Saturday, February 20, 2021

JOE BIDEN LOVES ALEX PADILLA. HE UNDERSTANDS HOW BIDEN'S CRONY CAPITALISM WORKS AND WILL HELP BIDEN EXPAND THE LA RAZA WELFARE STATE TO KEEP THOSE ILLEGALS COMING AND VOTING DEM FOR MORE

AS SEC. OF STATE IN MEXIFORNIA, PADILLA WORKED HARD TO HAND VOTING TO AS  MANY ILLEGALS AS HE COULD RIG IT FOR. THAT'S  WHY HE WAS ENDORSED BY THE OLD WHORE FEINSTEIN AND GAVIN NEWSOM

THE  GLOBALIST DEMOCRAT PARTY'S FIRST PRIORITY AFTER CRONIES AND BANKSTERS IS TO BUILD THE LA RAZA WELFARE STATE TO KEEP THEM COMING.

CA Dem Who Pushed Plum Contract to Biden-Linked Firm Tapped for Senate Seat

  •  
  •  
  •  
California secretary of state Alex Padilla (D.) / Getty Images

The California Democrat who fought to pay out a $35 million state contract to a Biden-linked consulting firm was selected to succeed Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in the U.S. Senate.

Democratic governor Gavin Newsom appointed California secretary of state Alex Padilla to replace Harris on Tuesday, months after Padilla awarded Democratic public relations giant SKDKnickerbocker a $35 million no-bid contract as part of a state voter outreach program. 

The secretive deal saw Padilla ensnared in controversy as he lobbied for the Senate seat. After California's chief fiscal officer refused to approve the contract—arguing that Padilla lacked the authority to grant it—Padilla spent months lobbying to pay the firm, which has deep ties to Harris and President-elect Joe Biden.

His efforts have so far proved unsuccessful, with the payment still yet to be approved. But Padilla's decision to award the contract to SKDK may have boosted his standing among the nation's top Democratic operatives. Anita Dunn—the firm's managing director—led Biden's presidential campaign, which disbursed more than $2.2 million to SKDK during the 2020 cycle. Other top clients include Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's (D., N.Y.) Senate Majority PAC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. SKDK's website currently thanks "Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and all of our clients who fought for the soul of the nation."

Newsom—whose office did not respond to a request for comment—has not revealed how the outstanding payment will be handled given Padilla's imminent promotion. Padilla's office also did not respond to a request for comment.

Padilla awarded the contract to SKDK as part of California's "Vote Safe" initiative, which was created to "educate the public on the safety, security, and ease of voting in the general election amid the COVID-19 pandemic." Padilla issued the contract on an "emergency" basis due to the pandemic, meaning it did not require a competitive bidding process and was not approved by state financial officers before it was granted. The contract saw SKDK target "first-time mail voters" and those with language barriers.

Republican state lawmakers have used the contract's lack of competitive bidding process to accuse Padilla of operating without accountability.

"If Gov. Newsom unilaterally appoints [Padilla] to serve the 40 million residents of this state based on his resume of a … partisan PR deal with taxpayer money, Americans can expect more of the same—no transparency, no accountability, and backroom deals," Republican state senate leader Shannon Grove said in a recent statement.

Padilla will become California's newest U.S. senator after Harris is sworn in as vice president in January.

Jobless Claims Jump to 861,000, Much Worse Than Expected

US President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting with labor leaders about the American Rescue Plan, the administration's coronavirus response bill, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on February 17, 2021. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
2:34

New weekly jobless claims unexpectedly rose by 13,000 to 861,000 in the week that ended February 13, the Department of Labor said Thursday.

Economists had expected claims to fall to 768,00 from the 793,000 initially reported for the prior week. The previous week’s figure was revised up by 55,000 to 848,000.

Jobless claims can be volatile week to week so economists like to look at the four-week average. This fell to 833,250, 3,500 below the prior week’s average.

Jobless claims—which are a proxy for layoffs—remain at extremely high levels. Prior to the pandemic, the highest level of claims was 695,000 hit in October of 1982. In March of 2009, at the depths of the financial crisis recession, jobless claims peaked at 665,000.

Even when the economy is creating a lot of demand for workers, many businesses will shed employees as they adjust to market conditions. But in a high-pressure labor market, those employees quickly find jobs and many never show up on the employment rolls. What appears to be happening now is that many workers who lose their jobs cannot quickly find replacement work and are forced to apply for benefits.

Claims hit a record 6.87 million for the week of March 27, more than ten times the previous record. Through spring and early summer, each subsequent week had seen claims decline. But in late July, the labor market appeared to stall and claims hovered around one million throughout August, a level so high it was never recorded before the pandemic struck. Claims moved down again in September and had made slow, if steady, progress until the election.

Continuing claims, which get reported with a week’s lag, fell by 64,000 to 4,494,000.

There are two new programs offering unemployment benefits to people previously ineligible, such as self-employed workers or small business owners. The total number of continued weeks claimed for benefits in all programs for the week ending January 30 was 18,340,161, a decrease of 1,325,567 from the previous week.

  

Joe Biden Breaks Silence About Texas, Promises to Visit

Oncor crews work to restore power to homes in Euless, Texas, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. (AP Photo/Michael Ainsworth)
AP Photo/Michael Ainsworth
1:26

President Joe Biden broke his silence Friday about the weather disaster in Texas, promising to visit.

Biden confirmed to reporters at the White House that he wants to travel to Texas next week but only if he can do it “without creating a burden for folks.”

“I’m going to be a president for all Americans,” Biden said.

Biden has remained publicly silent about the ongoing struggles in the state for several days except for three social media posts on Thursday.

White House officials asserted Biden was “keeping abreast” of the issues in Texas and that officials are working with local leaders to assist Texans. On Thursday, the White House announced FEMA is providing 60 generators as well as food, water, and blankets to Texas communities.

Biden reassured reporters Friday he is handling the crisis from the White House.

“FEMA is already there and providing support,” he said.

On Thursday night, Biden spoke on the phone with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott about the conditions on the ground in Texas.

He said on Friday that he is ready to move forward on a proposal to declare a major disaster in Texas to offer more federal relief.

“I’m going to sign the declaration once that’s in front of me,” Biden said Friday. “God willing we’ll bring relief to a lot of Texans.”

PoliticsFEMAGreg AbbottJoe BidenTexas

Migrant Rescues Continue in Freezing Conditions Along Border in Texas

Big Bend Sector Border Patrol agents rescued numerous migrants from freezing conditions near the Texas border. (Photo: U.S. Border Patrol/Big Bend Sector)
Photo: U.S. Border Patrol/Big Bend Sector
3:07

Border Patrol agents in South and West Texas continue to rescue migrants as human smugglers push them across the border during the record winter freeze.

“Big Bend Sector Border Patrol Agents have risked their own lives in the on-going effort to patrol the sector despite the winter weather,” Border Patrol officials said in a written statement. “Agents have successfully rescued over 200 people in recent days from dangerous conditions in the area, saving life and limb.”

Officials said 10 migrants were admitted to regional hospitals due to exposure, frostbite, and other serious medical conditions.

“Many people rescued by Big Bend Sector agents were found to have been abandoned by alien smugglers with some calling 911 operators seeking help or flagging down motorists as they reached area highways,” officials stated. “Family members have reported their loved-ones missing to Border Patrol resulting in additional searches and lives saved.”

In the Laredo Sector, agents rescued 40 migrants from freezing conditions in the past two days, Laredo officials stated. In one incident, agents rescued 7 migrants who crossed the border south of Laredo, Texas.

“The individuals stated they were lost and in distress due to the rainy conditions and temperatures that were near 31 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill factor of 23 degrees,” officials stated.

In a separate incident, Laredo West Station agents responded to another 911 call from a lost migrant. Agents responded to the area located about 30 miles northwest of Laredo and found the man, a Mexican national illegally present in the U.S., officials stated.

The agents said the man was not properly dressed for the frigid temperatures. They provided first aid to the man and determined he did not require additional medical attention.

“Despite the difficult weather conditions, our agents remain steadfast in their commitment to protecting our country and saving lives.  I am proud of their lifesaving work and the sacrifices they endure to carry out these often dangerous rescues,” said Chief Patrol Agent Matthew Hudak in a written statement.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s Sunday-morning talk show, What’s Your Point? Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX, Parler @BobPrice, and Facebook.


THE CONSPIRACY TO SABOTAGE HOMELAND SECURITY 

The Democrat Party’s secret agenda for wider open borders, more welfare for invading illegals, more jobs and free anything they illegally vote for…. All to destroy the two-party system and build the GLOBALISTS’ DEMOCRAT PARTY FOR WIDER OPEN BORDERS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED.

https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/11/frontpage-hidden-agenda-of-pueblo-sin.html

Demonstrably and irrefutably the Democrat Party became the party whose principle objective is to thoroughly transform the nature of the American electorate by means of open borders and the mass, unchecked importation of illiterate third world peasants who will vote in overwhelming numbers for Democrats and their La Raza welfare state. FRONTPAGE MAG


Surge in Illegal Aliens, 500% Increase in Some U.S. Ports of Entry

 

Judicial Watch Corruption Chronicles, December 30, 2015

The agency’s own statistics certainly contradict that, showing that the southern border region is as porous and vulnerable as ever. Other entry ports that saw large hikes in Central American illegal immigrants during the first two months of this fiscal year include Del Rio, Texas (269%), El Centro, California (216%) and Rio Grande Valley, Texas (154%). The Border Patrol breaks the stats down by “family unit” and illegal immigrants under the age of 18, referred to as “Unaccompanied Alien Children” or UAC. The Rio Grande Valley port of entry topped the list in both categories with 8,537 family units and 6,465 UACs during the two-month period. In all, the nation’s nine southern border crossings saw an average of 173% increase in family units and a 106% increase in minors during the short period considered.

Some of the illegal immigrants are Mexican nationals, but the overwhelming majority comes from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The government records show that somehow 4,450 family units from El Salvador evaded our topnotch border security and entered the United States in a period of only two months. Guatemala and Honduras had 3,934 and 3,203 respectively. Mexico had 538 family units. Of interesting note is that, during this period, the Border Patrol reports 35,234 apprehensions in the region of foreigners labeled by the government as “Other Than Mexican” or OTM. This is a term used by federal authorities to refer to nationals of countries that represent a terrorist threat to the U.S.
. . .
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/12/surge-in-illegal-aliens-500-increase-in-some-u-s-ports-of-entry/

Rep. Chip Roy: Amnesty Bill Doomed to Fail, Paves Way for Executive Orders on Immigration

In this June 2019 file photo, Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX) speaks at a press conference in Washington, DC, regarding the migrant crisis at the border. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
3:46

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) told Breitbart News on Friday that the Biden administration’s and Democrats’ amnesty legislation is “dead on arrival” and is a “sop to the radical left.”

“The Biden administration just jumped right in and refused to actually have a secure border, which tells you everything you need to know about [the] legislation they’re putting forward,” Roy said on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

The U.S. Citizenship Act, introduced on Thursday by Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) in the House and Senate, respectively, would provide amnesty for millions of illegal aliens.

President Joe Biden’s and Democrats’ support for “open borders” incentivizes human traffickers who abuse migrants seeking entry to the U.S., Roy said.

Roy remarked, “They’re literally issuing executive orders that violate [Joe Biden’s] oath to the Constitution to take care to faithfully execute the laws of the United States and secure our border against dangerous cartels [and] make sure Americans are safe, all while empowering those cartels to move human beings — immigrants — for profit across our border.”

LISTEN:

Roy added, “Democrats pretend they’re pro-immigrant and that they care about people. There are human beings in stash houses — right now — getting abused because of the policies of Democrats. They don’t care, because this is a political issue. Now they introduce legislation that creates an immediate pathway to citizenship for people who have come here illegally, and it allows aliens — believe this or not — that were specifically removed under the Trump administration to apply, even though all that was doing was enforcing the law.”

“This is nothing more than a sop to the radical left,” Roy held. “This would be wide open borders. It would endanger Americans. To create an environment where you’re doing a massive amnesty — like this bill would do — would encourage more caravans [and] more people to flood our border.”

Roy said, “This bill is a joke. It’s dead on arrival, and any Republican who votes for this should be shamed out of office, and frankly, any Democrat as well.”

Failure of legislative amnesty to be passed into law, Roy predicted, will provide pretexts for the Biden White House to issue executive orders related to amnesty, immigration, and border security.

“This bill is such total and utter garbage,” Roy said. He speculated that even Republicans who are “the most soft on immigration” will oppose the Democrats’ amnesty push.

Roy remarked, “Biden knows full well that this stuff will be bad policy. I think he wanted to put it out there to appease [the radical left], let it sit, Pelosi can pass it, let it die in the Senate, because I don’t think Joe Manchin or any others will let this go by 50 votes. … At the end of the day, [Biden] knows he can do the most to what he wants to do through executive orders.”

Roy concluded, “Mind you, by the way, [Biden] is currently having conversations with Mexico and with other countries, encouraging them to continue to try to stop the flow of people coming through the country so he can try not to have a humanitarian crisis at the border because he knows his policies are bad. He’s already doing three executive orders creating this environment. He knows what’s going on. He’s just trying to placate his radical left.”

Breitbart News Daily broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.

Big Tech, Koch Network Cheer Biden’s Amnesty to Flood U.S. Labor Market

Unemployed-Americans-640x480
Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images
4:25

Big tech’s lobbying arm and the Koch brothers’ network of donor class organizations are cheering on President Joe Biden’s amnesty plan that would pack the United States labor market with more foreign visa workers for business to hire over American graduates and professionals.

This week, Biden’s amnesty plan was introduced in Congress by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) as Democrats look to increase foreign competition in the U.S. workforce while more than 17 million Americans are jobless.

Among other things, the plan would:

  • Put nearly all illegal aliens in the U.S. on an eight-year path to citizenship
  • Provide $4 billion in foreign aid to Central America
  • Expand the U.S. labor market with more foreign visa workers
  • Expedite green cards for foreign relatives, otherwise known as “chain migration”
  • Potentially add 52 million foreign-born residents to the U.S. population
  • Eliminate per-country caps, ensuring India monopolizes employment green cards
  • Increase the Diversity Visa Lottery program where visas are given out randomly
  • Provide green cards to foreign students who graduate in advanced STEM fields
  • Bring already deported illegal aliens back to the U.S. to provide them amnesty

For Amazon, millions of newly legalized illegal aliens, foreign visa workers, and chain migrants who would be added to the U.S. labor market as a result of the plan are a boon to multinational corporations’ profits.

“Today’s immigration reform bill marks an important step in reducing the green card backlog, creating a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers & making our immigration system more efficient,” Amazon officials wrote in a statement. “We look forward working [with] the administration and Congress to advance these proposed solutions.”

Specifically, aside from providing Amazon with more foreign visa workers to hire, the plan includes a green card giveaway that would create a green card system where only H-1B foreign visa workers are able to obtain employment-based visas by creating a backlog of seven to eight years for all foreign nationals.

The process would reward outsourcing firms and tech corporations for the decades of outsourcing American jobs to H-1B foreign visa workers.

Executives with the Libre Initiative, a Koch-funded organization, also praised the Biden amnesty plan as “an important first step” to securing the green card giveaway for corporations that they have also long lobbied for.

“There is broad support for proposals like a permanent solution for Dreamers, workforce visa reform, removing per-country caps, efficient border security measures and much more,” Daniel Garza with the Libre Initiative wrote in a statement:

Lawmakers should seize the opportunity and demonstrate that partisan gridlock will not keep the American public waiting another 30 years for congress to enact sensible, permanent solutions. We look forward to working with lawmakers to ensure that we can get nonpartisan, sensible solutions past both chambers and enacted into law.

Todd Schulte with FWD.us, a group that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg created to lobby on behalf of tech corporations, called the amnesty plan a “critical moment for immigration policy” and a “substantial step forward.”

“Congress has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform a long-failed and too easily weaponized immigration system,” Schulte wrote in a statement. “The time is now and we will seize this moment.”

Despite the business lobby’s insistence that there is a labor shortage, millions of Americans are out of work today and hundreds of thousands of U.S. graduates enter the labor market every year looking for white-collar professional jobs with competitive pay and good benefits.

Already, the U.S. admits about 1.2 million legal immigrants every year. Another 1.4 million foreign visa workers are brought in annually to take American jobs, many in white-collar professions. The latest data reveals that nearly 6-in-10 workers in Silicon Valley, California — the tech industry’s hub — are foreign-born.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here

Joe Biden Amnesty Plan Protects Illegal Hiring, Excludes Mandatory E-Verify

NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 16: A construction laborer works on the site of a new residential building in the Hudson Yards development, August 16, 2016 in New York City. Home construction in the U.S. accelerated in July to the fastest pace in five months. While housing starts were up …
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
3:21

President Joe Biden’s amnesty plan, introduced in Congress on Thursday, continues protecting employers who hire illegal aliens over American citizens by excluding mandatory E-Verify.

The amnesty plan would push the roughly 11 to 22 million illegal aliens in the United States into legal status categories, allowing the majority to immediately start legally competing for scarce jobs against America’s working and middle class while helping businesses cut their labor costs and spike their profit margins.

For the millions more illegal aliens who would likely be added to the U.S. population over the next decade by surges of illegal immigration at the southern border and an open pipeline for foreign nationals to continue overstaying their visas without much enforcement, the plan does little to punish employers who hire them over Americans.

Specifically, the plan excludes requiring employers to use the E-Verify system, which screens the employment eligibility of a potential new hire. Even the laxest mandatory E-Verify provisions, which would exempt current hires from the screening requirement, are not included in the legislation.

While Biden’s advisers tout the plan’s increased penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens over Americans, the annual prosecutions for employers and businesses tend to be exceptionally low.

Even as at least eight million illegal aliens hold jobs in the U.S. labor market, only 11 employers and no businesses were prosecuted in 2018. Even fewer, just three of those employers received prison time.

The plan does include increased protections for illegal aliens who are working illegally. For instance, one provision ensures that illegal aliens are not deported from the U.S. while a worksite enforcement investigation is underway.

Similarly, the plan more easily allocates out U visas to illegal aliens who claim they are the victims of labor violations.

The plan’s introduction, via Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), comes as Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Mitt Romney (R-UT) have introduced a plan to nationally mandate E-Verify to protect American workers while gradually raising the minimum wage over the next four years.

Mandatory E-Verify for employers remains one of the most popular policies, uniting likely voters across racial, socioeconomic, and party lines.

A weekly survey conducted by Rasmussen Reports shows that more than seven-in-ten likely voters agree that mandatory E-Verify should become law to protect the U.S. labor market. This includes 74 percent of Hispanic likely voters. Less than 20 percent of likely voters oppose mandatory E-Verify.

Additionally, 65 percent of likely voters say it is better for employers to raise wages and try harder to recruit the 17.1 million Americans who are out of work rather than importing cheaper foreign workers. Another 61 percent of likely voters say the U.S. already has enough skilled talent in the domestic labor pool for employers to recruit from.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here

Senate GOP: Biden Amnesty Floods U.S. Workforce During Coronavirus Crisis

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) questions President-elect Joe Biden's nominee for Secretary of Defense Retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin during his confirmation before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, January 19, 2021.
Greg Nash-Pool/Getty Images
4:59

Senate Republicans are lining up to oppose President Joe Biden’s massive amnesty plan that would legalize between 11 to 22 million illegal aliens and increase legal immigration levels, all while more than 17 million Americans remain jobless.

On Thursday, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) introduced Biden’s amnesty plan to Congress, seeking to hugely inflate the United States labor market at a time when the nation faces a mass unemployment crisis.

The plan, among other things, would:

  • Put nearly all illegal aliens in the U.S. on an eight-year path to citizenship
  • Provide $4 billion in foreign aid to Central America
  • Expedite green cards for foreign relatives, otherwise known as “chain migration”
  • Potentially add 52 million foreign-born residents to the U.S. population
  • Eliminate per-country caps, ensuring India monopolizes employment green cards
  • Increase the Diversity Visa Lottery program where visas are given out randomly
  • Provide green cards to foreign students who graduate in advanced STEM fields
  • Bring already deported illegal aliens back to the U.S. to provide them amnesty

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) called the plan “a disaster.”

“It would devastate our economy by flooding our workforce with millions of new workers during a pandemic,” Cotton said. “And it does nothing to secure our borders, yet grants mass amnesty, welfare benefits — even voting rights — to over 11 million people who came here illegally. It’s a nonstarter.”

Likewise, Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) said the plan “will encourage more illegal immigration and reduce opportunities for American workers during a pandemic-induced recession when so many are already struggling to find jobs.”

“Why are we placing the interests of non-citizens over the interests of Americans?” Hagerty asked in a statement.

Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) said he is “disappointed” with Biden’s executive orders “to undo the ‘America First’ immigration agenda” that sought to boost U.S. wages by reducing overall immigration:

Between halting construction of the wall on our southern border and a partisan immigration proposal that offers American citizenship to illegal immigrants, it’s clear Joe Biden is not serious about fixing our broken immigration system that rewards illegal behavior.

Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) spokesperson pointed to the lawmaker’s previous statement on Biden’s plan, where he said Congress should prioritize the Chinese coronavirus crisis, reaching full employment for Americans, and taking on China’s global dominance before negotiating an immigration deal. Rubio said weeks ago:

America should always welcome immigrants who want to become Americans. But we need laws that decide who and how many people can come here, and those laws must be followed and enforced. There are many issues I think we can work cooperatively with President-elect Biden, but a blanket amnesty for people who are here unlawfully isn’t going to be one of them.

In the House, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) said “the economic result of granting amnesty and citizenship to illegal aliens is horrific for American citizens.”

“American workers will be pummeled as they suffer from lost jobs and suppressed wages,” Brooks said:

American taxpayers will be further burdened, inasmuch as households with illegal aliens in them are far more likely to be on welfare than are households without illegal aliens in them. American workers are already suffering the effects of tsunamis of cheap foreign labor who suppress American worker wages and take American jobs.

To pass the Senate, Biden’s amnesty plan would need the support of at least 10 Senate Republicans, as well as every Senate Democrat and those who caucus with the Democrats. While a number of Senate Democrats remain silent on the plan, many have indicated in recent votes where they may stand on the issue.

In the first week of February, eight Senate Democrats — including Krysten Sinema (D-AZ), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Gary Peters (D-MI), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Jon Tester (D-MT), and Joe Manchin (D-WV) — voted with Senate Republicans to block giving stimulus checks to illegal aliens.

The White House, though, has downplayed the plan’s potential lack of support among swing state Democrats who face tough re-elections in 2022 and 2024. About 28 vulnerable House Democrats, for instance, have stayed mostly quiet on whether they would support or oppose the plan.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here



Joe Biden’s Amnesty Bill Encourages Hiring of Foreign Graduates

university leaving
Andre Hunter via Unsplash
11:57

President Joe Biden’s draft amnesty bill includes at least three legal changes that pressure and reward CEOs for importing foreign workers to take the white-collar careers needed by U.S. graduates, including the millions of young graduates who voted for Biden.

The college graduate language in Joe Biden’s top-priority “U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021,” bill “is going to force a debate on every college campus and focus the attention of American students about how they’re being pushed out of the job market,” said Kevin Lynn, founder of U.S. Tech Workers. He continued:

This is going to create a backlash on the college campuses. No level of woke ideology is going to suppress the fact that students are going to wake up very quickly to the fact that they have put an awful lot of money into getting a degree, only to be pushed out of the workforce [by Democrats].

The debate will also supercharge the growing revolt by American professionals who have seen their jobs, careers, and wealth transferred to foreign contract workers throughout the Fortune 500. Those professionals demand their right to a national labor market as they helped block the S.386 outsourcing bill in 2020 that was pushed by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT).

The draft of the bill was released on January 20, and White House officials confirmed the top three Fortune 500 giveaways in a February 17 press conference.

The first of the changes in the amnesty would provide green cards to an unlimited inflow of foreign people who pay tuition to get technology-related PhDs from eager U.S. universities.

The second change would allow companies to provide an unlimited number of green cards to an unlimited number of non-immigrant contract workers in exchange for ten years of lower-wage work.

A third rule would allow employers to provide more than 140,000 green cards to non-immigrant contract workers via the existing Employment-Based Immigration process. The larger allocation would be more than double the current award to 75,000 workers per year. The number would allow CEOs to pay all of their imported H-1B and L-1 visa workers with green cards — and leave plenty left over to attract more foreign nurses, therapists, and doctors to the jobs needed by Americans.

The knock-on effects will be far larger.

The CEOs’ current ability to dangle roughly 75,000 green cards a year attracts roughly one million foreign graduates into a wide variety of gig-worker jobs throughout the United States. They take the gig-work jobs — which are mostly lower-paid, subcontract, mid-skill, drudgework — because they are competing against each other to get their CEOs to provide them with one of the 75,000 green cards allocated each year to employees.

That million-worker population includes roughly 600,000 foreign white-collar workers who are stuck in their jobs while waiting for their CEOs to deliver the approved green cards.

Biden’s amnesty bill would allow CEOs to dangle not just 75,0000 cards each year — but dangle millions of green cards to millions of white-collar workers around the world.

Crucially, there is no limit on the number of foreigners who can get work permits for U.S. jobs — they just have to have enough cash to enroll at a third-rate U.S. college to get work permits via the tax-favored, low-wage, unsupervised Curricular Practical Training (CPT) and Optional Practical Training (OPT) programs. Under Biden’s bill, CEOs will be able to hire foreign graduates in place of Americans with a promise of a green card after ten years of hopscotching from temporary visa to short-term work permit, and back again, in the United States or overseas.

The rational, predictable result will be a massive inflow of foreign graduates into U.S.  jobs.

This huge inflow will damage docile American college graduates, just as the massive inflow of blue-collar migrants smashed up the blue-collar working class in California. Their salaries will stall or decline, their status as professionals will be commoditized, their housing costs and commutes will rise, and their children will face tougher competition for slots at good schools and universities.

Already, federal data shows that salaries for college graduates dipped two percent from 2016 to 2019, even as blue-collar wages surged amid Trump’s crackdown on blue-collar migration.

The white-collar giveaway to the Fortune 500 CEOs is a central part of Biden’s plan, not a discardable flourish.

It is central to the plan because the Fortune 500 companies — especially the Silicon Valley companies — rallied to the Biden campaign to get those benefits. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, for example, played a central role in Biden’s election, and his FWD.us advocacy group has been pushing hard for these white-collar workers.

It is also central because progressives need the CEOs and their lobbyists to pressure the GOP into accepting the amnesty that will push more Republicans out of office. The swap was described on January 21 by Biden’s chief amnesty advocate in the Senate, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ):

We need the high-tech community — who will benefit from the reforms we are proposing — to be advocates of the overall reform movement. We need those who need the H-1B and [H]-2B visas in the business community to be advocates of overall reform. What we cannot have is only being an advocate for the simple niche that takes care of your economic issue, but doesn’t resolve the overall question of the 11 million.

When we join together — those and so much more — we can achieve the [amnesty] goal because then those senators and those members of the House who represent large agricultural interests in their districts and state, those who represent high-tech interests in their state, those who represent some of the [H-2B] critical workers — whether it be in the seafood industry in the meatpacking industry or whatnot — who need that work …  so that people understand that this is something worthy of putting their [political] capital [on].

So far, the establishment press has not publicized Biden’s promised flood of foreign white-collar workers. “There is nothing remotely radical in what he wants to do,” said an oblivious column by E.J. Dionne in Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post newspaper. An editorial by the newspaper’s editorial board simply ignores the white-collar issue.

But Biden’s push to flood the market for college jobs can shift politics, said Lynn.

The push will force U.S. graduates to recognize their common interests with the many blue-collar Americans who backed President Donald Trump’s populist immigration reduction platform, he said. If Republicans spotlight the danger, they can win a critical share of swing-voting graduates in the 2022 and 2024 elections, Lynn said.

Trump missed this opportunity in 2020 by ignoring the economic impact of migration on swing-voting Americans. Instead, he talked about low priority concerns, such as migrant crime, welfare spending, and border integrity.

But the status, health, and income of younger college graduates are shrinking. For example, a 2017 report in the New York Times declared:

Unemployment rates for STEM majors may be low, but not all of those with undergraduate degrees end up in their field of study — only 13 percent in life sciences and 17 percent in physical sciences, according to a 2013 National Science Foundation survey. Computer science is the only STEM field where more than half of graduates are employed in their field.

Source: New York Times

The massive career loss is indicated by federal income reports. “Families without a high school diploma saw a 9 percent increase in their median income, while families with a college degree saw a 2 percent decrease,” said a September 2020 report by the Federal Reserve banking system.

 

The January 20 draft of Biden’s bill showed multiple ways for Fortune 500 companies to increase their white-collar hiring from overseas. A copy of the updated bill is expected to be released on February 18.

  • Double the Employers’ Green Cards 

In. Sec. 3102 (a), the bill doubles the award of green cards in the Employment-Based system by exempting spouses and children. This means companies can get 140,000 green cards each year to dangle in front of foreign graduates.

  • Unlimited Number of Green cards for STEM PhDs

In Sec. 3401(a), the bill awards green cards to any foreign graduate who gets science and technology PhDs from American universities. Roughly 7,000 foreigners get PhDs each year, but if universities can sell tickets to citizenship, then many will likely develop new PhDs that allow foreigners to get PhDs after several years of work, study, and tuition. The number can be very large — roughly 136,000 foreign graduates were working in PhDs at American universities in 2019, according to the 2020 version of Open Doors, a government-backed report.

 

  • Unlimited Green Cards After ten Years of Work
  • In Sec. 3404, the bill caps the waiting period for green cards to just ten years after employers nominate their employees for the cards.
  • Currently, many Indian workers have to wait many years because their numbers have far exceeded the long-standing pro-diversity rules, which are dubbed “country caps.” Biden’s proposed ten-year cap means that foreign graduates can be confident they will get green cards in just ten years after they persuade an employer to sponsor them. “This sweetens the deal for both employer and worker and this institutionalizes the wholesale replacement of U.S. workers,” said Jessica Vaughan, at the Center for Immigration Studies. She said:

    This provision is a huge incentive for employers to maintain or adopt the business model of replacing US workers with visa workers at lower pay, and having the ability to promise the visa workers a green card in 10 years, putting a firm end date on the period of cheap indentured labor that the worker has to endure.

  • Joe Biden’s Amnesty Bill Will Steal Careers from Many U.S. College Grad Voters

 

The bill also eliminates the pro-diversity country caps, which have helped to cause a huge backlog of Indian graduates who are working in U.S. jobs to get green cards.

 

  • 30,000 Extra Green Cards

In Sec. 3403, the bill adds 30,000 extra green cards per year for people without college degrees — such as laboratory workers, therapists, nurses, farmworkers, and dairy workers.

Joe Biden’s Amnesty Bill Will Steal Careers from Many U.S. College Grad Voters

 

  • 30,000 Extra Green Cards

300,000 Extra Green Cards 

In Sec. 3101(b), the bill also adds an estimated 300,000 H-1Bs under the claim that the visas were offered but not used from 19992 to 2020. Over a ten-year period, the two measures would add another 600,000 foreign graduates to the U.S. labor market — many of whom would get green cards to stay permanently.

Joe Biden’s Amnesty Bill Will Steal Careers from Many U.S. College Grad Voters

GOP senators have not targeted this corporate outsourcing of middle-class jobs to foreign graduates, despite repeated efforts by former Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL). However, GOP legislators are putting more attention on the issue, including Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), and even Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT).

Establishment reporters have not covered the huge economic impact of migration on white-collar Americans, despite extensive coverage by mainstream publications.

Jobless Claims Jump to 861,000, Much Worse Than Expected

US President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting with labor leaders about the American Rescue Plan, the administration's coronavirus response bill, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on February 17, 2021. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
2:34

New weekly jobless claims unexpectedly rose by 13,000 to 861,000 in the week that ended February 13, the Department of Labor said Thursday.

Economists had expected claims to fall to 768,00 from the 793,000 initially reported for the prior week. The previous week’s figure was revised up by 55,000 to 848,000.

Jobless claims can be volatile week to week so economists like to look at the four-week average. This fell to 833,250, 3,500 below the prior week’s average.

Jobless claims—which are a proxy for layoffs—remain at extremely high levels. Prior to the pandemic, the highest level of claims was 695,000 hit in October of 1982. In March of 2009, at the depths of the financial crisis recession, jobless claims peaked at 665,000.

Even when the economy is creating a lot of demand for workers, many businesses will shed employees as they adjust to market conditions. But in a high-pressure labor market, those employees quickly find jobs and many never show up on the employment rolls. What appears to be happening now is that many workers who lose their jobs cannot quickly find replacement work and are forced to apply for benefits.

Claims hit a record 6.87 million for the week of March 27, more than ten times the previous record. Through spring and early summer, each subsequent week had seen claims decline. But in late July, the labor market appeared to stall and claims hovered around one million throughout August, a level so high it was never recorded before the pandemic struck. Claims moved down again in September and had made slow, if steady, progress until the election.

Continuing claims, which get reported with a week’s lag, fell by 64,000 to 4,494,000.

There are two new programs offering unemployment benefits to people previously ineligible, such as self-employed workers or small business owners. The total number of continued weeks claimed for benefits in all programs for the week ending January 30 was 18,340,161, a decrease of 1,325,567 from the previous week.

 

California Republican Assemblyman Calls for Corruption Investigation Into Newsom

  •  
  •  
  •  
California governor Gavin Newsom (D.) / Getty Images

California state assemblyman Kevin Kiley (R.) called for a corruption investigation into Governor Gavin Newsom's (D.) management of public contracts awarded during the coronavirus pandemic to companies that contributed to his reelection campaign.

Kiley proposed Tuesday that state authorities probe Newsom’s role in alleged influence-peddling by corporations, many of which were able to receive no-bid contracts from the California government because of the state of emergency declared in response to the pandemic.

Reporting by local outlets indicates Newsom’s government issued contracts and other opportunities to at least half a dozen companies that made major donations to Newsom’s reelection campaign. The contracts offered by the state range from $2 million to $1 billion. 

Companies that received no-bid contracts include large donors in the health care industry. Blue Shield of California has given Newsom more than $300,000 since 2018 and won a $15 million contract from the state government. UnitedHealth has contributed more than $200,000 to Newsom’s political efforts since 2018 and won multiple no-bid contracts totaling more than $400 million.

The president of BYD, a Chinese manufacturer, donated $40,000 to Newsom and received more than $1 billion from California to produce N95 and surgical masks. BYD ultimately failed to complete its contract on time and had to return $247 million in public funds.

Kiley slammed Newsom’s coronavirus management as a strategy to aid "special interest allies" over working Californians.

"This governor has repeatedly used extraordinary emergency powers to reward special interest allies as millions of Californians have paid the price," Kiley said. "It's hard to imagine a worse betrayal of the public trust."

Scrutiny over Newsom's management of the pandemic comes as the governor faces a recall effort led by Republican politicians and conservative activists. Roughly half-a-million Californians have reportedly signed a recall petition against Newsom, with 1.5 million signatures required to force a special election. The movement gained enough steam in recent weeks to merit a response from the Biden administration. White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted last week that President Joe Biden opposes any recall effort against Newsom and shares "a commitment to a range of issues" with the governor.

California Republicans, including former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer and former gubernatorial candidate John Cox, have lined up to challenge Newsom in a potential recall election, which would take place later this year if the signature campaign is successful.

No comments: