The current level of immigration has a depressive effect on the wages of workers in the United States. On average, the United States has admitted one million immigrants every year since 1990. In addition, between 700,000 and 800,000 guest workers are admitted every year. There are 28.4 million immigrants in the labor force, including over 7.5 million illegal aliens.
The effect of legal immigration on the United States is in proportion to its volume and composition.
Ideally, who and how many immigrants we admit would be a reflection of informed public will, legislated with deliberation and consistently enforced. The reality, however, is quite different. Our immigration system is a hodge-podge of laws, executive orders and administrative regulations that lack intention, oversight and a clear purpose as to the stated outcome.
In February 2014, the Government Accountability Office published a report that found the Optional Practical Training program was operating with nearly no ICE oversight. Among some of the problems identified by the GAO was systematic fraud perpetrated by Designated School Officials (DSO), the high risk of overstays by individuals after their OPT expires, and over a quarter of OPT workers in food and retail service jobs whose occupation is not related to their field of study.
At current levels of around one million immigrants per year, immigration makes the U.S. economy (GDP) significantly larger, with almost all of this increase in GDP accruing to the immigrants themselves as a payment for their labor services.
After the New York Times published a story in June covering how Walt Disney World forced American employees to train their foreign-worker replacements, outrage surfaced across the country. A group of concerned citizens decided to do something about it by forming the organization Boycott Disney Now.
Computerworld’s Patrick Thibodeau examined a restructuring of IT operations at Disney’s Parks and Resorts division last year and found the company replaced American workers with contractor-based guest workers. The laid-off workers he interviewed said Disney’s restructuring, which the company claims was meant to refocus resources on innovation, was motivated by cost cutting and unnecessary since there was no “skills gap” among existing workers.
Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, dove into the world of political activism last year by launching the pro-amnesty group FWD.us. Investing millions of his own personal fortune, Zuckerberg joined dozens of other leaders in the tech industry who have a vested interest in suppressing wages for tech workers through increased legal immigration and granting legalization and work permits to millions of illegal aliens.
