rent for two-bedroom apartments in Dorchester now
exceeds $2,000 per month.
But elites have always been
reluctant to admit the economic and civic distortions caused by
government-imported labor, said Lynn. “They never will,” he said, citing a
quote by union leader Samuel Gompers in 1924:
Every effort to enact
immigration legislation must expect to meet a number of hostile forces and, in
particular, two hostile forces of considerable strength. One of these is
composed of corporation employers who desire to employ physical strength at the
lowest possible wage and who prefer a rapidly revolving labor supply at low
wages to a regular supply of American wage-earners at fair wages. The other is
composed of racial groups in the United States who oppose all restrictive
legislation because they want the doors left open for an influx of their
countrymen
That
year, Gompers won his battle when Congress drastically cut the inflow of
immigrants into the United States. By 1950, American wage-earners earned roughly 65
percent of each year’s economy. But that share declined after 1980 in an
increasingly high-immigration, high-tech economy.
McKinsey.com
In the great recession, wage-earners’
share of new wealth fell below 57 percent as cheap labor and spreading
technology flushed Americans’ money towards the stock market and the coastal
cities.
The New York Times
THE DEMOCRAT AMNESTY IS NON-ENFORCEMENT OR DISMANTLING OUR
BORDERS INCH BY ILLEGAL
Democrat
Attorneys General Demand Fast-Track Work Permits for Illegals and Migrants
Rich
Pedroncelli/AP Photo
15 Jan 20201,570
11:03
Twenty-one top Democrat state
officials are trying to block a White House reform that would protect
Americans’ jobs and wages from hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants and
economic migrants who try to get U.S. jobs.
“That’s
bad for immigrants,” said a tweet from New Jersey’s Democrat attorney
general, Gurbir Grewal. Agency officials “want to delay & deny work permits
for asylum seekers.”
“This
proposal is cruel and legally questionable at best,” said California’s
Democrat attorney general, Xavier Becerra. Migrants “who do not enter the
country through a port of entry or have resided in the United States for more
than a year would now be summarily denied access to a work permit,” he said.
The draft
proposal would end the long-standing agency practice of quickly giving one-year
work permits to migrants who ask for asylum, and also illegal immigrants who
ask for green cards. For example, it would withhold work permits from Central
American asylum seekers for more than a year after they present themselves at a
U.S. border post, and it would end the policy of providing
temporary work permits to long-term illegals. The rule would also deny work
permits to migrants who apply for asylum after sneaking into the United States.
The lax work
permit policies were pushed by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The
policies have provided millions of work permits to migrants. That huge supply
of imported labor boosts investors and companies by undercutting blue-collar
and white-collar wages, and it encourages more illegal migration.
The scale of
this work permit economy is sketched by the Department of Homeland Security. A
January 14 chart shows that at least
1,726,688 got work permits in 2019, alongside the roughly four million
Americans who turned 18 during the year.
The federal
government “estimates that 305,000 asylum seekers will be affected by the
Proposed Rule in the first year alone, with just under 300,000 affected in
subsequent years,” according to the complaint by the 21 attorneys
general.
“This
important new regulatory initiative has had far less media coverage than it
merits,” said Dale Wilcox, general counsel of the Immigration Reform Law
Institute (IRLI).
“The new regulation is complex but cohesive
in its three-part strategy to deter aliens from filing fraudulent or otherwise
defective asylum claims,” said a January 14 statement from the IRLI:
Aliens who
illegally cross the border instead of applying for asylum at a port of entry
will be ineligible to work until they are actually granted asylum. All
applicants must appear at USCIS offices to provide fingerprints, photos, and
other biodata before becoming eligible to apply for work permission. IRLI
agrees with the government that this will greatly improve screening for
ineligible criminal aliens, a major problem in this area.
…
Longstanding
federal statutes bar asylum applications filed more than a year after arrival,
and sanction applications that are “frivolous.” The new reforms restrict or
eliminate more than a dozen loopholes in the regulations implementing these
statutes. These loopholes have been used by immigration lawyers and
anti-borders activists to make incomplete and often dishonest applications,
many thousands of which are received eight or even ten years after the aliens
first illegally crossed our borders.
“The
[courtroom] backlogs in adjudicating all these [asylum] claims result in almost
automatic employment authorization, which depresses the wages of American
workers and is a magnet for further illegal entry,” said the IRLI statement . “We applaud the
administration for taking this important step to protect American workers and
gain control of the border.”
A Rasmussen survey shows likely voters by 2:1 want
Congress to make companies hire & train US grads & workers instead of
importing more foreign workers.
The Democrat attorneys
general submitted their objections during the comment
period on draft regulations.
The
regulation contradicts the pro-migration “Nation of Immigrants” narrative, say
the Democrats:
We, the
undersigned Attorneys General of New Jersey, California, the District of
Columbia, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland,
Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon,
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington (“The States”), write …
An animating
value of the United States is embodied in the now-famous lines inscribed on the
Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free.” The United States has committed itself to providing
asylum seekers a haven from persecution, regardless of whether they are rich or
poor. Indeed, in establishing the framework for today’s asylum system in the
Refugee Act of 1980, Congress made clear it was codifying “one of the oldest
themes in America’s history—welcoming homeless refugees to our shores.”
The
regulation will deter further migration into U.S. jobs, disadvantaging
employers and state governments, the Democrats complain:
By barring
many applicants from EADs completely and indefinitely delaying others’ EADs,
the Proposed Rule imposes economic hurdles that will harm both asylum seekers
and States and serve as a deterrent to seeking asylum in the first instance.
Limiting EAD access will push asylum seekers into the underground economy,
impede their ability to take care of themselves and their families, and harm
their health and wellbeing. The States, too, will feel these consequences. The
States, for their part, welcome thousands of asylum seekers each year who
contribute greatly to their communities and economies.1 The Proposed Rule will
lower tax and spending revenue in the States and harm businesses within the
States that will have to find replacements and alternative labor. It will also
increase reliance on state-funded programs, and hinder the States’ ability to
enforce their own labor and civil rights laws.
…
The Proposed
Rule will make it much more difficult, if not impossible, for many to legally
work, costing the States millions of dollars in lost tax revenue and diminished
economic growth. Second, the resulting delays and denials of work authorization
will lead to increased healthcare costs shouldered by the States. Third, the
Proposed Rule will burden the States’ other social service providers, including
state funded non-profit service providers. Fourth, and finally, the Proposed
Rule will make it more difficult for the States to enforce their own laws,
particularly those designed to protect workers from unfair and abusive
conditions of employment.
…
Although
unauthorized workers pay taxes, tax revenue increases when immigrants can
legally work, and the States could stand to lose substantial revenue if the
Proposed Rule is implemented. Currently, undocumented immigrants residing in
the States pay approximately $7.4 billion in state and local taxes annually.
This would increase by approximately $1.4 billion if undocumented immigrants
were given legal status.
The Democrats
complain the regulation will make it difficult for migrants to hire the lawyers
needed to win asylum:
Under the
Department’s restrictive approach to work authorization, fewer asylum seekers
will have the resources to hire legal counsel to navigate them through the
complex and evolving immigration bureaucracy.4 That matters a great deal. In
2017, 90 percent of those without legal representation were denied asylum in
immigration court while only 54 percent of those with legal representation were
denied.
The
regulation will impact many migrants, the state attorneys general write:
USCIS asylum offices
within the States are considering 40 percent of the 327,984 pending affirmative
asylum applications. Based on calculations involving the most recent available
data, these offices receive an average of approximately 45,615 asylum
applications per year. The States also hosted over 10,000 or 80 percent of the
13,248 total immigration court grants of asylum in 2018.
The rule will
hurt the businesses that earn revenues from illegal migrants, they say:
The Proposed
Rule will also significantly reduce the spending power of asylum seekers,
thereby weakening the economies of the States. Curtailing work authorization
for asylum seekers or cutting others off from EADs prematurely will result in
lost wages and money that does not flow to the States’ businesses and
economies. The New American Economy estimates that immigrants exercise billions
in spending power each year, totaling over $724.8 billion in the States.
Indeed, the Department itself recognizes that up to $4.4 billion could be lost
in wages.
Businesses will
have to hire Americans instead of migrants and illegals, the attorneys general
complain:
By the
Department’s own admission, businesses will not only lose potential labor, but
also will likely have to find replacement labor because the Proposed Rule cuts
short asylum seekers’ ability to continue working, even if their asylum cases
are ongoing in federal court. Although the Department asserts that businesses
potentially could find other labor to substitute for the jobs that asylum
applicants currently hold, its own analysis belies that premise. The Department
acknowledges that with the unemployment rate at a “50-year low [. . .] it could
be possible that employers may face difficulties finding reasonable labor
substitutes.”
Migrants —
including illegals — provide a large part of the labor force hired by employers
in many states, they say:
While the
Department makes no inquiry into the “wages, occupations, industries, or
businesses that may employ such workers,” there is substantial data that
several sectors of the States’ economies disproportionately employ immigrants
and are likely to face costs while trying to find labor substitutes. In New
Jersey, for example, service providers report that many asylum seekers are
employed as home health aides, engineers, dental assistants, construction
workers, and in farming and agriculture. Immigrants fill over two-thirds of the
jobs in California’s agricultural and related sectors, almost half of those in
manufacturing, 43 percent of construction jobs, and 41 percent of those in
computer and sciences. Likewise, approximately 43 percent of employed
undocumented workers in Illinois are employed in the food services and
manufacturing industries. In New York, immigrants account for 71.4 percent of
taxi drivers and chauffeurs; 68.3 percent of workers in private households,
including maids, housekeepers, and nannies; 57.9 percent of those working as
chefs and head cooks; 57.3 percent of nursing, psychiatric, and home health
aides; and 44.7 percent of the state’s workers in traveler accommodation.
Almost 50% of U.S. employees got higher wages in 2019, up
from almost 40% in 2018.
That's useful progress - but wage growth will likely rise
faster if Congress stopped inflating the labor supply for the benefit of
business. http:// bit.ly/2SyaLg7
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