IN MEXIFORNIA, ONE-THIRD OF ALL 'CHEAP' LABOR FARM WORKERS END UP ON WELFARE. IT STARTS AS SOON AS THE ANCHOR BABIES SHOW UP. LOS ANGELES COUNTY ALONE PUTS OUT $1.5 BILLION YEARLY FOR THE DEMS' LA RAZA WELFARE STATE.
Richard D. Wolff | American Workers Are UNORGANIZED
H-2A Visas: Democrats Micromanage Farm Labor
President Joe Biden’s Department of Labor has fined U.S. farm companies for allegedly misusing the H-2A visa-worker program to swindle American and foreign workers.
But Biden’s progressive deputies are also backing a congressional expansion of the H-2A program that would cripple the ability of many rural Americans to get fair-market wages.
On November 28, Mississippi Today reported the labor department fined 11 farms for their exploitation of the H-2A program:
“The allegations made by Mississippi Delta farmworkers are alarming,” Wage and Hour Division District’s Jackson director, Audrey Hall, said in a statement. “The outcome of these investigations confirms that employers denied many farmworkers their lawful wages and, in some cases, violated the rights of U.S. workers by giving temporary guest workers preferential treatment.”
…
Agents found employers paid local workers lesser wages per hour than their foreign counterparts for the same type of jobs; failed to disclose all conditions of employment, including accurate anticipated hours and bonus opportunities; illegally deducted money from visa workers’ paychecks, including costs of travel; and did not keep proper records.
But the penalties averaged out to just $5,700 per person, according to the report:
The labor department’s Wage and Hour Division fined the 11 farms a total of $122,610 and recovered wages for 45 workers totaling $134,532 in its latest string of investigations.
The disadvantaged American farmworkers include several black Americans who lost jobs and wages because the farmers preferred to import South African white farm workers. Mississippi Today reported in June 2022:
The Pitts [family farm] paid their foreign workforce nearly $12 an hour while their local workers – usually Black men – made just $7.25 to $9.50 per hour, according to a Department of Labor audit that spanned 2020 and 2021. The audit also found four local workers lost out on shifts when the temporary workers arrived.
But [Richard and Gregory Strong] and other Black workers say the pay gap existed from the first day the South Africans started at the family-owned farm several years before. Records show the Pitts started seeking foreign workers as early as 2014. Locals got an occasional pay bump on the weekends, but mostly took home federal minimum wage as the farm started giving them fewer shifts, according to years of paystubs obtained by Mississippi Today.
The Strongs and six others – who worked for the Pitts for more than 100 combined years – say they were pushed out of their jobs completely.
Breitbart News has reported how farm companies and universities are using the H-2A and J-1 visa programs to import foreign workers for tough and high-skill jobs. Those jobs would otherwise provide good wages for American families.
A significant share of the imported workers are white South Africans. But most abuses are reportedly against Latino workers.
Meanwhile, Biden supports the House-passed Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2021.
The bill would exempt rural employers from the national labor market by expanding the corporate pipeline of H-2A foreign workers. The visa workers could be used to fill a wide variety of jobs and would be paid with reduced wages — plus the dangled, deferred bonus of American citizenship.
Visa workers tend to be more compliant, submissive, and harder working because employers have far greater power over them than they have with independent American labor. That pending H-2A legislation, for example, would give employers the power to either send the foreign workers home to poverty or to give them the huge deferred bonus of citizenship for themselves, their children, and their descendants.
The bill’s creation of this huge carrot and stick for employers would relegate the imported workers to a status similar to indentured service, which was formally abolished by the 13th Amendment in 1864.
The bill would reduce normal pressure to hire and pay Americans, or to launch high-tech investment in rural districts.
“The problem with this legislation is that it would enlarge an already dysfunctional and damaging guestworker program — and would put an amnesty on top of it,” said Jessica Vaughan, the policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies. She added:
When large farm employers depend on the government to provide cheap workers, it stifles innovation and keeps farms in an outdated, obsolete way of producingv… It is almost Soviet-esque in concept -0 there are no incentives for them to modernize, or improve, or be competitive … all they need do is make a stink and beg [the government] for more workers.
But Biden’s allies support more use of H-2A stoop labor in the 21st century.
“I support the Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2021 and celebrate its passage,” said a statement from Biden’s White House in March 2021. ‘The Act will deliver the lawful status and better working conditions that this critical [visa] workforce deserves, as well as much needed stability for farmers, growers, and the entire agriculture industry.”
The White House statement sidelined the bill’s harm to the wages and working conditions for rural Americans.
Those workers include Gregory and Richard Strong, both of whom live in the district of Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), who served as chairman of the House committee on homeland defense. The committee oversees the homeland defense agency that helps manage the visa programs, including the H-2A program. In March 2021, Thompson voted for the H-2A expansion bill that would allow farm employers to easily replace the Strong brothers.
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh is also supporting the replacement bill, while his junior deputies try to protect Americans from the government-created pipeline of H-2A workers from South Africa.
“Every place I’ve gone in the country and talked to every major business, every small business, every single one of them is saying we need immigration reform,” Walsh said in October. “We need comprehensive immigration reform. They want to create a pathway for citizenship into our country, and they want to create better pathways for visas in our country.”
Business lobbyists and their allies in Congress — including orchard owner Rep. Dan Newhouse (D-WA) — are trying to shove the farm workforce bill through Congress in the lame-duck session.
The main obstacle seems to be passive opposition by GOP Senators because it would also convert many migrant workers into new Democratic voters.
GOP Senators also know the bill would drain much money from rural towns by cutting farm wages. Towns would also lose money because visa workers usually send much of their wages back to their home countries. Many rural communities are already losing populations and businesses, and an opioid epidemic among underemployed people.
But the GOP Senators are under pressure from many agriculture groups that are losing market share to imported crops produced in very low-wage countries.
Many farms, especially fruit farms, are under economic pressure amid rising U.S. costs for fuel and labor. Unsurprisingly, many prefer to rely on a familiar tool — disposable unskilled labor.
Many farm companies are also reluctant to invest in unfamiliar high-tech machinery, or “vertical farming” in giant warehouses.
The bill is also being pushed by national business groups, such as the FWD.us group of billionaire West Coast technology investors, and its ally, the American Business Immigration Coalition (ABIC). The ABIC group includes many construction and healthcare companies, and it stands to gain from any inflow of new consumers, workers, and renters, and.
The pro-migration Hill.com reported on October 29:
The bill’s proponents believe the FWMA’s economic benefits could put it over the top.
“The Senate needs to pass their version of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act (FWMA) immediately. Majority of agriculture supports it. It caps expenses for the farmers, lowers food prices hammering American consumers and makes sure that we have a legal and reliable workforce for the agriculture industry,” ABIC Executive Director Rebecca Shi said.
Advocates claim the bill will deliver more prosperous farms and cheaper food, Vaughan said.
But the costs of imported labor are hidden and postponed, said Vaughan.
“It promotes a colonial system [of labor exploitation] instead of a modern import-export economy,” where U.S. investors would maximize production and revenues by investing in multiple U.S. and foreign farms — and in technology — that best produce multiple crops, she said.
“It is taxpayers who end up subsidizing this cheap labor economy,” Vaughan added:
When [farm] workers get sick or injured, or end up staying here illegally, then taxpayers must pick up the bill for all services that the [poor migrants] need to survive here.
These workers are not self-sufficient and that’s why all of these migrant service groups exist … They bring their families with them and migrate around the country and end up staying here all year, without earning a living wage and dependent on this enormous network of organizations and taxpayer-funded benefits to close the gap between the pittance of wages that they are paid and that what they actually need to survive here.
Many rural communities have already been devastated by the government’s delivery of cheap replacement labor into American communities.
“We’ve known for some time that opioid addiction was a serious problem in farm country, but opioid death] numbers like these are heartbreaking,” Zippy Duvall, the president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said in 2017. “Opioids have been too easy to come by and too easy to become addicted to.”
But rising wages can draw people back into agricultural areas, said a 2020 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond:
A dynamic, growing job market can attract new people to rural communities in search of work … [a study] found that rural counties with higher salaries and job growth were especially effective in attracting workers from urban areas, with local economic conditions having a larger effect for short distance moves. Natural amenities — think scenic landscapes and pleasant climates — matter more in remote rural places for attracting urban residents.
Younger and older Americans return from cities to rural areas for different reasons, the report noted:
Most returnees cited family reasons for returning home. Most were too young to need to care for aging parents, but many returnees decided to move back after becoming parents. Nonreturnees were more likely to be single or married with no intention to have children in the future … [while] health care access measures, such as the number of hospital beds and doctors, are also a draw for retirees. Increasing hospital capacity and hiring more surgeon specialists and general practitioners all had positive effects. Rural communities can position themselves well, therefore, by finding ways to improve access to and quality of health care.
Communities are also trying to help young people worried about local opportunities, the report noted:
Garrett County, in the western part of Maryland, is an example of a place that is trying to accomplish just that. The county established a scholarship program for all resident high school graduates to cover any remaining cost of tuition and fees at the local community college — Garrett College — after taking into account all other grants and scholarships. Since then, the program has been expanded to cover noncredit certificate programs and dual enrollment students.
However, the lobby groups pushing the farmworker bill represent the state, coastal, and national business leaders, not communities and families. They want to maximize near-term stock values and profits by minimizing payroll and high-tech investment.
Democrats back the bill simply because they expect the amnestied farmworkers to vote for Democrat-run governments, said Vaughan: “This is the transactional way that Democrats view politics … [for Democrats,] this is about creating a group of voters that will help them maintain the levers of power.”
Federal Trade Report: Globalization Cripples American Towns as Free Trade Moves Jobs Overseas, Crushes Wages
Globalization of the United States economy has had a crippling impact on American towns as free trade makes it easier for companies to move production and jobs overseas, a report from the U.S. International Trade Commission details.
The report, which assembled union representatives, economists, and others to discuss the impact of decades-long U.S. free trade policy, was requested by U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and conducted in March and April of this year.
Among other findings, the report found that U.S. free trade policy has allowed companies to more readily move American jobs overseas and keep wages low for jobs that remain in the U.S.
“Participants identified trade policy as the cause of job losses. One union representative noted that trade policies often have loopholes or are manipulated by China and other countries so that the policies are not operating as intended,” the report states:
Another union representative stated that current trade agreements allow for more capital mobility than the agreements prior to the 1980s, enabling auto, electronics, and steel manufacturers to move overseas for any number of reasons. Various union representatives explained that companies are able to use the threat of moving jobs overseas for various reasons — such as better tax implications and lower wages — to limit the power of labor unions and keep domestic wages down. [Emphasis added]
When U.S. free trade policy enables companies to offshore production, the report states, American employees are not the only ones directly impacted by such moves. Towns and communities as a whole, along with Americans in supporting industries, feel the devastating impact as well.
The abandoned “Scranton Lace Company” factory is seen in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on August 11, 2020, the landmark factory where former Secretary of State and Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton’s grandfather used to work was closed in 2002. (ERIC BARADAT/AFP via Getty Images)
“Participants noted that, when jobs are lost, local businesses — such as gas stations and restaurants — that rely on affected workers as customers and clients, as well as other businesses in the industry’s supply chain, suffer as a result,” the report states. “A retired steelworker also noted that company bankruptcies can have effects beyond job loss, such as lost pensions.”
Societal impacts as a result of companies offshoring U.S. production, the report finds, include rising mental health issues, suicide, lower life expectancy, divorce, domestic violence, higher crime rates, and worse off public schools.
In particular, when a plant closed in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, the report states, because of U.S. free trade policy, neighboring mom-and-pop shops, local businesses, and grocery stores suffered tremendously to stay afloat. Many ended up closing as well.
“Another union representative noted that, when General Motors Company shut down production in Lansing, Michigan, jobs throughout the local community suffered as a result,” the report states:
Two other union representatives spoke about the impact of plant closures and production cutbacks on employees. An academic and a business owner reported that plant closures can lead to the loss of opportunity for upward career mobility and a shift to services jobs that tend to have lower wages and fewer benefits. Other union representatives, including one who is retired, said that the closure of the General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, in 2019, and the threat of offshoring has been used to suppress worker wages and benefits. Another union representative spoke about Cooper Tire in Finley, Ohio, which reportedly faced competition from dumped imports from China in 2007. Employees at this facility were reportedly scheduled for shifts that were two days on and two days off and could not file for unemployment. [Emphasis added]
In Rep. Tim Ryan’s northeast Ohio district, nearly 25,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost over the last two decades. At the same time, drug overdose deaths in the area have skyrocketed by 400 percent in some communities.
“A retired union representative said that families and neighborhoods in the Mahoning Valley and Youngstown, Ohio, are still being affected by manufacturing job losses that occurred over 40 years ago, as well as more recent plant closures,” the report states. “She described a cycle of decline, decay, and blight, as the population has dropped to one-third of its previous size and homes lay vacant as children and grandchildren move away.”
The economic and social decay of Ryan’s district is partially why Ohio’s Senator-elect J.D. Vance explained to Breitbart News last month that tariffs on foreign imports must be the center of the nation’s industrial policy to “rebuild the industrial heartland of America.”
The company that produces Louisville Slugger wooden bats has closed its factory and museum on April 20, 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky. The 165-year-old company that produces 2 million wooden bats a year, including some 50,000 destined for Major League Baseball, closed its factory and popular museum in March, furloughing 90 percent of its employees amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. (Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
Offshoring, spurred by U.S. free trade policy, is not letting up.
This month, for example, executives with technology parts manufacturer Jabil Inc. announced that they would be laying off about 1,400 of their American employees in California and closing six plants across the state.
Similarly, a 125-year-old plant Avon plant in Suffern, New York is shuttering and laying off nearly 140 of its American employees. Avon executives said those U.S. jobs will be sent to Brazil and Poland where the price of labor is substantially lower.
Also this month, medical device company Vapotherm announced that it is closing its Exeter, New Hampshire manufacturing plant, laying off nearly 50 of its American employees, and sending production to low-wage Tijuana, Mexico.
Executives with Norcold, the refrigerator manufacturer, are laying off nearly 360 of their American employees at two Shelby County, Ohio plants and sending all production to foreign countries.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
U.S. Universities, Backed by Soros and Zuckerberg, Lobby for DACA Amnesty to Preserve Billion-Dollar Profit Pipeline
A number of United States universities, backed by groups funded by billionaires George Soros and Mark Zuckerberg, are lobbying Congress to quickly pass an amnesty for millions of illegal aliens to preserve their billion-dollar annual tuition and fees pipeline.
For weeks, House and Senate Democrats have urged 10 Senate Republicans to join them in approving the DREAM Act, which would provide green cards and, eventually, naturalized American citizenship to 3.3 million illegal aliens enrolled and eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), university executives with the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration suggest DACA illegal aliens are “Americans in every sense but on paper…”
The group is backed by Zuckerberg’s FWD.us and Soros’s Open Society Foundation, as well as the Shapiro Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Walder Foundation.
“… we write to respectfully urge you to prioritize passing bipartisan legislation before the end of this year to provide permanent protections for DACA recipients and other Dreamers,” the letter states:
If Congress fails to act, employers and communities will lose valuable contributors. Families, including many households of mixed-status individuals with U.S.-born children, will suffer the grievous loss of their homes, businesses, and self-sufficiency. Congress alone can avert this looming crisis by passing bipartisan legislation to protect Dreamers and address other immigration priorities. [Emphasis added]
The letter is signed by executives from:
Rutgers University, Eastern CT State University, Delaware State University, Carleton College, Utah State University, Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, Georgetown University, Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Texas – San Antonio, Guilford College, Antioch College, Broward College, Salt Lake Community College, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Grand Valley State University, SUNY Westchester Community College, Borough of Manhattan Community College – CUNY, University at Albany – SUNY, University of Nevada – Reno, and University of California – Riverside.
All have a vested financial interest in keeping as many young illegal aliens in the United States as well as adding millions more young illegal aliens to the population because university systems are generating about $9 billion in revenue annually via tuition and fees from foreign students.
Specifically, roughly 182,000 illegal aliens of the more than 400,000 illegal aliens enrolled in U.S. universities and colleges are DACA-eligible or DACA-enrolled — making up a significant portion of university systems’ billions in revenue from their foreign student pipeline.
As Breitbart News reported in 2017, a DACA amnesty would open a surge of chain migration — where newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. — ranging from 10 million to 19 million foreign nationals.
A prior Breitbart News analysis found that a DACA amnesty would cost American taxpayers some $115 billion by opening Obamacare rolls to newly legalized illegal aliens. Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that such an amnesty would cost taxpayers $26 billion.
That same CBO report suggests that about one in five DACA illegal aliens, after an amnesty, would end up on food stamps, while at least one in seven would go on Medicaid.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
Report: Biden Officials Worry ‘Open Borders’ Narrative Will Set Illegal Immigration Record as Title 42 Ends
Officials in President Joe Biden’s White House are worried that an “open borders” narrative among migrants waiting in Mexico will set a new illegal immigration record as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ends the Title 42 border control.
This month, a federal judge struck down Title 42 — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) authority first imposed by former President Trump in 2020 to allow Border Patrol agents to quickly remove illegal aliens arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Rather than appealing the judge’s decision, Biden’s DHS Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, asked the court for five weeks to wind down Title 42.
While Biden officials are still weighing what to do as Title 42’s end looms, Axios’s Stef Kight reports that they are concerned that an open borders narrative will reach migrants in Mexico, Central America, and South America and surge illegal immigration to a new record.
Axios reports:
U.S. officials anticipate the loss of the tool and the narrative that there are “open borders” will lead to a jump in the already-high number of border crossings. Preparations for this scenario have been underway. [Emphasis added]
Actions to expand legal pathways for migrants and asylum seekers and crack down on people who do not enter the U.S. at legal entry points were discussed in detail as recently as a Cabinet-head level meeting on Monday, according to the two sources familiar. [Emphasis added]
As Breitbart News recently reported, thousands of migrants are waiting in Mexico to rush the U.S. border when Title 42 ends in weeks. As part of the plan to deal with a record level of illegal immigration, El Paso, Texas, officials have asked Biden to open Fort Bliss as a migration intake center.
The Biden administration’s existing plan will use American taxpayer money to fund additional non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to more quickly release border crossers and illegal aliens into American communities away from the southern border.
Already, the Biden administration has been imposing an expansive Catch and Release policy that has seen an estimated 5.5 million encounters along the border and about 1.4 million border crossers and illegal aliens released into American communities since February 2021.
Daily, Biden is welcoming at least 6,200 border crossers and illegal aliens at the border.
Without Title 42, Biden officials have previously admitted that up to half a million border crossers and illegal aliens — the equivalent of the population of Atlanta, Georgia — could arrive at the border every month.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) told Breitbart News in April that he expects 30,000 border crossers and illegal aliens every day at the border without Title 42. In Tijuana, Mexico, alone, Breitbart News exclusively reported months ago that up to 6,000 foreign nationals were waiting to rush the border when Title 42 ends.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
November ends with a bad jobs report
November started with talk of a red wave, turned into the GOP winning the House by a small majority, and closes with a bad jobs report:
Private hiring slowed sharply during November in a sign that the historically tight labor market could be losing some steam, according to a report Wednesday from payroll processing firm ADP.
Companies added just 127,000 positions for the month, a steep reduction from the 239,000 the firm reported for October and well below the Dow Jones estimate for 190,000. It also was the lowest total since January 2021.
The relatively weak total comes amid Federal Reserve efforts to loosen up a jobs picture in which there are still nearly two open positions for every available worker. The central bank has raised its benchmark borrowing rate six times this year, but the unemployment rate is still 3.7%, near the lowest since 1969.
“Turning points can be hard to capture in the labor market, but our data suggest that Federal Reserve tightening is having an impact on job creation and pay gains,” said ADP’s chief economist, Nela Richardson.
Having an impact on job creation? So does the last paragraph mean that the recession is here or knocking on the door? The markets reacted cautiously to mixed economic signals and wait for the Fed's next move.
The jobs report confirms that it will be a rough ride for the Biden administration in the near future. Jobs report, rail strike, diesel shortage, and a few others. It's time for Pres. Trump to stop having dinner with controversial characters and leave the front page to President Biden's economy.
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Image: Wikideas 1
by failures of border security, a lack of the enforcement of our immigration laws from within the interior of the United States and huge numbers of visas for high tech workers, the lives and livelihoods of Americans and their children, are being stolen by America’s corrupt political elite who are doing the bidding of those who provide them with huge “Campaign Contributions” (Orwellian euphemism for bribes) pursue legislation that is diametrically opposed to the best interests of America and Americans.
MICHAEL CUTLER
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.
Migration also allows investors and CEOs to skimp on labor-saving technology, sideline U.S. minorities, ignore disabled people, exploit stoop labor in the fields, short-change labor in the cities, impose tight control and pay cuts on American professionals, corral technological innovation by minimizing the employment of American grads, undermine labor rights, and even get many progressive journalists to cheerlead for Wall Street’s priorities. NEIL MUNRO
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