Josh Hawley: Biden ‘More Focused’ on Amnesty than Working Class Job Losses
Sen. Josh Hawley says President Joe Biden is “more focused” on providing amnesty to millions of illegal aliens than grappling with potential economic doom for America’s working class.
Last week, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) introduced Biden’s amnesty legislation into the Senate. The plan seeks to legalize, and eventually provide American citizenship to, about 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the United States today.
Also, the plan is likely to double legal immigration levels — where already more than 1.2 million green cards are awarded to legal immigrants annually — even as more than 17 million Americans are jobless but wanting full-time employment.
Specifically, a McKinsey Global Institute analysis detailed by the Washington Post reveals that the overwhelming longterm economic burden, as a result of the Chinese coronavirus crisis, will be put on working and lower-middle class Americans.
The Post reports:
In a report coming out later this week that was previewed to The Washington Post, the McKinsey Global Institute says that 20 percent of business travel won’t come back and about 20 percent of workers could end up working from home indefinitely. These shifts mean fewer jobs at hotels, restaurants and downtown shops, in addition to ongoing automation of office support roles and some factory jobs. [Emphasis added]
…
“We think that there is a very real scenario in which a lot of the large employment, low-wage jobs in retail and in food service just go away in the coming years,” said Susan Lund, head of the McKinsey Global Institute. “It means that we’re going to need a lot more short-term training and credentialing programs.” [Emphasis added]
…
Indeed, the number of workers in need of retraining could be in the millions, according to McKinsey and David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who co-wrote a report warning that automation is accelerating in the pandemic. He predicts far fewer jobs in retail, rest, car dealerships and meatpacking facilities. [Emphasis added]
Hawley, in a statement online, called Biden out for pursuing an amnesty and increased foreign competition against Americans while millions remain jobless and millions more are underemployed and potentially looking at future unemployment.
“Can’t figure out why Joe Biden is more focused on supporting illegal immigration than working Americans,” Hawley wrote on Twitter.
Can’t figure out why Joe Biden is more focused on supporting illegal immigration than working Americans
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) February 22, 2021
In Hawley’s home state of Missouri, unemployment is especially hitting the working and middle class. For example, Americans in construction, extraction, building and grounds cleaning, food service, production, and transportation have the highest rates of unemployment as of last month.
In contrast, those in fields like engineering, architecture, and criminal justice — all of which are vastly less likely to have to compete for jobs against foreign workers — have some of the lowest unemployment rates.
Biden’s amnesty plan is being cheered by big business, tech conglomerates, and corporate special interests who boost their profit-margins by cutting labor costs, which often begins with hiring cheaper foreign workers over Americans.
“We look forward working w/ the administration & Congress to advance these proposed solutions,” Amazon executives wrote in a statement about the amnesty.
A flooded U.S. labor market has been well documented for its wage-crushing side effects, so much so that economist George Borjas has called mass immigration to the country the “largest anti-poverty program” at the expense of America’s working and lower-middle class.
Recent 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 US data.”
Albert’s research also finds that immigration “raises competition” for native-born Americans in the labor market. Similarly, research from June 2020 on U.S. wages and the labor market shows that a continuous flow of mass immigration exerts “stronger labor market competition” on newly arrived immigrants than even native-born Americans, thus contributing to the wage gap.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), likewise, has repeatedly noted that mass immigration cuts Americans’ wages. In 2013, CBO analysis stated that the “Gang of Eight” amnesty plan would “slightly” push down wages for the American workers. A 2020 CBO analysis stated that “immigration has exerted downward pressure on the wages of relatively low-skilled workers who are already in the country, regardless of their birthplace.”
Every year, about 1.2 million legal immigrants are given green cards to permanently resettle in the U.S. In addition, 1.4 million foreign nationals are annually awarded temporary visas to full U.S. jobs that would otherwise go to Americans.
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
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.
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