NumbersUSA has always supported the United Stated taking "our fair share of the world's internationally recognized special needs refugees, but we are concerned about fraud that occurs in two major ways in our refugee programs.
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.
Birthright Citizenship is the practice of offering automatic citizenship to children born in the United States. Under current federal law, all children born in the U.S. receive automatic citizenship, but this practice had created a magnet for foreign nationals who want their children to have citizenship in the United States.
The Diversity Visa Program, often referred to as the “Visa Lottery” was established in 1990. Under this program, 55,000 visas are allocated annually via a random process to natives of countries that have relatively low rates of immigration to the United States. In 1997, 5,000 of these visas were reserved for individuals who qualified for legal permanent resident status under the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act. Those 5,000 visas are not granted under a lottery process.
Chain Migration refers to the endless chains of foreign nationals who are allowed to immigrate to the United States because citizens and lawful permanent residents are allowed to sponsor their non-nuclear family members.
The Republican Study Committee's budget proposal for FY2020 suggests reducing low-skilled immigration, requiring all businesses to use E-Verify, and increasing both border and interior enforcement. The budget outline provides a starting point for House GOP lawmakers considering the committee is comprised of 140 Republican House Members, or more than 70% of the caucus.
Immigration expansionists often say that struggling American towns and cities would benefit from increased immigration that would "grow the economy." But adding people only guarantees that an economy will be bigger, not necessarily better.
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart, Pres. Trump said the country needs to import more foreign workers, but also said that he wants an immigration system that's less of a burden on American taxpayers. Since his State of the Union address, Pres. Trump has maintained a consistent call for increasing current, record-high immigration levels because of the strengthening economy.
White House officials are building on Pres. Trump’s call to increase legal immigration, according to a new report from McClatchy. According to the report, Pres. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been meeting with a number of business groups and other government officials to devise an immigration plan that would increase the number of employment based visas for foreign workers.
Pres. Trump called for increasing legal immigration during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. It's at least the second time since his State of the Union speech to Congress last week that the President has called for more immigration.
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) unveiled an immigration proposal today that would grant amnesty to illegal aliens and increase the number of foreign workers imported each year. The proposal also attempts to appeal to Pres. Trump's desire to build a border wall by including a boost for border security funding.
After calling for the "the largest numbers ever" of immigration during his State of the Union speech to Congress on Tuesday, Pres. Trump doubled down on that call on Wednesday. In a gathering with regional reporters, the President said "we need people."
NPR's disappointing segment on immigration and American workers over the weekend was marked by unsupported insinuations, red herrings and a creeping denial of the law of supply and demand.
The House of Representatives will vote on two immigration bills on Thursday -- H.R. 4760, the Securing America's Future Act, and H.R. 6136, the Goodlatte-Ryan-Denham amnesty plan. NumbersUSA told House Members on Wednesday that it will score in favor of a vote for H.R. 4760 and score against a vote for the Goodlatte-Ryan-Denham amnesty plan.
DHS Secretary Kristjen Nielsen announced on Monday that the government will not renew the Temporary Protected Status for the country of El Salvador. El Salvador first received the status in 2001 after two earthquakes. TPS status will end on Sept. 9, 2019.
On Monday the House Freedom Caucus announced that they would support Rep. Bill Posey’s (R-Fla.) bill the Security and Fairness Enhancement (SAFE) for America Act (H.R. 1178), which would end the diversity visa lottery program. This support comes after it was discovered that the New York City terror suspect Sayfullo Saipov entered the U.S. through the lottery program.
Today Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley sent a letter to acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke asking her to review current TPS designated countries to ensure they meet the requirements. Several countries currently in the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program will be up for review in the next several months.
According to the Center of Immigration Studies (CIS) analysis of 2016 Census Bureau data the number of U.S. residents five years old and older who speak another language besides English at home has reached a record 65.5 million. This number has doubled since 1990 and tripled since 1980.
A new Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) report analyzed the latest American Community Survey (ACS) data, conducted by the Census Bureau, and found that the immigrant population (legal and illegal) hit a record high of 43.7 million in July 2016. This is an increase of half a million since 2015, an increase of 3.8 million since 2010, and 12.6 million since 2000.
DHS has issued a federal register notice that the Central American Minors Parole program is scheduled to be terminated. The notice states that DHS, “will no longer provide special consideration of parole for certain individuals denied refugee status in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras under the Central American Minors (CAM) Parole Program.”
CNN's Jim Acosta hi-jacked the White House briefing last Wednesday after the introduction of the RAISE Act. Problem is, he knows very little about immigration policy or the history of immigration to the United States.
A national poll taken just before Pres. Trump endorsed the RAISE Act in a White House event on Aug. 2 found overwhelming support for the bill's central feature -- reducing legal immigration from around one million a year to around a half-million.
Pulse Opinion Research surveyed 1,000 "likely mid-term voters" on July 24-25 and asked them how many legal immigrants should be allowed each year. The firm stated that the results had a margin of sampling error of only 3 percentage points,and had a 95% level of confidence.
This week the Trump administration delayed Pres. Obama’s policy of offering humanitarian parole to foreign entrepreneurs to give them temporary legal status in the U.S. Historically this parole has only been used during a time of emergency.
Last week American Technology Consulting (ATC), an Iowa information technology staffing company, was caught posting a job ad that stated only H-1B visa holders should apply. The job was for a java developer and represents the growing trend of replacing American workers with cheap, foreign labor.
The Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services ruled that guest workers seeking a H-1B visa based on their advanced degree must have earned their degrees from colleges that were accredited when they received their degree. This will stop the loophole that allows foreign workers to easily obtain an advanced degree from “diploma mills” in order to be eligible for a H-1B visa.
NumbersUSA recently sent a letter to DHS Secretary John Kelly asking him not to use the authorization, given to DHS in the omnibus, to approve more H-2B visas over the current 66,000 visa cap. In May, Congress passed the provision that would allow for another 70,000 visas to be issued in the current fiscal year.
This week's issue of the the Economist focuses on Pres. Donald Trump's outlook on the global economy, including his thoughts on legal immigration to the United States where he said that he doesn't want to cut immigration. The interview sounded alarm bells for those seeking to reduce existing immigration levels.
Reports indicate that American businesses seeking guest workers may be suffering from their own lack of skills or initiative. But it turns out that hiring domestic workers is a job Americans will do.
A new study by the Pew Research Center shows that the U.S. has more than 40 million immigrants, more than any other country in the world. It also takes in about one-fifth of the world’s total migrants.
The House Appropriations Committee released text late Sunday night on a compromise spending bill that would allow for a doubling of the number of H-2B visas for FY2017. Congress has until Friday night to approve a spending bill to avoid a government shutdown.
New Zealand announced today that they have made changes to their skilled foreign worker visa program that requires immigrants to meet certain income levels to be eligible for the visa. In order to qualify as a skilled immigrant they must get a job in which they earn at least the median income, to qualify as higher skilled the immigrant will need to earn at least 150% of the median income.
Pres. Trump picked Kevin Hassett to become the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, Breitbart News reports. Hassett has been an outspoken supporter of higher immigration levels and outsourcing American jobs.
Our immigration system has been constructed as if employers should never hire teenagers again. If Andy Puzder were a teenager today, he probably couldn't get a job at Baskin-Robbins -- much less be entrusted with opening the store.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) department issued a memorandum over the weekend that requires companies to prove that the computer programming job they are filling with a H-1B foreign worker meets the advanced knowledge and experience qualifications of the H-1B visa program. This will provide more scrutiny to computer programmer applications to ensure they are not being hired to do simple jobs that Americans could do.
A new Pew Research Center report shows that there are no major U.S. industries where immigrant workers outnumber American workers. The report uses Pew’s 2014 workforce estimates and the Census Bureau’s 2014 American Community Survey to look at all workers ages 16 and over in a civilian industry including both legal and illegal immigrants in 2014.
60 Minutes launched an investigative report on how some U.S. companies are using the H-1B visa to bring in cheaper foreign labor and replace American workers. They interviewed several U.S. workers who not only lost their jobs but were forced to train their replacements.
A study by three economists from the University of Michigan and the University of California found that the increase in skilled foreign labor through H-1B visas have led to lower wages and employment for U.S. tech workers.
As an IT professional who used to work for the AFL-CIO, NumbersUSA activist Deena Finchum is well aware of the impacts of mass immigration on American workers and their wages. She recently wrote an op-ed for a Virginia newspaper calling on Congress to pass Sen. Tom Cotton's RAISE Act.
During his press conference today White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that Pres. Trump is supportive of Sens. Cotton (R-Ark.) and Perdue’s (R-Ga.) RAISE Act. The RAISE Act was introduced last month and would reduce legal immigration by ending Chain Migration and the Visa Lottery program.
The attacks on this kind of immigration moderation started to look more like a blizzard after President Trump made strong statements to Congress Tuesday night about the need to change the legal immigration system to help American workers.
LifeZette -- Brendan Kirby
Although illegal immigration usually dominates the debate in America, some advocacy groups argue that legal migration has a far greater impact on social services and the economy. NumbersUSA President Roy Beck in December went so far as to say the Trump administration would be a failure if it did not address chain migration.
Yesterday Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced bill S.232 to end the EB-5 visa program and reallocate the visas to the employment-based visas categories.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin confirmation hearings this week for Pres.-elect Donald Trump's Secretary of Homeland Security nominee Gen. John Kelly. In advance of the hearing, NumbersUSA President and Founder Roy Beck sent the following letter of endorsement to Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.)
The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin confirmation hearings next week for Pres.-elect Donald Trump's Attorney General nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama. In advance of the hearing, NumbersUSA President and Founder Roy Beck sent the following letter of endorsement to Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.
At the beginning of the month Congress renewed the EB-5 visa program, which was set to expire, for another four-and-a-half months when they passed their continuing resolution. This visa program has been impaired by fraud and abuse and while most of the lawmakers agree that the program needs to be reformed they could not agree on what type of reforms and so they punted the decision to the new incoming administration and Congress.
In a New York Times op-ed entitled “Fix Immigration. It’s What Voters Want” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., argues President-elect Trump “has a clear mandate not only to stop illegal immigration, but also to finally cut the generation-long influx of low-skilled immigrants that undermines American workers.” He says the nation needs an immigration policy that focuses less on powerful special interests and more on everyone else.
The Federal Government issued 1,051,031 green cards in 2015 -- the most issued since 2011. The federal government has now issued legal permanent status, with lifetime work permits, to more than 1 million people in 10 of the last 11 years and more than 26 million green cards since the annual cap was raised in 1990.
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.
Breitbart reports Carnival Cruise Line workers in Florida, California and Washington State were told they will be terminated on February 3rd and must train their foreign replacements. Carnival denies the workers’ claims but the company admitted it is shifting technology operations to Capgemini, a French firm that has helped U.S. companies import thousands of guest workers to fill middle-class jobs.
