The Justice Department's (DOJ) Civil Rights Division and the Labor Department (DOL) released a memorandum of understanding Tuesday, announcing the agencies' joint effort to target companies that exhibit "unlawful discrimination" against American workers by hiring foreign labor. These employers, often times, hire cheap foreign labor through the H-1B and H-2B visa programs.
The Justice Dept. announced yesterday that it settled an agreement with Triple H Services LLC, a North Carolina landscaping company, after a finding that it violated the Immigration and Nationality Act by discriminating against American workers. This is the second settlement to resolve a lawsuit based on Pres. Trump's 'Buy American, Hire American' executive order.
Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) requested in a letter addressed to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and DOL Secretary Alex Acosta that both the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) provide a written report, explaining in detail their departments' decision to expand the H-2B program.
A recent 2018 jobs report, released by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), shows that employment for all foreign workers in the U.S. increased by 3%, while employment for all American workers increased a little less than 1.5%. The data also shows a much higher growth rate of employment for foreign national men -- an increase of 2.7% -- compared to employment for American-born men -- a 1.7% increase.
In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, USCIS Director Francis Cissna wrote, that the agency plans to tighten guidelines on H-1B visas issued to specialty workers and end the issuance of work permits to H-4 visa holders.
The Justice Dept. announced yesterday that it settled an agreement with Crop Production Services, Inc., an agricultural company they filed a lawsuit against in September for violating the Immigration and Nationality Act by discriminating against American workers. This is the first settlement to resolve a lawsuit based on Pres. Trump’s ‘Buy American, Hire American’ executive order.
Pres.-elect Donald Trump's nomination of Andy Puzder for Labor Secretary alarmed immigration-reduction activists with his past support for the Gang of 8 amnesty bill that would have tripled the number of lifetime work permits issued over 10 years. But Puzder released a statement over the weekend declaring his commitment to Trump's campaign pledge to protect American workers and their wages from foreign worker competition.
The result of the June 23 Brexit vote continues to cause much gnashing of teeth on both sides of the Atlantic from those who expected the United Kingdom would remain in the European Union; many of who arrogantly dismissed the notion that the citizens of Britain might actually want to regain control of their own affairs.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the job numbers for November 2015, and much of the media is repeating the Fed’s rote line that this is yet another “key indicator of economic strength,” and that maybe, just maybe, it is time to raise interest rates. Whether or not Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen decides to raise interest rates is an important topic to consider, but that discussion almost always neglects the plight of tens of millions of Americans.
When House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy dropped out of the race for House Speaker, it opened it up to a new field of Republican Representatives being touted for the position. Here's a look at the Speaker candidates and where they stand on immigration . . .
Rosetta Stone Communications Survey, Feb. 10-11, 2015
Who should get the future jobs in Georgia? - Americans, including legal immigrants already here, Illegal immigrants already here, newly arrived legal immigrants and guest workers or It doesn’t matter, workers who will work for the lowest wage.
Americans/Legal Immigrants: 80.2%
Settled Illegal Immigrants: 5.2%
New Immigrants: 4.3%
Lowest Wage: 10.3%
This week Rep. Marsha Blackburn called attention to the most controversial and least discussed aspect of President Obama's executive actions on immigration:
The focus is on the Senate now that the House passed legislation to block funding for President Obama’s executive amnesties, so Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., took to the floor to warn Democrats about the seriousness of the coming Senate votes. Before House and Senate Republicans left for a retreat in Pennsylvania, Sen. Sessions’ staff hand-delivered a copy of his new immigration primer and plans to discuss it at the retreat.
A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies, examining data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, found that native-born employment levels are still below their pre-recession, 2007 levels. According to the report, there were 1.5 million fewer native-born Americans over the age of 16 with a job in November of 2014 compared with November of 2007 despite an increase of 11 million in the group's population. Over the same time frame, the number of foreign-born workers over the age of 16 increased by 2 million.
Roll Call -- Kenneth Blackwell
Work permits for millions of illegal aliens is just the beginning of President Barack Obama’s unlawful attack on American workers at every skill level.
He “can’t wait” to impose new immigration regulations in order to expand the pool of people looking for work — despite stagnant wages and record low labor participation rates signaling the foolishness of doing so — he’s just not going to tell you about it.
While questioning Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on the impact of President Obama's executive amnesty, Representative Lou Barletta (R-Pa.) inquired about how granting amnesty and work permits to 5 million illegal aliens would affect the American worker.
Fox News is reporting that Pres. Obama will announce a 10-point executive action on immigration next week that will grant deferred action to at least 4.5 million illegal aliens. The report does not stipulate whether or not the action will issue work permits to illegal aliens, but does indicate that illegal-alien parents of U.S. citizen children would be eligible to receive the amnesty. The action will also expand the President's 2012 executive action, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
Writing for The New Republic, Alec MacGillis wonders why the Democrats failed to successfully frame the 2014 midterms as a "Who's on your side?" election they way they did in 2012.
Former U.S. Senator and potential 2016 presidential candidate, Rick Santorum, told the Iowa Republican Party on Thursday that the GOP needs to put individual Americans ahead of corporate profits and that means lowering legal immigration numbers. Santorum said that low-skilled immigrants are filling U.S. jobs and keeping wages down for working Americans.
Breitbart -- Tony Lee
A blockbuster new poll obtained by Breitbart News reveals that a majority of likely voters want to push the pause button on massive immigration, similar to what occurred between 1915-1964, which allowed legal immigrants a chance to more fully assimilate while the middle class expanded as wages increased.
A recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston shows that "for every foreign-born nurse that migrates to a U.S. city there are between one and two fewer native RNs observed working in the city."
Speaker of the House John Boehner visited the American Enterprise Institute on Thursday to give a speech on the economy. While speaking at the think tank, Boehner proved to the American people just how out of touch he was with reality.
While the Obama Administration considers whether or not it will grant amnesty and work permits to a significant portion of the country's illegal-alien population, the employment situation for American workers worsened last month. The unemployment rate dropped slightly in August, but mostly because of an increased number of Americans who left the labor force. The labor participation rate dropped to its lowest since the 1970s after 268,000 Americans gave up on their job search.
Since the recession began, corporate special interests have lobbied for immigration expansion and amnesty even as they laid off U.S. workers. Today, the White House is the one doing the lobbying to get these businesses on board with a series of executive actions on immigration.
Residents of another community have expressed anger over the federal government’s placement of recent illegal border crossers in their area. According to an Albuquerque ABC affiliate, about 400 people attended a town hall in Artesia, New Mexico last night to speak out against holding illegal aliens at a local Federal Law Enforcement Training center. Only a few spoke out in favor of helping the illegal aliens.
A new study by the Center for Immigration Studies says that all of the net jobs added to the economy since 2000 went to legal and illegal immigrants. The study counters the claims by business groups that the U.S. has a shortage of workers and needs to increase immigration levels.
The media are abuzz with analysis over Prof. Dave Brat’s win over House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in Virginia’s 7th District Republican primary. Many are concluding that his pro-amnesty views were a major factor, given that Prof. Brat emphasized them at every turn, and that Republicans are not likely to want to take up immigration reform this year after seeing voters reprimand a leading amnesty advocate. Below are excerpts from some of the media reports.
A new study from the Center for Immigration Studies asks whether or not there is a shortage of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workers in the United States, and their resounding conclusion is "no". The report released today and written by CIS researchers Steve Camarota and Karen Zeigler found that there are more than 5 million native-born Americans with an undergraduate degree in STEM, but not working in STEM with another 1.2 million degree holders not working at all. Additionally, there are 1.6 million foreign-born residents with an undergraduate degree in STEM that are also not working in STEM fields or working at all.
On Wednesday, Pres. Obama sent mixed messages to the American people. In the first half of the day, he once again expressed his support for the Senate-approved amnesty bill, S.744, that would issue more than 30 million lifetime work permits in the first decade. In the afternoon, he told a group of working-class Americans that he'd like to spend $600 million more to expand programs that train low-skilled American workers for high-tech jobs that pay more money.
Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich opposes increasing the H-1B cap (see below). I wonder if he is aware that the Obama Administration's proposed rule change to give work permits to the spouses of H-1B holders is an attempt to work around the cap.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
“Bevin has bought the pro-amnesty line that the choice is between mass deportation and mass amnesty,” said Roy Beck, a former journalist who now is the director of NumbersUSA.
The group organization seeks the reduce the current annual inflow of one million immigrants and 650,000 non-agricultural workers.
If you were to do a quick Google news search of “California drought and population growth,” you’d be lucky to find more than a few passing statements buried deep within articles regurgitating the same information. All of the news coverage on the devastating drought focuses on short-term problems and shallow solutions. Most writing about the drought assume that population growth is a factor that won’t help California’s water shortage. Unfortunately, I have yet to find any news coverage that attempts to come up with real solutions to rapid population growth in the We
Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) doubled down on her support for amnesty earlier this week while hosting a business panel in Cary, N.C. She expressed her support of the GOP principles that includes legalization for most illegal aliens saying, "out conference has put forward principles and I want to stick to those."
Appearing on Sunday morning news shows, Reps. Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor appeared hesitant to confirm that the House will pursue immigration legislation this year. Ryan said that the likelihood of a broad immigration bill reaching President Obama's desk this year is "clearly in doubt," while Cantor said Congress should focus on “things that we can agree on.”
On Sunday, January 5th, National Economic Council director Gene Sperling and CNBC's Mad Money host Jim Cramer briefly touched on immigration on Meet The Press with David Gregory. Cramer charged that the U.S. government cares more about finding jobs for new foreign workers than for unemployed Americans, and the government data backs him up.
Last week, the Labor Department's Office of the Inspector General announced that foreign worker visa fraud was no longer a "top management concern" for the agency. The announcement is one of the first decisions made by new Labor Secretary Thomas Perez and comes just a few months after the massive tech firm, Infosys, was forced to pay $34 million to the federal government for committing fraud over a host of foreign visa programs.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., offered an amendment to the unemployment benefits extension bill (S. 1845) that would make E-Verify mandatory for all employers within one year of enactment.
Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) has introduced an amendment to the unemployment extension bill currently being considered in the Senate that would add up to 50,000 new green cards per year with no offsets. His amendment includes the full language for S.310, the Startup Act 3.0, which would create 50,000 provisional green cards for foreign students who graduate with a degree in a STEM field and an additional 75,000 visas for entrepreneurs, which can also become permanent green cards.
With the House approving a budget deal before its December 13 deadline, some are trying to predict how the deal, and the process of getting to a deal, will impact immigration in 2014. House Speaker John Boehner took a harsh tone with some of the conservative groups that oppose the deal, and many of those groups also oppose an amnesty. Still, 70% of his caucus approved the deal, making it much less controversial than amnesty.
On Wednesday, Pres. Obama spoke at length about his desire to address an issue NumbersUSA has been talking about since its inception -- income inequality in the United States. But, the President choses to ignore the impact of adding 33 million (NumbersUSA's estimate) new workers, who are mostly low-skilled, will have on wages.
Senator Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., issued a statement today in response to President Obama’s speech on the decline in economic conditions for U.S. workers. He said the President’s rhetoric on wages is undermined by his immigration plan which hurts American workers.
A recent op-ed published in the New York Times by Paul Collier, a professor of economics and public policy at the Blavantnik School of Government at Oxford Universityin England, says that the migration of individuals from poorer countries can help the countries they came from if they return, but it hurts if they never return. Collier directs his op-ed at Facebook and FWD.us founder Mark Zuckerberg and his claim that America is losing out because of our immigration policy.
Roy appeared on Jorge Ramos' primetime news program on the new television network Fusion where the two discussed legal immigration numbers, the employment situation in the United States, and the Congressional debate on immigration reform.
A new, non-partisan group based in Washington D.C., Americans4Work, is shedding some light on the impact that both legal and illegal immigration have on America's most vulnerable, especially minority groups, the disabled, and post-9/11 veterans. Earlier today, the group held its first public event at the National Press Club with Senator Jeff Sessions, former Rep. and Lt. Col. Allen West, and Temple University Law Prof. Jan Ting. While most of the discussion was spent on how to get jobless Americans back to work, the immigration issue was a recurring theme.
U.S. STEM professors say H-1B increases would have a dramatic impact on American colleges graduates in these areas
The AFL-CIO is pushing to add 33 million permanent job seekers via legalization and increased immigration over the next decade. Union leadership surely hopes the increase in foreign workers will also boost their membership (and revenue), but if that is their sole justification they aren't saying.
Earlier today, Pres. Obama brought several business executives to the White House to discuss ways to encourage the House to vote on the Schumer-Rubio amnesty bill, S.744, before the end of the year. The bill, which would result in 33 million new work permits being issued in the first 10 years by granting amnesty to 11-18 million illegal aliens and doubling annual legal immigration flows, is being sold by the White House as a way to boost the economy and create jobs.
On Sunday, October 20, Delaware's U.S. Senators Tom Carper and Chris Coons joined Delaware's U.S. Representative John Carney to host a jobs fair. In their quotes to the media about the event, they sounded like three politicians who possess great faith in the ability of the U.S. workforce to meet the needs of employers.
In addition to bankrolling the conservative lobbying "fly-in," tech giants such as Google are pushing for amnesty in other ways.
