We don't take any position on the partial-government-shutdown issues. But we saw sad examples from the reactions of both Parties to the shutdown that too many politicians make the hiring of foreign workers -- both legal and illegal -- their highest priority.
Rallies planned for 150 cities tomorrow as a "National Day of Dignity and Respect for Immigrants" could just as easily be called the "Anti-Labor Day" or the "Immigrant Perpetual Poverty Day." Everything about the rallies is aimed at creating open borders with gigantic future flows of foreign workers that will further depress U.S. wages and force more Americans to become dependent upon the government.
House Democratic leaders introduced their giant foreign-worker bill at noon today and repeatedly claimed that most Americans back their approach of giving lifetime work permits to 11 million illegal aliens and doubling work permits for new immigrants to 20 million over the next decade. But polling on the issue of work permits indicates otherwise.
On Monday, September 30, Reuters reported that "IBM has agreed to pay $44,400 in civil penalties to settle allegations that certain of its online job postings preferred foreign workers with temporary visas over U.S. citizens."
Summer Recess is over and Congress is now gearing up for a busy fall schedule. During the Congressional break, NumbersUSA activists attended over 400 town halls with nearly 150 lawmakers! Even though we dampened the momentum for amnesty during August, we still have a lot of work ahead of us.
A wonderful story by Hope Yen of the Associated Press yesterday leveraged government data to show yet another angle of the ongoing economic situation in America. Yen painted a clear picture of what is happening across the nation, piling on statistic after hard-hitting statistic. Naturally, a mention of our historic high immigration levels was AWOL.
The moral arguments on immigration that Members of Congress are hearing from Catholic bishops this month are not the ones that most Catholic voters believe are the most important, according to polling of 4,967 Catholic likely voters in 26 politically competitive states. If Catholic voters resist the political pressure from their bishops to support an amnesty, it won't be because the laity refuses to consider the moral issues of immigration but because most of the laity places a higher moral priority on protecting the most vulnerable members of their national community who are unemployed or who struggle because of low wages.
In an op-ed published in The Hill on Wednesday, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) detailed the impacts the Gang of Eight's immigration bill, S.744, would have on legal immigration numbers and said the interests of all Americans are be pushed aside to satisfy the interests of business and ethnic groups. Sen. Sessions urged the House to completely disavow S.744 and move forward with a plan that would "refocus the immigration debate on the rights, needs, and concerns of U.S. citizens."
A large number of corporations that recently laid off American workers are now urging House leaders to import more foreign workers and legalize illegal aliens, according to the Washington Examiner. Jon Feere of the Center for Immigration Studies notes, "The companies claim (immigration reform) is an 'opportunity to level the playing field for U.S. employers' but it is more of an effort to level the wages of American citizens."
A new mining company that is building a new steel manufacturing plant in Ohio just across the West Virginia border hosted a job fair on Wednesday that attracted 300 applicants. The company will hire about 50 workers.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle frequently tout the “labor shortage” line when pushing for comprehensive immigration reform. Some of these same lawmakers actually hold job fairs, knowing well that their state or district has unemployment problems. While others may not hold their own job fairs, they continue to say that “jobs” is their number one priority in Congress. Why then, are these politicians focused on making the unemployment and wage depression problems even worse in this county by passing amnesty and further increasing the flow of foreign workers into our labor market?
A new study by the Center for Immigration Studies shows that 57.5 million working-age Americans are either unemployed or out of the labor market. This figure is almost identical (57 million) to the number of people the Senate's "Gang of Eight" amnesty legislation would bring in. Steve Camarota, the author of the study, said:
Reps. Raul Labrador (R-Id.) and Ted Poe (R-Texas) are working on legislation that could potentially double the number of low-skilled worker visas offered in the Schumer-Obama amnesty bill, S.744. The proposal could increase the number of guest worker visas from the 200,000 set forth by the Senate bill to 400,000.
Bright, a company that collects resumes and attempts to match job seekers to open jobs, has found a large number of tech workers are looking for work in STEM fields despite claims that there is a shortage of high-skilled workers. According to its own analysis, Bright says they found evidence of labor shortages in a few specific engineering fields, but for the most part, there is a large available pool of high-skilled candidates for tech employers to choose from.
| STATE | Working Age Population | Unemployment (U-3) | Under/Unemployment (U-6) | Share not Working | |||
| % | Total | % | Total | % | Total | ||
We know from a flurry of news stories the last 24 hours that the Republican leaders of the House think that most illegal aliens under a certain age have a compelling case for being granted an amnesty. What we don't know is whether either leader has given any thought to: (1) Who is responsible for putting the "kids" into a predicament that makes their amnesty case compelling? (2) How do you keep another generation of illegal-alien parents from putting their children in the same predicament? (3) How do you minimize the harm to U.S. citizens if an amnesty is granted?
It was only after I finished speaking to the March for Jobs crowd in a park across the street from the Gang-of-Eight-controlled Senate that I realized I had failed in my little speech to use the most obvious issue of today: THE HEAT. What I saw at that moment was a crowd of Americans from all over the country who were taking on miserable, sweaty, dehydrating conditions as a sign of solidarity with everybody in this country who has no choice but take on those conditions as a regular part of their jobs making the lives of the rest of us more comfortable.
A new poll conducted by pollster John McLaughlin has found that 60% of Hispanic voters support amnesty only after the goal of stopping 90% of future illegal immigration has been achieved. Only 34% of Hispanic voters said they support an amnesty first plan similar to the Senate-passed S.744.
While Friday's jobs report was encouraging, 190,000 jobs added in the month of July, the data also showed some discouraging news - only 47% of Americans hold a full-time job. Of the 144 million Americans that hold a job, only 116 million are working full-time and only 58.7% of American adults hold a job.
". .. thinking that some of the most patriotic people I know are Dreamers," an immigration reporter provocatively tweeted last night while watching Fourth of July fireworks.
She was referring to young-adult illegal aliens, many of whom were brought illegally to the country by their parents and who are urging U.S. citizenship for themselves AND also for their parents, the ones who knowingly and deliberately broke the law to live and work here.
Now, we must turn our full efforts to the U.S. House and another huge grassroots effort in July.There is no question that the five-month opposition that the grassroots has waged is having good results in the House, where the Senate bill is facing an increasingly hostile reception. At some point, politicians will no longer be able to look the public in the eye and be allowed by the media to claim that we must have tens of millions more foreign workers to deal with supposed labor shortages.
Republican supporters of the Gang of Eight's amnesty bill, S.744, have fought tirelessly to convince their GOP counterparts that the 11 million illegal aliens who receive amnesty under the bill won't be eligible for ObamaCare until they receive green cards 10 years down the road. But as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) pointed out yesterday, however, that's not the main "ObamaCare" concern with the bill. Instead, S.744 inadvertantly penalizes companies that hire American workers over amnestied illegal aliens beacuse of the "ObamaCare" tax.
CNBC's senior editor, John Carney, analyzed the Congressional Budget Office's immigration bill report and found that wages across all skill levels would decline for the first ten years after comprehensive immigration reform passed.
Along with a nationwide wage decline, Carney says that according to the CBO report, unemployment would initially rise after a CIR would pass.
Higher unemployment. Lower wages. Higher interest rates. Continued illegal immigration. That's what the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office analysis concludes regarding the Gang of Eight's amnesty bill, S.744. In two separate analyses released on Tuesday, the CBO found that S.744 might have some long-term benefits on the U.S. economy, but in the interim, it will be a disaster for working Americans.
The Congressional Budget Office has released its analysis of the Schumer-Rubio-Obama amnesty bill, confirming the opponent's predictions that it would be devastating for American workers and would not end illegal immigration. Since the bill purposely delays green cards for some illegal aliens by 10 years, and the CBO only scores the fiscal impacts for the bill's first 10 years, the report says that the bill will not have a major impact on the national debt over the first decade.
An article that will be published in the June 24, 2013 issue of The New Yorker magazine reports that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) sided with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on the issue of a guest-worker program for the construction industry. Construction workers and the unions opposed an expanded guest-worker program unless it was tied to the unemployment rate, but the Chamber of Commerce was concerned that since unemployment rates tend to be higher in the industry, it would be a road block to the temporary visas.
A group of Black Leaders sent a letter to Congress on Monday warning them about the negative impacts the Gang of Eight's immigration bill will have on Black Americans. The group sent their letter to Members of the Congressional Black Caucus and Senators from states with the highest levels of Black unemployment.
Half of all grads from four-year colleges are working in jobs that don't require a four-year degree, according to a McKinsey study cited by Forbes. The McKinsey report is backed by a similar study from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that found 48% of U.S. college grads are underemployed.
In 2007, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voted against amnesty for illegal aliens. Last Friday, in an interivew with the Washington Post, he expressed major concern with the Gang of Eight's bill after it was passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Here's the 30-second video raising deep moral questions about what kind of national community we are going to be.
The Senate Gang of Eight immigration bill would offer a minimum of 33 million lifetime work permits in the first decade alone (11 million to current illegal immigrants, 11 million to new legal immigrants in a continuation of the current system, another 5 million chain migration relatives of immigrants who have applied but are waiting for their slot in other countries and 6 million new immigrants through new categories and expanded existing categories of immigration). The 33 million in a single decade is almost half of all immigrants who have ever entered the U.S. in its history.
After dealing with most of Title I ("triggers" and border security) last Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee continues its markup of the Gang of Eight's amnesty bill, S.744, today. Today's markup will mostly focus on Title IV of the Gang's bill, dealing with the guest-worker provisions. Several of the issues to watch for today include changes to the existing H-1B high-skilled worker visas and worker protections outlined in the Gang's bill.
As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to review the guest-worker provisions of the Gang of Eight's amnesty bill, a national association consisting of electrical and electronics engineers is urging Congress to leave the H-1B visa quotas alone. The IEEE issued a statement on Monday to reject amendments that would further increase the number of H-1B visas issued each year and amendments that would weaken worker protections.
If you have ever doubted the "skills shortage" claims favored by the "Gang of Eight," President Obama, and the billionaire tech lobby, turn to the technology and business section of your newspaper. Wage suppression doesn't sell well in Washington - or with the public, for that matter - so the billionaire tech lobby has instead appealed for better access to foreign workers on the grounds that there isn't enough talent in the United States to meet their demands. But segments of the media have begun to speak truth to power.
A group of Americans, mostly Black Americans, in Georgia are suing several farm employers because they say the farmers prefer cheaper, foreign labor over U.S. workers. The workers claim that farmers, including Stanley Farms - one of the largest growers of Vidalia onions, that they were mistreated and paid less than workers from Mexico.
If Congress passes the Senate Gang of Eight bill, it would be like re-creating ALL of the Top 20 cities in the United States, filling them entirely with foreign citizens and giving them lifetime work permits to compete with America's struggling workers -- and in just 10 years time. At this moment, your Members of Congress probably don't even know about the 33 million figure. But that's the number our analysts came up with after nearly two weeks deciphering the 844-page bill.
The Economic Policy Institute’s analysis of recent jobs data undermines the common business theme that employers are not hiring because they can’t find enough qualified workers. EPI economist Heidi Shierholz argues there are more than enough unemployed workers in all sectors of the current job market to fill jobs in those industries.
Whew!! Regardless of your party affiliation, did you breathe a sigh of relief with me when the Republican Convention ended last night without any major speeches from the podium making calls for filling mythical labor shortages to get our economy moving, or importing more immigrants to supposedly create jobs to put Americans back to work?
Even on Independence Day -- especially on this day -- I have to ask you to take a few minutes to protect your own pursuit of happiness . . . .
. . . because industry titans like Rupert Murdoch, Jack Welch and Michael Bloomberg are waging an all-out effort right now for mass immigration policies that will add huge new burdens on taxpayers while restricting the freedom of millions of Americans to earn a decent living.
Freshman Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) has cosponsored Chairman Lamar Smith's Legal Workforce Act (H.R.2885) that would require 100% of businesses to use E-Verify within two years. The bill also requires all federal, state, and local governments to E-Verify their entire workforce.
This past week, three bills have been introduced by Senators from both sides of the aisle aimed at bringing more foreign STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) workers to the U.S. What the politicians and pundits are forgetting to mention is that there are eligible, U.S. workers out there to fill these jobs. I personally have friends who graduated this past week with engineering degrees and no job offers in sight.
A new Virginia law that goes into effect next summer will publish the unemployment rates for recent graduates of the state's colleges and universities. The law, which passed almost unanimously through both chambers of the Virginia state legislature and was signed into law by Gov. Bob McDonnell, was created after a study from Northeastern University found that 50% of recent college grads are unemployed or underemployed.
Put three of this month's big immigration stories together, add a critical statistic missing from all of them and you get a powerful argument for passing the Legal Workforce Act (H.R. 2885).
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the workforce participation rate among American teens has dropped by 10% to just 25% over the last 5 years. The participation rate was consistently near 50% during the 1980s and '90s, but has dropped steadily since then.
Amnesty advocates like Rep. Luis Gutierrez (IL) believe that an unauthorized alien's history of illegally taking and holding jobs that should have gone to citizens or legal aliens should be viewed as evidence of "good character." Much of the mainstream media has agreed. According to that twisted logic, the more jobs an unauthorized alien illegally works, the more compelling the case for amnesty.
This television ad will run across the country in March asking why House Speaker John Boehner won't allow a House vote on E-Verify. Viewers are urged to call Speaker Boehner and ask him to allow a vote on mandatory E-Verify. A recent poll conducted by Pulse Opinion Research found that 78% of Americans want a national workplace verification system as a way to address the issue of illegal immigration.
A recent op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal has identified a major labor shortage in the U.S. manufacturing sector, but instead of calling for more foreign workers, the op-ed suggests some in the industry are finding ways to train unemployed Americans to fill the positions. According to a survey conducted in October of 2011, 5% of manufacturing jobs went unfilled despite a 9% unemployment rate.
In Arizona where immigration was near the top of voter concerns, the candidate who “owned” the E-Verify issue was bound to benefit. While many pundits claimed Romney’s robust advocacy of national mandatory E-Verify was a blunder that somehow put him on the political fringe, the Arizona election results tonight and a new national poll show him to be identifying with overwhelming majorities of virtually every type of American.
Yesterday's NBA All-Star Game marked the mid-point of its season, and the story that stole the headlines at the end of the first half was the New York Knicks' rookie sensation Jeremy Lin who seems to have appeared out of nowhere. Lin's face has landed on the covers of magazines and newspapers across the country, but not all the headlines have been about his on-court success. Some in the media have focused on what the Lin story means to U.S. immigration policy.
The Department of Homeland Security has opened up its E-Verify Self Check tool to all 50 states. The easy-to-use, online tool allows U.S. citizens and legal immigrants to check their own employment eligibility through the E-Verify system. Watch our short video presentation showing how to use it . . .
