Thursday, July 23, 2020

SOARING JOBLESSNESS - TRUMP AND PELOSI PARTNER FOR WALL STREET TO KEEP FOREIGN WORKERS COMING AND WAGES DEPRESSED

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending July 11 were in Florida (+65,890), Georgia (+33,292), California (+20,123), Washington (+16,116), and Indiana (+6,258). The largest decreases were in Maryland (-13,728), Texas (-11,583), New Jersey (-8,577), Michigan (-6,882), and Louisiana (-5,066).


U.S. Weekly Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Rise to 1.416 Million

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 13: U.S. President Donald Trump listens during an event about citizens positively impacted by law enforcement, in the East Room of the White House on July 13, 2020 in Washington, DC. The president highlighted life-saving actions by law enforcement officers and cited these examples as a …
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
4:05

New claims for unemployment benefits rose to 1.416 million last week, data from the Department of Labor showed Thursday.
This is the 18th consecutive week of initial claims above 1 million. Prior to March, initial claims had never risen as high as 700,000.
Economists had forecast 1.3 million claims. The prior week was initially reported as 1.3 million claims. The Labor Department revised that figure up by 7,000.
Claims hit a record 6.87 million for the week of March 27. Until this week, each subsequent week has seen claims decline.
Jobless claims can create a distorted picture of the labor market because they measure only job losses and not gains. Continuing claims during the week ending July 11 fell to 16,197,000, a decrease of 1,107,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised down by 34,000 from 17,338,000 to 17,304,000. These figures are reported with a week’s lag.
The federal government has been chipping in an extra $600 a week to state unemployment benefits, making the program much more generous. Many workers can now earn more on unemployment than they did when they had a job.  An analysis done by Isabel Soto of the American Action Forum found that the maximum unemployment benefit amount is greater than median wage in all states except the District of Columbia. That may be discouraging some workers from seeking work and leaving the unemployment rolls. 
“Using 2019 wage and unemployment data, an upperbound estimate of 92.8 million workers (or 63 percent of the workforce) typically make below the maximum weekly unemployment benefits under the CARES Act,” Soto wrote.
These super-sized benefits, however, are set to run out at the end of the month. Congress is considering extending the enhanced benefits, although many Republican lawmakers worry that could keep the unemployment rate artificially high.
In addition to claims for regular unemployment benefits, the government now offers two new forms of unemployment benefits to business owners, self-employed, gig-workers, and independent contractors who would not ordinarily qualify for unemployment benefits.
During the week ending Jul 4, 48 states reported 13,179,880 individuals claiming these Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits and 45 states reported 940,113 individuals claiming Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits.
The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending July 4 were in Puerto Rico (26.0), Nevada (21.3), Hawaii (20.7), Georgia (18.0), California (16.9), Louisiana (16.6), New York (16.1), Connecticut (15.4), the Virgin Islands (15.2), and Massachusetts (15.0).
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending July 11 were in Florida (+65,890), Georgia (+33,292), California (+20,123), Washington (+16,116), and Indiana (+6,258). The largest decreases were in Maryland (-13,728), Texas (-11,583), New Jersey (-8,577), Michigan (-6,882), and Louisiana (-5,066).


Chamber of Commerce Sues Trump to Import Foreign Workers While 26M Americans Jobless

Indian Workers on H1-B Visas APJason DeCrow
AP File Photo/Jason DeCrow
3:45



The Chamber of Commerce has filed a lawsuit against President Trump, demanding the 300,000 businesses it represents be allowed to import foreign workers while more than 26 million Americans remain jobless.
On Tuesday, Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas Donohue announced the group’s lawsuit against Trump’s expanded executive order, signed last month, which halts the H-1B, H-4, H-2B, L-1, and J-1 visa programs to reduce foreign competition against millions of unemployed Americans.
Donohue said in a statement:
Our lawsuit seeks to overturn these sweeping and unlawful immigration restrictions that are an unequivocal ‘not welcome’ sign to the engineers, executives, IT experts, doctors, nurses, and other critical workers who help drive the American economy. Left in place, these restrictions will push investment abroad, inhibit economic growth, and reduce job creation.
The lawsuit claims Trump does not have the authority as president to “alter the hiring practices of American employers as it relates to hundreds of thousands of jobs in the next few months” to give employment priority to unemployed Americans.
Businesses represented by the Chamber of Commerce, the lawsuit alleges, are “unable to fill necessary positions” – even amid mass, record unemployment levels spurred by the Chinese coronavirus crisis:
As a result of the Proclamation, American businesses … are unable to fill necessary positionsThere is a shortage of high-skilled American workers in certain fields, and the Proclamation bars American companies from turning to the international labor market to fill these positions. As a result, many of those openings will go unfilled entirely. [Emphasis added]
In one specific instance, the lawsuit claims an Indian national in India is now unable to secure an L-1 visa to be transferred by his employer to the U.S. The lawsuit states:
He was slated to transfer to the U.S. on an L-1 visa to manage a $1.2 billion business portfolio that works with more than 4,000 businesses across the United States. Due to COVID-19, he was unable to get a visa appointment at the U.S. consulate before the consular posts closed, and now he is subject to the Proclamation. The time zone difference between India and the U.S.-based headquarters has made it difficult for him to manage his new team.
Despite the repeated claims of a labor shortage in the lawsuit, more than 26 million Americans are unemployed and another nearly ten million are underemployed. All of those jobless or underemployed Americans, though, want full-time employment.
The Chamber of Commerce had lobbied Trump not to reduce foreign competition against unemployed Americans, suggesting that even in the midst of mass joblessness, big business should be allowed to import foreign workers instead of hiring locally.
Every year, the U.S. admits about 1.2 million legal immigrants on green cards to permanently resettle in the country. In addition, another 1.4 million foreign workers are admitted every year to take American jobs. Often, Americans are fired and replaced by foreign visa workers. In many cases, fired Americans are forced to train their foreign replacements before they can receive their severance packages.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The case number is 3:20-cv-04887.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder


Overall, immigrant households consume 33 percent more cash welfare than American citizen households and 44 percent more in Medicaid dollars. This straining of public services by a booming 44 million foreign-born population translates to the average immigrant household costing American taxpayers $6,234 in federal welfare.



Business, Progressives Ally to Sneak Illegals into Licensed Jobs

Mike Lawrie/Getty
152
6:51
Millions of illegal migrants and illegal workers should be allowed to take licensed jobs, such as electrician, welder, lab technician, therapist, or nurse, according to legislation pushed by progressives, universities, and business groups.
Their campaign advanced on June 29 when the New Jersey Senate passed a bill saying illegals can get trade licenses. “Lawful presence in the United States shall not be required to obtain a professional or occupational license, provided that the applicant meets all other requirements for licensure,” according to the bill, which is numbered S2455.
Some Republicans backed the Democrat-sponsored bill, but it has not been approved by the House.
The bill “would blur the distinctions between people who are in the country legally and those who are here illegally,” said John Miano, an immigration lawyer with the Immigration Reform Law Institute.
For example, illegals could get licenses for construction skills, get their work certified by state and local inspectors, and then get paid in cash under the table by contractors, so freezing out skilled American workers, Miano said.
Each year, roughly 500,000 foreign graduates work permits via the federal Curricular Practical Training and Optional Practical Training (OPT) programs. Many of these migrants work in low-wage software jobs, so forcing down salaries for American professionals in New Jersey and many other states. But many more migrants would also be willing to work as licensed electricians or plumbers before returning home with a fortune in home-country currency, Miano said.
The list of allowable OPT jobs includes “Electrical, Electronic and Communications Engineering Technology/Technician,” and “Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering Technology/Technician.”
The bill “opens the door to many scams,” Miano added.
For example, many foreign workers would be eager to work part of each year in New Jersey construction sites and be paid under the table, he said. If the bill passes, “I can bring in a [foreign] person on B-1 [legal visitor] who has a plumbing license in New Jersey, and then get six months’ work out of him because his signed permits would be just as valuable as anyone else’s.”
Millions of foreigners now hold long-term B-1/B-2 visas, and few are ever inspected — or punished — for illegal work, despite a growing number of little-noticed cases.
The New Jersey bill is boosted by a roster of progressives, including Make the Road New Jersey, the ACLU-NJ, New Jersey Policy Perspective, Wind of the Spirit, and academics from St Peter’s University and Rutgers Law.
“New Jersey stands to benefit when more people are able to work in health care, education, and other key frontline professions where there are labor shortages,” said a statement from illegal immigrant and DACA recipient Erika Martinez, of Make the Road New Jersey.
🚨 BREAKING: The Assembly Judiciary Committee passes A2445 with a 4-2 vote!
Our fight is headed to the Assembly floor for a final vote.
Take action with us NOW: https://t.co/bi8wg7mgNN
— Make the Road New Jersey (@MaketheRoadNJ) July 20, 2020
“As New Jersey faces an unprecedented public health crisis, and a dearth of health care and other essential professionals to meet the need, it is all the more critical that S2455 move forward without delay,” said the statement which also included support from New Jersey Association of Mental Health and Addiction Agencies, and Rutgers University – Newark.
“This is an important step toward ending discrimination based on immigration status,” said Vineeta Kapahi, a policy analyst at New Jersey Policy Perspective.
The push to allow migrants to get licenses jobs is supported by FWD.us, which is an advocacy group for West Coast investors, including Bill Gates and Brad Smith, the President of Microsoft.
“Allowing immigrants to earn appropriate licensure could also help address worsening labor shortages challenging critical fields like teaching and nursing, fields in which a third of DACA recipients want to work,” FWD.us claimed in December 2019.
“Congress should enact legislation that affirmatively prohibits the denial of federal and state professional, commercial, and business licenses based on immigration status,” said a September 2019 report by the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. The 2019 report was also endorsed by FWD.us and by a progressive advocacy group for DACA immigrants, dubbed United We Dream.
Congress can expand access to thousands of jobs by revising outdated licensing laws for work-authorized immigrants like DACA and TPS recipients. Learn more. https://t.co/gv0PHmU3nV
— Todd Schulte (@TheToddSchulte) December 19, 2019
Business groups have been quietly pushing this licenses-for-illegals campaign for several years, according to the Presidents’ Alliance report:
In recent years, Congress engaged in a variety of bipartisan efforts to expand access to licenses to non-qualified immigrants. During the Senate Judiciary markup of S.744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Reform Act of 2013, the committee, by voice vote and without controversy, adopted an amendment that would prohibit the federal government and states from denying licenses based on immigration status to any individual who held an EAD. The KIDS Act of 2014, then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s legislation, to provide relief to immigrant youth, contained similar provisions. Most recently, H.R.6, the Dream and Promise Act of 2019 contained language re-affirming that conditional permanent residents (CPRs) would be eligible for licenses.
The business groups are making quiet progress amid little pushback from groups that believe they champion the pocketbook interests of ordinary Americans. The alliance report said:
At least twelve states—Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming—enacted legislation to reduce barriers for immigrants, including DACA recipients, to obtain licenses. Other states undertook administrative or regulatory action. California expanded licenses to all undocumented immigrants; Florida and Illinois expanded access to law licenses for DACA recipients, while Wyoming rescinded that U.S. citizenship be a requirement for bar admission; Nebraska expanded access to all occupational licenses for DACA recipients; Indiana expanded occupational licensing in over 70 professions for DACA recipients; and New York, through the Board of Regents, expanded professional licenses and teacher certifications to DACA recipients.
The campaign has advanced in New MexicoNevada, New York, and in many other states.
Follow the money & the tweets through the 'dreamer' and DACA debates, and they lead to the @FWDus advocacy group, which was set up by West Coast investors to protect and expand their supply of cheap labor. https://t.co/DwL2ny8Sdd
— Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) July 17, 2020

 Exclusive–Lauren Boebert: ‘My Hard Line Is Secure the Border’
Businesswoman Lauren Boebert speaks during a watch party at Warehouse 25 Sixty Five in Grand Junction, Colo., after polls closed in Colorado's primary election on Tuesday, June 30, 2020. Boebert, a pistol-packing restaurant owner who has expressed support for a far-right conspiracy theory has upset five-term Colorado U.S. Rep. Scott …
McKenzie Lange/Grand Junction Sentinel via AP
4:15


Conservative business owner Lauren Boebert, who ousted Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO) in Colorado’s 3rd congressional district, says the first step to reforming immigration is securing the United States-Mexico border.
In an exclusive interview with SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Saturday, Boebert said her victory was “an upset for the establishment but a win for freedom-loving patriots who are tired of D.C. politics as usual.”
LISTEN: 
Boebert’s campaign against Tipton included slamming him for his support of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which would have capped farmworker wages, provided business with an unlimited inflow of H-2A foreign visa workers, and given amnesty to up to 1.25 million illegal aliens.
Boebert, a mother of four boys, said securing the U.S.-Mexico border to cut down illegal immigration is seemingly the step that is skipped in favor of amnesty.
“With the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, it was just a band-aid and our farmworkers didn’t like it,” Boebert said. “They understand that there is a problem with our exit strategy for our migrant workers here and all this did was put a band-aid on it and say ‘Woops, we messed up and now we’re [going to] give millions of illegal immigrants amnesty and not only that, but we need a billion of your taxpayer dollars to provide for their housing.’ So it just was not a conservative stance to take.”
“My hard line is secure the border,” Boebert said. “That is the step that we always seem to skip. The liberals have proven that they want lawlessness and they want open borders. I think we need to build a wall and secure our border. Certainly we need comprehensive immigration reform, but secure the border and then we’ll talk about that.”
Boebert said her victory was a historic win in Colorado where incumbents have for decades won their primaries against challengers.
“This was the first time in Colorado in 48 years that an incumbent has been defeated in a primary,” Boebert said. “The voters here get it. They understand that we need a fighter and if we remain silent on the issues that matter most to us, we lose by default.”
Boebert — a staunch advocate of the 2nd Amendment — is the owner of Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colorado, where she and waitresses open carry Glocks on their hips, gaining national attention for being the “safest restaurant in America.”
“Soon after we opened, there was a tragedy that took place and a man was beat to death near my restaurant,” Boebert said. “Now as a 5’0, 100-pound woman, I’m in the restaurant alone a lot and I wondered how I would take care of not only myself but how would I protect my people. And I began to take advantage of Colorado’s open carry laws and I began to open carry.”
“Long story short, my waitresses began to carry after that, we have tremendous training in place … we take gun safety very seriously,” Boebert said. “I believe that mistakes happen either because of ignorance or carelessness. Either you don’t know what you are doing with a firearm or you think you know so much that the basic rules don’t apply to you.”
“Next thing we knew, Nightline’s 20/20 was doing a story on us, calling Shooters Grill the safest restaurant in America,” Boebert continued. “This certainly gave me a platform for the 2nd Amendment.”
In one famous instance, Boebert confronted then-Democrat presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke after he declared to take legal guns away from law-abiding American citizens during a primary debate.
“Beto O’Rourke from the debate stage said ‘Hell yes we’re going to take your AR-15s and your AK-47s,'” Boebert said. “I said nobody else is standing up to this guy so I drove three hours to his presidential rally with my Glock on my hip and I said ‘Hell no you’re not.’ That became a national rally cry for our 2nd Amendment.”
Boebert now heads off against Democrat candidate Diane Mitsch Bush in the solidly Republican congressional district’s general election on November 3.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. 


State and Local Politicians Move to Grant Coronavirus Relief to Illegal Aliens

By Matthew Tragesser

 

Study: More than 7-in-10 California Immigrant

Welfare




More than 7-in-10 households headed by immigrants in the state of California are on taxpayer-funded welfare, a new study reveals.

The latest Census Bureau data analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) finds that about 72 percent of households headed by noncitizens and immigrants use one or more forms of taxpayer-funded welfare programs in California — the number one immigrant-receiving state in the U.S.
Meanwhile, only about 35 percent of households headed by native-born Americans use welfare in California.
All four states with the largest foreign-born populations, including California, have extremely high use of welfare by immigrant households. In Texas, for example, nearly 70 percent of households headed by immigrants use taxpayer-funded welfare. Meanwhile, only about 35 percent of native-born households in Texas are on welfare.
In New York and Florida, a majority of households headed by immigrants and noncitizens are on welfare. Overall, about 63 percent of immigrant households use welfare while only 35 percent of native-born households use welfare.
President Trump’s administration is looking to soon implement a policy that protects American taxpayers’ dollars from funding the mass importation of welfare-dependent foreign nationals by enforcing a “public charge” rule whereby legal immigrants would be less likely to secure a permanent residency in the U.S. if they have used any forms of welfare in the past, including using Obamacare, food stamps, and public housing.
The immigration controls would be a boon for American taxpayers in the form of an annual $57.4 billion tax cut — the amount taxpayers spend every year on paying for the welfare, crime, and schooling costs of the country’s mass importation of 1.5 million new, mostly low-skilled legal immigrants.
As Breitbart News reported, the majority of the more than 1.5 million foreign nationals entering the country every year use about 57 percent more food stamps than the average native-born American household. Overall, immigrant households consume 33 percent more cash welfare than American citizen households and 44 percent more in Medicaid dollars. This straining of public services by a booming 44 million foreign-born population translates to the average immigrant household costing American taxpayers $6,234 in federal welfare.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. 


No comments: