No Silver Lining: Wages Fell While Inflation Soared This Spring
A rapid rise in prices over the past year has not been matched by wage gains, indicating American workers are losing ground, data from the Department of Labor showed Friday.
Median weekly earnings of the nation’s 113.6 million full-time wage and salary workers were $990 in the second quarter of 2021 , the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This was 1.2 percent lower than a year earlier.
That compares with a gain of 4.8 percent in the Consumer Price Index over the same period.
That means inflation-adjusted wages are down six percent. Or, to flip it around, wage-adjusted prices are up six percent.
Either way you look at it, it is bad news for American workers.
Adding to the furstration of workers and employers, on average enhanced unemployment benefits pays around $620, which means many unemployed are receiving nearly 2/3 of the median weekly wage for people working full time.
In fact, unemployment pays significantly more than the median wage of $596 per week for women aged 16 to 24 and close to the $643 paid to their male peers. No wonder employers say it is hard to find new workers.
State and Local Politicians Move to Grant Coronavirus Relief to Illegal Aliens
By Matthew Tragesser
ImmigrationReform.com
https://www.immigrationreform.com/2020/04/08/illegal-alien-benefits-states-immigrationreform-com/
Study: More than 7-in-10 California Immigrant
Welfare
More than 7-in-10 households headed by immigrants in the state of California are on taxpayer-funded welfare, a new study reveals.
The latest Census Bureau data analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) finds that about 72 percent of households headed by noncitizens and immigrants use one or more forms of taxpayer-funded welfare programs in California — the number one immigrant-receiving state in the U.S.
Meanwhile, only about 35 percent of households headed by native-born Americans use welfare in California.
All four states with the largest foreign-born populations, including California, have extremely high use of welfare by immigrant households. In Texas, for example, nearly 70 percent of households headed by immigrants use taxpayer-funded welfare. Meanwhile, only about 35 percent of native-born households in Texas are on welfare.
In New York and Florida, a majority of households headed by immigrants and noncitizens are on welfare. Overall, about 63 percent of immigrant households use welfare while only 35 percent of native-born households use welfare.
President Trump’s administration is looking to soon implement a policy that protects American taxpayers’ dollars from funding the mass importation of welfare-dependent foreign nationals by enforcing a “public charge” rule whereby legal immigrants would be less likely to secure a permanent residency in the U.S. if they have used any forms of welfare in the past, including using Obamacare, food stamps, and public housing.
The immigration controls would be a boon for American taxpayers in the form of an annual $57.4 billion tax cut — the amount taxpayers spend every year on paying for the welfare, crime, and schooling costs of the country’s mass importation of 1.5 million new, mostly low-skilled legal immigrants.
As Breitbart News reported, the majority of the more than 1.5 million foreign nationals entering the country every year use about 57 percent more food stamps than the average native-born American household. Overall, immigrant households consume 33 percent more cash welfare than American citizen households and 44 percent more in Medicaid dollars. This straining of public services by a booming 44 million foreign-born population translates to the average immigrant household costing American taxpayers $6,234 in federal welfare.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Border Patrol Apprehends 178K Migrants in June — Biggest Jump Since March
Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 174,000 migrants in June along the U.S. border with Mexico. The increase of nearly 6,000 migrant apprehensions represents the largest single-month increase since March.
During the month of June, when migrant apprehensions generally decrease, Border Patrol agents apprehended 178, 416 migrants — an increase of 5,789, according to the June Southwest Land Border Encounters report released by CBP officials on Friday. The increased apprehensions came in the categories of Family Units and Unaccompanied Minors which rose by 25 and eight percent respectively. Single Adult apprehensions fell by 4,537.
Because of the extreme heat and other dangerous smuggling conditions, migrant rescues this year rose dramatically, CBP reports. During the first nine months of this fiscal year (October through June), migrant rescues hit 9,500. This represents an 81 percent increase over the entire Fiscal Year 2020, officials stated.
“We are in the hottest part of the summer, and we are seeing a high number of distress calls to CBP from migrants abandoned in treacherous terrain by smugglers with no regard for human life,” CBP Acting Commissioner Troy Miller said in a written statement. “Although CBP does everything it can to locate and rescue individuals who are lost or distressed, the bottom line is this: the terrain along the border is extreme, the summer heat is severe, and the miles of desert migrants must hike after crossing the border in many areas are unforgiving.”
During the month of June, CBP officials expelled nearly 105,000 migrants to Mexico under Title 42 coronavirus protection protocols put in place during the Trump administration by the Centers for Disease Control and prevention. “The majority of all June encounters resulted in a Title 42 expulsion,” CBP officials stated.
However, the Biden administration may cancel this program in July Breitbart News’ Edwin Mora reported. ““President Biden has been briefed on a plan for stopping family expulsions by the end of July, as well as the option of letting a court end it,” according to a report by Axios.
In June, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayoras formally ended the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocol that virtually ended “Catch and Release” programs of past administration. During the month of June, DHS officials processed more than 12,000 people into the United States who had been returned to Mexico under MPP, the report states.
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 What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face
Biden Admin to Border Agents: Prepare for the Flood
Docs say 1,200 migrant families expected to be processed each day
Joseph Simonson • July 16, 2021 5:00 amThe Biden administration is telling immigration agents to prepare to process hundreds of thousands of migrant families and asylum claims as the White House moves to reverse Trump-era border and coronavirus policies, according to internal documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
A senior federal official who spoke with the Free Beacon expects Biden to end Title 42—a law used by former president Trump's Centers for Disease Control to block migrants from entering the country—sometime this month. As part of the preparation for that policy reversal, senior Department of Homeland Security officials warned staff that they will have to process up to 1,200 family units a day. That number of family units works out to 312,000 a year, assuming the border does not see any future surges. Following their release from custody, those migrants are in effect free to stay, said one DHS official, because many immigrants skip their immigration court hearings sometimes scheduled two years after they are initially detained.
"Border Patrol agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and customs officers are stretched thin trying to protect and secure our border," said the official. "Asking them to process roughly 6,000 people a week undoubtedly strain already thin resources and increase human trafficking and drug smuggling."
The internal directive further damaged morale within national security agencies where staff already feel overwhelmed with initiatives ordered by the Biden administration. These policies all seem focused on the singular purpose of letting in as many migrants as possible and forcing staff attention away from security threats entering the country.
Those who spoke with the Free Beacon described an agency undergoing a dramatic transformation under Biden and Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Some now question their mission as they prepare for humanitarian crises on the border after the end of Title 42 and Trump's "Remain in Mexico Policy."
"All of these people will become permanent residents. There's no political will from the Biden administration to deport families once they're already admitted. The White House knows that," a DHS official said. "The end of Title 42 will result in de facto open borders."
Agents on the southern border noted that the president and the CDC are warning about the COVID-19 Delta variant while the federal government ends critical policies that allowed law enforcement to ensure migrants who carry disease are not allowed entry into the country. At the same time, Mayorkas has taken a harsher attitude toward Cubans and Haitians wishing to escape chaos and violence in their home countries.
"The time is never right to attempt migration by sea," Mayorkas said Tuesday. "To those who risk their lives doing so, this risk is not worth taking. Allow me to be clear: If you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States."
One individual familiar with internal agency discussions said the Biden administration's dismissive approach to Cuban and Haitian migrants is shaped in part by the agency's limited resources. The job of processing thousands of migrants per week on the southern border will require an all-hands effort from immigration officials that leaves little flexibility to address a potential surge from those trying to escape the dueling Caribbean crises.
"The heavy lifting we've been doing since January portends that this is unlike anything we've ever seen, especially because we're utilizing Border Patrol and discussing bringing in ICE to help. The lift across all of DHS is pretty unprecedented," an individual familiar with the plan said.
Neither the Biden administration nor Department of Homeland Security returned requests for comment.
Open Borders Lobby Urges Joe Biden to Free Border Crossers into U.S. Without Monitoring Their Whereabouts
President Joe Biden’s administration ought to release all border crossers into the United States without monitoring their whereabouts, open borders activists urge.
Activists with the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, as well as the groups Freedom for Immigrants and the Immigrant Defense Project, released a report this week that asks Biden to take his massive Catch and Release operation to new heights by dropping all monitoring of border crossers and illegal aliens who are released into the U.S. interior.
In many circumstances, when a border crosser is released into the U.S. interior, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will require them to wear a GPS tracking ankle monitor as part of the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program.
This monitoring, the open borders groups claim, is “inhumane” and should be eliminated entirely by the Biden administration:
Immigrants and advocates have increasingly called to defund ICE and DHS, with the goal of ending deportation. A core component of the mass deportation system they aim to dismantle is the immigration detention system—both physical and virtual. We strongly urge the Biden-Harris administration to exercise the full extent of its authority to enact a plan to end the use of immigration detention completely including electronic shackling. This includes releasing immigrants who are detained and phasing out federal contracts with private prison companies, states, and localities for the purposes of immigration detention. Members of Congress, including Representative Ilhan Omar, have already petitioned the administration to issue an Executive Order announcing a plan to phase out contracts between ICE and state, county, and local jails and prisons. And advocates have continued to push the administration to live up to its campaign promise and end private prisons, not just in the criminal legal system, but also in the civil immigration detention context. [Emphasis added]
Deputy Executive Director of Freedom for Immigrants Layla Razavi said the ankle monitors are “an abusive and pervasive extension of the immigration detention system — a system that’s rooted in racism and xenophobia.”
Instead, the open borders groups suggest DHS should “completely” eliminate the use of ankle monitors for border crossers, provide taxpayer-funded attorneys to all illegal aliens in deportation proceedings, and award federal contracts to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to give border crossers “holistic medical and mental health care, housing, and language access support.”
The demands come as a House Democrat DHS budget revokes border wall funding, reduces funding for immigration enforcement, and expands ATD for illegal aliens that more easily allows detainees to be released into the U.S. interior.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
'Do not come, do not come': Biden tells lawmen he's opening the borders
Not long ago, Joe Biden's vice president, Kamala Harris, famously was dispatched to Guatemala to tell would-be illegal migrants: "Do not come, do not come."
What's Biden doing now? He's telling U.S. Border Patrol agents he's opening the gates for them to come.
According to the Washington Free Beacon:
The Biden administration is telling immigration agents to prepare to process hundreds of thousands of migrant families and asylum claims as the White House moves to reverse Trump-era border and coronavirus policies, according to internal documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
A senior federal official who spoke with the Free Beacon expects Biden to end Title 42—a law used by former president Trump's Centers for Disease Control to block migrants from entering the country—sometime this month. As part of the preparation for that policy reversal, senior Department of Homeland Security officials warned staff that they will have to process up to 1,200 family units a day. That number of family units works out to 312,000 a year, assuming the border does not see any future surges. Following their release from custody, those migrants are in effect free to stay, said one DHS official, because many immigrants skip their immigration court hearings sometimes scheduled two years after they are initially detained.
In other words, get out the Huggies. The Biden administration is effectively saying that Border Patrol agents should get ready to minister to illegal migrants who will enter in their tens of thousands and get ready change migrant diapers now, because they're coming. Forget about all that fentanyl being smuggled in by cartels from out yonder.
Here's the takeaway from a Border agent quoted by the Beacon:
"All of these people will become permanent residents. There's no political will from the Biden administration to deport families once they're already admitted. The White House knows that," a DHS official said. "The end of Title 42 will result in de facto open borders."
Two things make that more shocking than it would ordinarily be.
One, Biden's Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, has stated that authentic Cuban refugees fleeing the dungeons and torture chambers of communist totalitarian Cuba, are not welcome here.
According to CBS News:
People fleeing Cuba and Haiti by boat will not be allowed to enter the U.S., even if they demonstrate fear of being persecuted or tortured in their home countries, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned on Tuesday.
Mayorkas said those trying to reach the U.S. by sea will be intercepted by the Coast Guard and immediately returned to their home countries. Even if asylum-seekers manage to get interviews with U.S. officials, Mayorkas added, they will not be permitted to set foot on U.S. soil, regardless of the outcome of their screenings.
"If individuals make, establish a well-founded fear of persecution or torture, they are referred to third countries for resettlement," Mayorkas said. "They will not enter the United States."
So asylum is open to everyone out there except for people escaping communist Cuba. That sends quite a message about the state of U.S. asylum laws and the Bidenites' idea of having a claimed moral duty to take in people fleeing oppression.
Two, the Bidenites elsewhere are sounding the alarm about COVID again, this time in its Delta variant. Biden himself made an alarmist speech about it a week ago, and has since dispatched "community organizers" and NGO types to march door-to-door to supposedly persuade Americans to get vaccinated, a government invasion of privacy if there ever was one, except that there's an even worse plan to work with tech giants to police citizens' private SMS messages for "disinformation" about the vaccines that doesn't mesh with its claims about them. What's more, small children are being forced to mask up in filthy masks for the lengths of schooldays as well as keep three feet apart just to be able to go to school.
With the variant a supposed mortal threat to the nation, it rather stinks to see that Biden is cynically opening the border to hundreds of thousands of unvetted llegal migrants, many of whom are prime spreaders of the disease.
According to the Beacon:
Agents on the southern border noted that the president and the CDC are warning about the COVID-19 Delta variant while the federal government ends critical policies that allowed law enforcement to ensure migrants who carry disease are not allowed entry into the country.
That apparently matters nothing to Biden, whose real agenda, not his claimed one, is to dishonestly scrap and nullify U.S. immigration law in the interest of allowing millions of illegals into the country with absolutely no screening whatsoever, just massive needs for services once here, all to ensure that Democrats replenish their ever-diminishing voter base.
This kind of cynicism is outrageous, and if this were a sane U.S., ought to be downright impeachable, given Biden's sworn vow to faithfully uphold the laws of the U.S.
He's instead encouraging illegal immigration while his shills say otherwise. Will he be held responsible for it? One can only hope that if Congress won't get him, the voters will.
Image: U.S. Customs & Border Protection Service, via Flickr // U.S. government work // public domain
53 Migrants Arrested in 3 Stash Texas Stash House Raids near Border
Human smuggling stash house raids in the Rio Grande Valley Sector led to the arrests of 53 migrants being warehoused for transportation into the U.S. interior. The raids took place in three stash houses operated in two different counties near the Texas border with Mexico.
Rio Grande Sector Border Patrol agents teamed up with Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and Starr County Sheriff’s Office deputies on July 13 to carry out raids on two human smuggling stash houses on July 13, according to information obtained from Border Patrol officials. Acting on information received by law enforcement sources, the team went to a Starr County, Texas, residence and found 14 migrants who entered the U.S. illegally.
Agents conducted immigration interviews and welfare checks on the 14 migrants and identified them as citizens of El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico, officials stated. The agents transported the entire group to the Rio Grande City Border Patrol Station for processing.
Later that day, McAllen Station agents received information about another stash house near Pharr, Texas. The source said the house was being used to harbor smuggled migrants.
The agents identified three female migrants being held in the stash house. They were all illegally present in the U.S. The agents transported the women to the McAllen Station for processing. Agents did not find a smuggler at the residence.
The following morning, a Border Patrol agent assigned to the Rio Grande City Station observed a group of migrants running from the brush into a garage of a residence near Roma, Texas, officials stated. The agent called for assistance from DPS troopers and Starr County deputies to investigate the suspected stash house operation.
The team entered the garage and found 36 migrants inside. Officials did not disclose the nationality or demographics of the group. They transported the migrants to the Rio Grande City Station for processing.
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 What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face
74 Migrants Found in 2 RV Trailers at Texas Border Immigration Checkpoint
Big Bend Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended 74 migrants and their human smugglers following an incident involving two RV travel trailers. The agents teamed up with Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to apprehend an additional vehicle involved in the attempt.
Sierra Blanca Station agents assigned to an interior immigration checkpoint in Interstate 10 observed a vehicle pulling a fifth-wheel travel trailer approaching for inspection. A Border Patrol K-9 alerted to the possible presence of drug or human cargo inside the trailer, according to information provided by Big Bend Sector Border Patrol agents.
The agents directed the driver to pull the trailer to a secondary inspection station where non-intrusive imaging equipment revealed multiple migrants packed inside the trailer.
While the agents carried out the secondary inspection, a second vehicle towing another travel trailer pulled through the inspection station. When the agents discovered the contents of the first trailer, they contacted Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to carry out a traffic stop on the second vehicle.
A search of that vehicle revealed additional migrants being smuggled into the U.S. interior.
Agents arrested a total of 74 migrants who were illegally present in the United States, officials stated. They also detained three U.S. citizens connected to the failed smuggling operation. The two adults were placed into the custody of the Texas DPS troopers. The juvenile U.S. citizen was released.
Officials said the 74 migrants came to the U.S. from Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Peru. The agents processed the migrants under Big Bend Sector guidelines.
“The coordination and collaboration between the agents and Texas Department of Public Safety resulted in multiple migrants being rescued from a very dangerous situation,” Big Bend Sector Chief Patrol Agent Sean L. McGoffin stated. “Transnational criminal organizations recruit United States Citizens to facilitate their smuggling schemes, they continue to place lives in danger with little regard for their safety and well-being.”
During May, the last month with available apprehension statistics from the Biden administration, Big Bend Sector agents experienced an increase of 704 percent over May 2020 apprehensions.
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 What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face
Texas Border City Struggles with COVID-19 Outbreak at Migrant Shelter
For the past week, Laredo, Texas, has wrestled with a COVID-19 outbreak at a local migrant shelter as the Biden Administration makes plans to terminate the Title 42 CDC emergency order. Texas State Senator Judith Zaffirini (D-Laredo) issued a public warning last Friday, noting 172 migrants at the old Holding Institute building are being quarantined after testing positive.
Sen. Zaffirini says Border Patrol is sending 3 to 6 buses of migrants per day, transporting all COVID-19 infected cases from the Rio Grande Valley to the private shelter. The organization accepts COVID-19 cases for humanitarian reasons.
The senator says she is working with the Laredo Health Authority and the Texas Division of Emergency Management to seek a solution to the issue, including access to federal resources.
On Monday, a special session of the Laredo City Council addressed the migrant transfers from the Rio Grande Valley. Dr. Victor Trevino, from the local health authority, advised that action was needed to address what he described as a preventable crisis.
“We need to mitigate and slow down the mass release of COVID-19 positive migrants in our community,” Trevino said. “In the last three to five days, we have seen an exponential growth in hospital visits related to the increase in migrant transfers with COVID-19 to the Holding Institute, which is the basis for the quarantine,” he added.
Dr. Trevino further argues that a balance needs to be found between the humanitarian efforts of the shelters and the broader community health impacts.
Laredo Health Director Richard Chamberlain advised the council that a total of 336 migrants tested positive for COVID-19 at the Holding Institute and at a Catholic Charities shelter as of Sunday, July 11. Honduran migrants constitute most of the positive cases.
Laredo Fire Chief Guillermo Heard noted that migrants arriving from Rio Grande Valley are screened, tested, and offered vaccines at the shelters. From the shelter, they are transferred to the Laredo airport or bus terminal.
Mayor Pete Saenz asked Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Troy Miller to immediately suspend the migrant transfers from the Rio Grande Valley, arguing the community is under-prepared without federal help. In his closing remarks, Mayor Saenz indicated that CBP Acting Commissioner Miller agreed to suspend the transfers for three days but are scheduled to resume on July 15.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.
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