10K OF BIDEN'S ILLEGALS APPREHENDED IN ONE WEEK ON OPEN TEXAS BORDER - HOW MANY GOT THROUGH?

 

10K Migrants Apprehended in One Week in Single Texas Border Sector, Says Democrat Congressman

Photo: U.S. Border Patrol/Rio Grande Valley Sector

BOB PRICE

4 Mar 202111

2:55

U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar (D-TX) reported the apprehension of approximately 10,000 migrants in the last seven days in the Rio Grande Valley Sector. He said agents apprehended 2,500 in the past two days alone.

“We are weeks, maybe even days, away from a crisis on the southern border. Inaction is simply not an option,” Congressman Cuellar said in a written statement. “Our country is currently unprepared to handle a surge in migrants in the middle of the pandemic.”

The Laredo congressman said the illegal border crossings are “potentially exposing border communities to the coronavirus and putting us at risk. Right now, none of the migrants are being tested for COVID-19 by Border Patrol.”

In Brownsville, Texas, city officials said that six percent of the migrants being released at the bus station to obtain transportation into the U.S. interior are testing positive for COVID-19, Breitbart Texas reported. The Brownsville official said they do not have the authority to prevent those who test positive from boarding buses to travel into the U.S. interior. A worker at the bus station told Fox News they cannot ask passengers for proof of coronavirus test results before transit.

Cuellar added, “I urge the Biden Administration to listen and work with the communities on the southern border who are dealing with the surge of migrants.”

Texas Governor Greg Abbot said President Joe Biden is “recklessly releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants who have COVID into Texas communities,” Breitbart News reported.

“The Biden Administration was spreading COVID in South Texas yesterday because of their lack of constraint of testing and quarantining, people who had come across the border illegally,” the governor said on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” morning news show. The Biden Administration was exposing Texans to COVID — that is a Neanderthal-type approach to dealing with the COVID situation.”

The Texas governor went on to say President Biden is engaging in a “Neanderthal-type approach” by releasing the COVID-positive migrants into the state of Texas. Abbott’s comment followed Biden’s accusation that Texas was engaged in “Neanderthal thinking” after the governor announced the lifting of the COVID mask mandate and opened Texas businesses 100 percent.

Official migrant apprehension numbers for February are expected to be released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the next few days.

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.

Politico: ‘Dismal’ Democratic Support for Joe Biden’s Giant Amnesty

JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

NEIL MUNRO

4 Mar 20218

4:43

Democrats have postponed a floor vote on President Joe Biden’s massive amnesty and population-expansion bill because of “dismal” support among Democrats, according to Politico.

Instead of a March vote, Democrats say their huge bill will be sent through the committees while supporters try to build support in time for an April vote, according to Politico, which added:

Proponents of the Biden bill, meanwhile, are still furiously working the phones to get their colleagues on board. That group, led by California Reps. Linda Sánchez, Judy Chu and Zoe Lofgren, has also lined up meetings with influential groups across the caucus, including the Blue Dogs on Tuesday and progressives on Thursday. Sánchez and Lofgren, along with other top Democrats, also spoke to the New Democrat Coalition late last month.

Democrats in swing districts are looking to make some changes to the bill, Politico reported. One token change in favor of the E-Verify employment system was suggested by Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ):

“Yes, I support what’s in the bill. I think we would be in a stronger position to get it enacted if we eventually ended up where, I think, the middle ground is,” Malinowski said. “I think for both solid political, practical reasons and moral reasons, those two things should go together.”

In the meantime, Democrats will try to pass two other major amnesty bills as soon as next week.

One bill would amnesty more than two million migrants brought to the United States as children. Some GOP members are expected to support the bill.

The second bill would amnesty one million illegal migrants who were hired by the U.S. agriculture sector. The bill would also allow farm companies to import many more cheap temporary workers that would sideline local Americans, reduce corporate spending on high-tech labor-saving machines, and shrink payrolls and tax receipts in many rural towns. The agriculture sector amnesty may win support from more than 20 Republicans.

Biden’s bigger bill would amnesty at least 11 million people and then deliver roughly 24 million additional people to Americans’ national labor market, their housing markets, schools, and colleges.

The huge population expansion would force up real estate prices and rents and push many blue-collar Americans out of expensive cities.

The bill would also sideline American graduates by allowing Fortune 500 companies to hire an unlimited number of foreign graduates, put them to work for 10 years, and pay them with slices of Americans’ citizenship.

The Biden bill would also put several million migrants on a fast track to the voting booths in 2024.

The Politico article also noted that Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us advocacy group is conducting polls to persuade Democrats that it is safe to go back into the amnesty waters:

During a session at the House Democratic Caucus’s virtual retreat on Wednesday, advocates shared new polling conducted for the immigrant rights groups FWD.us and America’s Voice, which showed that 63 percent of voters would be “upset” if protections for undocumented immigrants didn’t pass. The online survey of 1,200 voters who participated in the 2020 election was conducted Feb. 20-26.

After the Senate Democrats passed the 2013 “Gang of Eight” amnesty in 2013, they lost five seats in the 2014 Senate elections — and nudged Donald Trump toward a White Hosue run in 2016.

In reality, amnesty and labor migration are deeply unpopular outside the Democrats’ base of white progressives and college graduates.

For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration and the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.

The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.

The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from the central states to the coastal states.

Biden's DHS opens the 'OPT' door wider for many foreign college graduates to take starter jobs & careers from new US graduates.
That's a reversal from Trump, when his deputies quietly tried to help American grads get the jobs. #H1B, #OPThttps://t.co/Y3o9PIgpTj

— Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) March 4, 2021

REPORT: Biden Transforming ICE Detention Facilities into ‘Rapid-Processing’ Centers

Photo by GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP via Getty Images

BOB PRICE

4 Mar 202132

3:30

The Biden Administration is turning ICE long-term detention facilities for migrant families into rapid-processing reception and release centers. The re-designated hubs will move migrant families more quickly from the border region into the U.S. interior.

ICE officials told immigration advocates and relief organizations they are ending long-term detention of migrant families, the San Antonio Express-News reported last week. The facilities will be “rebranded” as “reception centers,” the ICE officials stated.

The plan by Biden officials is to convert the long-term family detention centers in South Texas into “Ellis Island-style rapid-processing hubs” with a stated goal of releasing migrant families into the U.S. interior within 72 hours, the Washington Post revealed.

Russel Holt, a senior ICE official told staff members in an email reported by the Post that unaccompanied minors and families this year “are expected to be the highest numbers observed in over 20 years.”

Holt acknowledged that even with this aggressive catch and release program, ICE facilities still may not be able to keep up with the flow of migrant families and unaccompanied minors. He said hotels will be utilized if processing hubs are filled beyond capacity.

Due to policy changes put in place by President Joe Biden, the surge of migrant families and unaccompanied minors continues to grow at an uncontrollable rate.

“We’re apprehending more kids than we can release,” a senior Homeland Security official told CNN.

A Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) official added, “We’re not keeping up.”

In January, the apprehension of Unaccompanied Alien Children also jumped in all nine southwest border sectors, Breitbart Texas reported. The Del Rio and Big Bend Sectors witnessed triple-digit percentage increases. More significantly, the Rio Grande Valley sector, the nation’s busiest sector, jumped from 4,215 unaccompanied children to 7,295 — an increase of 73 percent.

CNN reports that on Tuesday alone, Border Patrol facilities held more than 1,300 children while waiting for transfer to HHS officials. This was up by 300 from Monday.

Many of these minors are being held beyond the 72-hour limit imposed by a court in the Flores Settlement Agreement.

The CNN article confirms an exclusive report from Breitbart Texas’ Randy Clark on March 2 discussing the overcrowding of Border Patrol and Health and Human Services facilities who are unable to keep up with the growing numbers of migrant children.

Clark wrote:

Despite efforts by the Border Patrol to transfer the UAC’s into suitable Health and Human Services (HHS) shelters, the minors are not being accepted by HHS in a timely manner — running contrary to current legal requirements. Delays in the transfer of the migrant children in many cases exceed the legal limit of 72 hours.

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.

Photos: Foreign Nationals at Border Demand Joe Biden Release Them into U.S.

GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP via Getty Images

JOHN BINDER

3 Mar 20217,941

2:38

Foreign nationals gathered at the United States-Mexico border this week to demand President Joe Biden’s administration release them into the interior of the country, as they have done with thousands of other border crossers.

On March 2, about a hundred foreign nationals from Mexico, Central America, Haiti, and Cuba protested near San Ysidro, California in Tijuana, Mexico where they requested the Biden administration allow them into the U.S.

Wearing t-shirts with Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign logo and the words “Please let us in!” the group of foreign nationals held signs that read “Biden — please let me enter.” In interviews with AFP, some of the foreign nationals said Biden ought to allow them to enter the U.S. while they await their asylum claims as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has done with others.

“We want an answer from your president, we want someone to come out and give us an answer,” one of the protesters told nearby U.S. federal immigration officials.

(GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP via Getty Images)

(GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP via Getty Images)

(GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP via Getty Images)

(GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP via Getty Images)

(GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP via Getty Images)

(GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP via Getty Images)

(GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP via Getty Images)

As Breitbart News has reported, the Biden administration has been releasing thousands of border crossers into the U.S. every week. In the case of 25,600 migrants who were enrolled in the Remain in Mexico program, which Biden ended, the United Nations is facilitating releases of migrants into the country.

Most recently, reports confirmed that border crossers released into American communities are testing positive for the Chinese coronavirus and still do not have to adhere to quarantine requirements. Instead, after testing positive, border crossers can continue traveling into the U.S. interior.

The massive restart of the Catch and Release program, as a result of Biden ending the Remain in Mexico program and cooperative asylum agreements with Central America, is driving a flood of illegal immigration to the southern border. This year, DHS officials are expecting to welcome at least 117,000 Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) into the U.S.

Biden’s restart of Catch and Release has garnered significant opposition from most Americans. When asked if border crossers should be returned to Mexico or released into the U.S. interior, 67 percent of Americans told Harvard/Harris pollsters that they should be returned to Mexico — including 54 percent of Hispanic Americans and 68 percent of swing voters.

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

Politico: ‘Dismal’ Democratic Support for Joe Biden’s Giant Amnesty

JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

NEIL MUNRO

4 Mar 20212

4:43

Democrats have postponed a floor vote on President Joe Biden’s massive amnesty and population-expansion bill because of “dismal” support among Democrats, according to Politico.

Instead of a March vote, Democrats say their huge bill will be sent through the committees while supporters try to build support in time for an April vote, according to Politico, which added:

Proponents of the Biden bill, meanwhile, are still furiously working the phones to get their colleagues on board. That group, led by California Reps. Linda Sánchez, Judy Chu and Zoe Lofgren, has also lined up meetings with influential groups across the caucus, including the Blue Dogs on Tuesday and progressives on Thursday. Sánchez and Lofgren, along with other top Democrats, also spoke to the New Democrat Coalition late last month.

Democrats in swing districts are looking to make some changes to the bill, Politico reported. One token change in favor of the E-Verify employment system was suggested by Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ):

“Yes, I support what’s in the bill. I think we would be in a stronger position to get it enacted if we eventually ended up where, I think, the middle ground is,” Malinowski said. “I think for both solid political, practical reasons and moral reasons, those two things should go together.”

In the meantime, Democrats will try to pass two other major amnesty bills as soon as next week.

One bill would amnesty more than two million migrants brought to the United States as children. Some GOP members are expected to support the bill.

The second bill would amnesty one million illegal migrants who were hired by the U.S. agriculture sector. The bill would also allow farm companies to import many more cheap temporary workers that would sideline local Americans, reduce corporate spending on high-tech labor-saving machines, and shrink payrolls and tax receipts in many rural towns. The agriculture sector amnesty may win support from more than 20 Republicans.

Biden’s bigger bill would amnesty at least 11 million people and then deliver roughly 24 million additional people to Americans’ national labor market, their housing markets, schools, and colleges.

The huge population expansion would force up real estate prices and rents and push many blue-collar Americans out of expensive cities.

The bill would also sideline American graduates by allowing Fortune 500 companies to hire an unlimited number of foreign graduates, put them to work for 10 years, and pay them with slices of Americans’ citizenship.

The Biden bill would also put several million migrants on a fast track to the voting booths in 2024.

The Politico article also noted that Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us advocacy group is conducting polls to persuade Democrats that it is safe to go back into the amnesty waters:

During a session at the House Democratic Caucus’s virtual retreat on Wednesday, advocates shared new polling conducted for the immigrant rights groups FWD.us and America’s Voice, which showed that 63 percent of voters would be “upset” if protections for undocumented immigrants didn’t pass. The online survey of 1,200 voters who participated in the 2020 election was conducted Feb. 20-26.

After the Senate Democrats passed the 2013 “Gang of Eight” amnesty in 2013, they lost five seats in the 2014 Senate elections — and nudged Donald Trump toward a White Hosue run in 2016.

In reality, amnesty and labor migration are deeply unpopular outside the Democrats’ base of white progressives and college graduates.

For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration and the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.

The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.

The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from the central states to the coastal states.

Biden's DHS opens the 'OPT' door wider for many foreign college graduates to take starter jobs & careers from new US graduates.
That's a reversal from Trump, when his deputies quietly tried to help American grads get the jobs. #H1B, #OPThttps://t.co/Y3o9PIgpTj

— Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) March 4, 2021

 

Study: Biden Amnesty Would Import California-Size Foreign Population

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

JOHN BINDER

2 Mar 2021690

4:19

President Joe Biden’s amnesty plan, which also expands legal immigration levels, would import a foreign population close to the size of California, new analysis reveals.

Last month, House and Senate Democrats introduced the Biden plan — known as H.R. 1177 & S. 348 — which would give amnesty to the roughly 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the United States while doubling annual legal immigration to the country, flooding the labor market with more foreign competition for the nation’s more than 17 million jobless Americans.

Analysis conducted by NumbersUSA, which advocates on behalf of American workers for less foreign competition in the labor market, finds that by 2031, Biden’s amnesty will have imported a foreign-born population nearly the size of California.

By 2031, the analysis states, nearly 12 million illegal aliens will have taken advantage of the amnesty provisions of the legislation that would allow them to permanently remain in the U.S. and eventually obtain American citizenship.

In addition to those amnestied, the current annual inflow of 1.2 million green card holders would be doubled to more than 2.4 million. In a 10-year period, altogether, the legislation will have brought more than 37.3 million foreign nationals to the U.S. — just two million less than the population of California.

Put differently, the Biden plan would bring a foreign-born population to the U.S. in ten years that would be more than five times the current population of Massachusetts, where 6.9 million residents live.

The overwhelming bulk of immigration within those ten years would derive from the Biden plan’s exempting spouses and minor children from family-based green card caps. By 2031, in this single category, nearly 9.4 million foreign nationals would be admitted to the U.S.

The other bulk of immigration would come from the roughly eight million illegal aliens, those who are not in specific subgroup categories, who would be able to secure green cards by 2027 and then apply for American citizenship after three years.

Such a massive wave of immigration would be a boon for corporate interests, including Wall Street, multinational corporations, real estate investors, and giant tech conglomerates who would not only benefit from an expanded labor market with cheaper labor but also from more consumers to whom they can sell goods and necessities.

Research by the Center for Immigration Studies’ Steven Camarota reveals that for every one percent increase in the immigrant portion of an American workers’ occupation, Americans’ weekly wages are cut by perhaps 0.5 percent. This means the average native-born American worker today has his weekly wages reduced by potentially 8.75 percent as more than 17 percent of the workforce is foreign-born.

Already, current immigration levels put downward pressure on U.S. wages while redistributing about $500 billion in wealth away from America’s working and middle class and towards employers and new arrivals, research by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has found.

Similarly, peer reviewed research by economist Christoph Albert acknowledges that “as immigrants accept lower wages, they are preferably chosen by firms and therefore have higher job finding rates than natives, consistent with evidence found in U.S. data.” Albert’s research also finds that immigration “raises competition” for native-born Americans in the labor market.

The Biden plan is also wildly out of step with the opinions of most likely U.S. voters.

The latest survey from Rasmussen Reports, for instance, finds that 73 percent of voters want less legal immigration, more than six-in-ten oppose chain migration, about 64 percent oppose businesses importing foreign workers rather than recruiting Americans, and 63 percent support slowing down or fully cutting U.S. population growth driven by immigration.

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

Harris’s Senate Replacement’s First Bill: Pathway to Citizenship for Illegal Alien ‘Essential Workers’

AP Photo/Eric Risberg

PENNY STARR

1 Mar 2021218

2:31

As the discussion over President Joe Biden’s open border immigration policies heats up, at least one Democrat Senator wants to go even farther than allowing tens of thousands of illegal aliens into the country based on asylum claims.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA), who took Kamala Harris’s Senate seat, wants to give millions of illegal aliens a pathway to citizenship if they are deemed “essential workers.”

That wish is now in the form of a bill, the first Padilla has unveiled since taking his seat. Padilla told the San Francisco Chronicle:

I think nothing speaks to the moment more than COVID response and fairness for essential workers. On a parallel track, we know that immigration reform is long overdue in the United States of America and there are no states that have more at stake in immigration reform than the state of California.

“A standalone measure allows us to uplift specific elements of a comprehensive package as you continue to gain momentum and support,” Padilla said.

The Chronicle reported on Padilla’s motivation:

In an interview, Padilla said his Citizenship for Essential Workers Act was an easy choice for his first piece of legislation as a senator on a personal and policy level. He noted his Mexican immigrant parents spent four decades working in the service industry — his father as a short-order cook and his mom cleaning houses. Padilla is the first Latino senator from California and one of only a handful in the Senate, and he has already used that position to voice concerns of the Latino community in Washington.

On its own, it’s virtually impossible the bill would become law. The legislation would apply to some legally present immigrants and undocumented immigrants alike, providing an immediate opportunity to start the naturalization process for an estimated 5 million or more people who work in more than a dozen essential industries, including health care, agriculture, service, child care and manufacturing. But the legislation is emblematic of how Padilla hopes to shape the perpetual debate on immigration as it unfolds in coming months.

On December 22, 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Padilla to succeed Harris. Padilla served in the California State Senate for the 20th district from 2006 to 2014.

Follow Penny Starr on Twitter or send news tips to pstarr@breitbart.com

Study: Amnesty Will Cost ‘Hundreds of Billions’

John Moore/Getty Images

NEIL MUNRO

25 Feb 2021170

4:33

President Joe Biden’s amnesty plan will spike Social Security spending by “hundreds of billions” over the next few decades, according to a forecast by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

The February 22 report, titled “Amnesty Would Cost the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds Hundreds of Billions of Dollars,” says:

The new taxes paid by the average amnesty recipient amount to only half of the $94,500 noted above. The net effect of amnesty is therefore $140,330 [in Social Security benefits] minus $47,250 [in paid taxes], which is about $93,000 per recipient. In any large-scale amnesty, in which millions of illegal immigrants gain legal status, it is easy to see how the net cost could reach into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

The predicted $93,000 per person cost would be a financial burden for taxpayers — but would be a giveaway to business groups because the Social Security payments will be converted into purchases of consumer products, healthcare services, medical drugs, apartments, and food.

At least 11 million people — perhaps 20 million — are living illegally in the United States. The number rises as people overstay their visas, evade deportation orders, or sneak over the border — but it also falls as some migrants get deported, leave, or find ways to get green cards via the rolling “Adjustment of Status” process.

But taxpayers’ expenses are also economic gains for business groups and investors. In January 2020, a coalition of business groups sued deputies for President Donald Trump after he reduced the inflow of poor migrants into the U.S. consumer market, saying:

Because [green-card applicants] will receive fewer public benefits under the Rule, they will cut back their consumption of goods and services, depressing demand throughout the economy …

The New American Economy Research Fund calculates that, on top of the $48 billion in income that is earned by individuals who will be affected by the Rule—and that will likely be removed from the U.S. economy—the Rule will cause an indirect economic loss of more than $33.9 billion … Indeed, the Fiscal Policy Institute has estimated that the decrease in SNAP and Medicaid enrollment under the Rule could, by itself, lead to economic ripple effects of anywhere between $14.5 and $33.8 billion, with between approximately 100,000 and 230,000 jobs lost … Health centers alone would be forced to drop as many as 6,100 full-time medical staff.

CIS promised a more detailed report:

This is just a rough estimate. We are currently working on a detailed model that will provide more precise costs for both Social Security and Medicare. Again, however, any reasonable calculation will produce a large cost, simply because amnesty will convert so many outside contributors into actual beneficiaries.

For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration and to the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.

The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950’s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.

The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from the central states to the coastal states.

However, Biden’s officials have been broadcasting their desire to change border policies to help extract more migrants from Central America for the U.S. economy. On February 19, for example, deputies of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas posted a tweet offering support to migrants illegally working in the United States and to migrants who may wish to live in the United States.

We'll get 1 million-plus Biden migrants this year, warns ex-Obama/DHS official now at Harvard.
The warning includes a weak criticism of the ethnic lobbies & open-borders progressives who are undermining an Ivy League giveaway in the amnesty bill.#H1B https://t.co/RqZBEGcxKO

— Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) February 22, 2021

Carney: How Can We Have Labor Shortages in an Era of Mass Unemployment?

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

JOHN CARNEY

3 Mar 20218

4:25

It’s a pandemic conundrum.

Tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs and are collecting unemployment. Fed officials say the real unemployment rate, after taking account of people working reduced hours and people miscounted as working, is close to 10 percent.

Yet businesses across the U.S. tell Fed officials they cannot find enough workers.

In the Fed’s Beige Book, a collection of anecdotes from business leaders compiled by each of the Fed’s twelve regional banks, reports of labor shortages arise over and over again.

“Employment was flat, with rising labor demand offset by labor supply constraints,” the Minneapolis Fed reported.

“A contact in St. Louis reported residential construction projects are severely backlogged due to labor and material shortages,” the St. Louis Fed wrote.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland said that labor demand in the freight sector is especially strong and many firms say they would like to hire more drivers but are prevented by a shortage. Several firms in Cleveland said deliveries to customers were delayed.

Driver shortages were also reported by the Richmond Fed, the Atlanta Fed, and the Kansas City Fed.

The Kansas City Feds says the majority of contacts reported labor shortages.

“Employers in the construction, manufacturing, auto mechanics, and healthcare sectors continued to be constrained by shortages in qualified labor,” the San Francisco Fed notes.

“Labor supply shortages were noted by contacts as most acute among low-skill occupations and skilled trade positions,” the Atlanta Fed’s summary covering all 12 districts says.

So what’s going on?

Part of the problem is that employers are competing with enhanced unemployment benefits. Ordinarily, state-run unemployment insurance pays around half of what a worker got in wages and the exact amount paid is linked to what the workers wages were. But at the start of the pandemic, the federal government started chipping in hundreds of extra-dollars without regard to pre-layoff wage levels. This started out as $600 but was cut in half over the summer. But even at the lower level, a significant number of workers are getting more from benefits than they did while they working.

Another issue is the skills mismatch caused by the way the pandemic roiled the economy. The leisure and hospitality sector has been devastated. At last count, the sector employed nearly 3.9 million fewer workers than it did prepandemic. Hotel managers, bartenders, and actors who paid the rent by waiting tables cannot instantly convert into healthcare workers, home builders, or truck drivers.

In a typical downturn, people in declining industries shedding workers eventually do retrain and move into growing occupations. But the pandemic has shut down businesses that were not in decline and many workers are likely waiting to go back to the kind of jobs they had before. After all, many of the workers wanted to be in those occupations, not the ones that are trying to hire now.

Then there’s the fact that at least some of the increased demand seen in some sectors is likely temporary and may reverse as the economy reopens. In Wednesday’s Beige Book, for example, the Boston Fed says it was told by a supplier of goods to veterinary services that business has boomed because people have been adopting more pets in the pandemic. But they are worried that the heightened demand will go away when the economy reopens. In that case, it wouldn’t make sense for a hotel manager to get trained as a vet when the future demand is going to be for hotel managers.

A third factor is childcare. Many schools remain closed or partially closed. Someone has to stay home to watch the kids. That makes them unavailable for employment.

Finally, some of this is probably a bit of businesses blowing hot air. Claims of labor shortages have persisted in good times and bad for at least the last 15 years—and for much of that time wages were not rising by much. Some employers appear to experience the need to pay higher wages to attract workers as evidence of a labor shortage. Having to compete for workers with other businesses strikes some owners as unfair.

So we find ourselves like the Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s parched ancient mariner, surrounded by undrinkable sea water. Workers, workers, everywhere without anyone to hire.