Perhaps no issue better illustrates the
current divide between everyday citizens and our political and business elites
than the issue of immigration. The latter group draws the financial gains from a
generous labor supply without considering the perspective of those on the other
side of the ledger: the working people who have to worry about being laid off
and replaced with lower-wage workers, about the strain placed on their local
hospitals and neighborhood resources, or about cartel violence spilling across
the border into their own communities.
For instance, Sheldon Adelson recently
wrote that: “The immigrants here illegally need jobs, want to work and are
willing to take on jobs that are not appealing to many Americans.” What about
Americans who need jobs? Human beings are not commodities. We need to get our
own workers off of unemployment and into good-paying jobs that can support their
families. That means if a job is hard or strenuous, employers should raise wages
and improve working conditions – why shouldn’t Americans who do tough work get
paid more for their efforts?
Rupert Murdoch also recently argued for a
dramatic expansion of the controversial H1B guest worker program. Murdoch writes
that “there is a shortage of qualified American candidates,” to fill jobs in
STEM fields like computer services and engineering. But the evidence shows the
opposite: the US graduates approximately twice as many STEM-trained students
each year as there are STEM jobs to fill. There is a large surplus of unemployed
Americans with STEM degrees and yet, per the Economic Policy Institute, “the
annual inflow of guestworkers amount to one-third to one-half of all new IT jobs
holders.” As Rutgers Professor Hal Salzman poignantly asked, “Average wages in
IT today are the same as they were when Bill Clinton was president well over a
decade ago…if there is in fact a shortage, why doesn't that reflect in the
market? Why don't wages go up?"
The United States has the most generous
immigration policy in the world. Each year, the US grants permanent legal
admission to an additional 1 million immigrants who will be able to apply for
citizenship, along with roughly 700,000 guest workers, 200,000 relatives of
guest workers, and 500,000 students. These are overwhelmingly not farm workers
as activists falsely suggest, but are instead workers brought in to fill jobs in
every sector, occupation and industry throughout the US
economy.
Overall, the number of people living in
the US who were born in another country has quadrupled since 1970. And yet the
Senate immigration bill doubles the rate of future immigration and guest worker
admissions.
For too long, the immigration debate has
been driven by the needs of politicians, business interests, and immigration
activists who fail to appreciate that a nation owes certain obligations to its
own citizens.
Consider immigration policy from the
viewpoint of a middle-aged unemployed American who has to borrow gas money to
drive to a job interview 100 miles away. Imagine how his or her life is affected
when the company gives that open job to a temporary guest worker hired from
10,000 miles away. Imagine what any of the 58 million working-age Americans who
don’t have jobs might have to say to the lawmakers and activists who claim there
is a “labor shortage”.
The phrase “immigration reform” has been
thoughtlessly applied to any legislation that combines amnesty with dramatic
future increases to our record supply of labor. This is the singular vision
championed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats. It therefore falls on
the shoulders of Republicans to stand alone as the one party representing the
interests of everyday working Americans.
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