One small favor from this disastrous recession: slightly fewer reporters are mindlessly scribbling down the phrase, "jobs Americans won't do." Over four hundred NumbersUSA members wrote to me personally after my latest fundraising email. About 275 of them are unemployed. You wouldn't believe all the jobs that they used to do and would very much like to do again.
Would the signers of the Declaration of Independence have thought it principled for the majority of U.S. politicians today to refuse to give even returning U.S. military veterans preference over illegal aliens for jobs? The 4th of July is OUR time -- to remember the document that declared a new national community and insisted that the government exists primarily to protect and provide for the quality of life of the MEMBERS of that community.
Another 467,000 jobs were cut last month raising the nation's jobless rate to 9.5 percent. The cuts were more than 100,000 expected by analysts as the number of unemployed U.S. citizens nears 15 million. The federal government, however, continues to import more than 138,000 foreign workers every month, and the Pew Hispanic Center estimates that there are 8.3 million undocumented workers in the U.S. workforce.
Our readers have sent us a lot of personal stories in response to Roy’s blog last week about his trip to the Midwest and who he found working at hotels and at a resort in the nation’s heartland. The jobs weren’t filled with imported labor, but instead Roy found hardworking Americans doing the jobs the open borders groups say Americans won’t do.
Only after the July 2008 attack did Kiefer learn of the crime's political ramifications. Izaguirre, police told her, was an illegal immigrant who had pleaded guilty four months earlier to a drug felony for selling cocaine in the seedy Tenderloin area.
He had avoided prison when he was picked for a jobs program run by San Francisco Dist. Atty. Kamala Harris, now a candidate for California's top law enforcement post. In effect, Harris' office had been allowing Izaguirre and other illegal immigrants to stay out of prison by training them for jobs they cannot legally hold.
Jobless numbers increased again in May, reaching a 26-year high of 9.4%. The job market cut another 345,000 jobs last month, bringing the total of jobless Americans to 14.5 million. Since December 2007, more than 6 million Americans have lost their job, while the federal government has imported more than 2.5 million foreign workers.
A quick synopsis of a video documentary focusing on the impact of high immigration on American jobs and families.
View the full version of "American Trauma: Jobs and the Economy."
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As an undergraduate economics major with one year to go, I am amazed at the amateurish analysis contained in a new study by an immigration lawyers group that contends that immigration rates in an area have no connection to unemployment.
Immigrant unemployment is now soaring. During 18 months of recession as millions of Americans lost jobs, Congress has resolutely refused to reduce immigration and the importation of foreign workers. Scores of our elected officials appear to feel much more obligation to immigrants than to vulnerable Americans among their constituents. Now, a new study shows that the recession has finally begun to hit immigrant workers really hard. With legal immigrants who are already here suffering major job losses, is it possible that Congress can begin to see the need to stop bringing in more foreign workers?
The home building industry was one of the hardest hit with the onset of the current recession, and the impact sent an abundance of workers from the construction site to the farms. According to a report in the St. Petersburg Times, farmers in suburban Tampa’s Plant City saw no shortage of farm workers this spring despite the efforts of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL) who proposed the AgJOBS Amnesty late last week.
On Thursday, three illegal migrants were in a Florida hospital, one in critical condition, after a raft carrying some 30 people capsized off the coast of Florida. Sixteen people were rescued, and the rest are presumed dead. The United States Coast Guard has also conducted a search for other survivors over 2,500 square miles of ocean, which was still ongoing and expanding as of this writing. Autopsies of the recovered bodies were to be conducted.
"Since the landmark raid, an economic squeeze has destroyed several businesses. Postville's population has shrunk by nearly half, to about 1,800 residents, and townsfolk say the resulting anxiety -- felt from the deli to the schoolyard -- has been relentless.
"It's like you're in an oven and there's no place to go and there's no timer to get you out," said former Mayor Robert Penrod, who, overwhelmed, resigned earlier this year....
Congress and the Administration still plan to take 50,000 U.S. jobs later this year and raffle them off to foreign workers on pure chance. Never mind that 14 million unemployed Americans are looking for a job. If that doesn't make any sense to you, get passionate about Rep. Bob Goodlatte's SAFE for America Act (H.R. 2305). Let's kill this absurd lottery before autumn.
"One of President Obama's highest policy priorities is making America energy independent. The president has correctly observed that our reliance on others for essential energy needs is both a source of weakness and an impediment to the development of new technologies that would also strengthen our economy and help the environment.
"Around this time each year, thousands of foreign students graduate with science and engineering degrees from U.S. universities. Many are eager to stay in America and contribute to the U.S. economy.
So does the United States welcome them with open arms? No, the government tells thousands of them to hit the road — and take their sought-after skills and brainpower to countries and companies that compete with the USA.
Talk about a self-defeating immigration policy...."
April wasn't quite as bad as the past few months, but 539,000 Americans still lost their job during the month. U.S. jobless claims is now up to 8.9 percent from 8.5% last month with the number of American workers looking for work at 13.7 million.
When I walked into Sen. Jeff Sessions' office several years ago for my first one-on-one visit with him, I knew we could count on him to be a full champion for the rule of law in matters of immigration. But I wanted to persuade him that it was just as important to change immigration policy out of compassion for beleaguered American workers. With almost no prodding from me, the Alabama Senator astounded me with the depth of his sensitivity to the plight of vulnerable workers and with his resistance to chamber of commerce propaganda.
Did you think Senators might be too smart this year -- or too moral or at least too embarrassed -- to push for more foreign workers while millions of Americans are losing their jobs?
Such modest faith in U.S. Senators was dashed yesterday by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a first hearing of its immigration panel.
Senators made it clear that they are hopeful that the American people will let them pass the amnesty this year that was blocked in 2007.
I looked out over the sea of down-and-outers in our church basement Saturday night as they ate a hot meal and waited for their free bags of groceries and bus passes. I especially concentrated on those in their 30s, 40s and 50s, many of whom have hardly held down a job in their adult years -- living dependent, unproductive and sadly unfulfilling lives. Often, the road to these lives was paved during their late teens and early 20s when they found no hope in the job market. This is why I focused most of my attention on joblessness in the 18-29 age group in my appearance last week before a select panel of Colorado leaders at the Denver University. We are minting a whole new generation of the idle dependent.
WASHINGTON AND JEFFERSON COLLEGE, Pa. -- Just finished a 9-person immigration debate here after doing a live interview on the Glenn Beck Show from a studio in downtown Pittsburgh (if you wondered what the Iron City skyline was doing behind me during my appearance). I'm on to Colorado tomorrow for a Thursday morning debate appearance at Denver University. Did phone interviews with newspaper reporters through each airport as everybody is wondering why in the world would the nation's union leaders take a stand to keep 7 million unemployed Americans from getting a job.
A tiny bit of hopeful evidence emerges that consistent, long-term and substantial U.S. citizen opposition to the open-borders agenda may eventually back off some of the wealthiest foundations that are funding the pro-amnesty efforts. A report on the website of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation suggests leaving the political arena on immigration because of the great disappointment in losing the amnesty battles of 2007.
The March unemployment news is shocking -- just like it has been every month for the last year. The official unemployment rate jumped from 8.1% to 8.5%! There are now 13.2 million Americans looking for a job who can't find even a part-time job. Yet, many of the nation's richest foundations, most prestigious newspapers and top elected officials continue to call for an increase in foreign workers.
"Nonunion contractors and minority and female workers fear that they could miss out on major construction projects funded by the economic stimulus package because President Barack Obama has issued a directive on contracting that favors union labor.
An executive order that Obama signed in February "encourage(s) executive agencies to consider requiring the use of project labor agreements" on federal construction projects of $25 million or more...."
Today's news reports on Pres. Obama's visit to California include a touching interaction with an ex-convict who has lost his job. But his comments about making sure that illegal aliens keep THEIR jobs illustrates the common occurrence of really smart people at the top of our government who just don't get it. They don't understand that there are a limited number of U.S. jobs and that when you fill those jobs with foreign workers (including illegal ones) American workers lose out. Look at what happened . . .
Another month has passed. Another half-million (or more) jobs have been lost. And our federal leaders continue to do nothing about auto-pilot programs that are flooding our country with foreign workers. Nothing has changed since last year when 138,000 new foreign workers were added to the U.S. each month on average. Here are the latest facts that still cannot soften the hardened hearts of our leaders . . . .
For two decades every time a President addresses Congress, we have cringed as we waited for the obligatory paragraph about the need to honor our immigration traditions and welcome more foreign workers who will save our economy. Clinton and Bush nearly always stuck it to us at least once in each speech. Obama didn't last night. For that I'm thankful. But .......
Latest data reveal 1.6 million American young adults (18-29) with only a high school degree who are looking for a job but can't find one. Yet, Sens. Mikulski and Specter have introduced a bill to double or triple the visas for less-educated foreign workers over the next three years. And 24 Senators have already co-sponsored the bill!
Two analyses of the just-enacted bill suggest that foreign workers will benefit from either 90% of increased employment due to the nearly-trillion-dollar Stimulus bill, or ALL of the extra employment. Sound incredible? Read on ....
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) issued a press release tonight decrying the removal of House-passed E-Verify worker protections from the conference committee report, which could be voted on as early as tomorrow. He notes that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) were responsible. See Roy Beck's blog for more commentary on this injustice.
House Speaker Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Reid and the Obama White House were absolutely certain about one thing for the House/Senate negotiating committee on the Stimulus Bill: There was to be no special restriction to keep illegal aliens from getting new jobs created by the bill at a cost of $250,000 to $500,000 each.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's reaction to a limited set of stricter rules for banks hiring foreign workers answers a bar debate that long has raged. The question has always been whether if we had another Great Depression would the Chamber still continue to lobby for more foreign workers on the basis of worker shortages. This week, the debate is settled. YES, THEY WOULD!
My wife and I recently spent an evening assisting more than 600 people in families racked by unemployment and poverty. They were given a hot meal, bags of groceries, bus tokens, coupons and advice/counseling if requested. They needed a band-aid, and we gave them one. But most of all, these households need a job. The majority of U.S. Senators have decided that illegal foreign workers deserve a job as much as the Americans in our soup kitchen, meaning more of these Americans will remain jobless. Can the Senators even see these faces?
The feds' monthly report was even worse than expected: 598,000 jobs cut in January. And, yet, Senate leaders have still not given permission for a vote on a Stimulus Bill amendment that would keep illegal foreign workers from getting jobs created by the massive taxpayer effort. How many Americans have to lose their jobs before they are given priority over illegal aliens and the outlaw companies that hire them?
Sounds crazy but that is just business as usual. While hundreds of thousands of American construction workers are unemployed, businesses across America continue to employ illegal aliens and will be allowed to use Stimulus money to hire hundreds of thousands more illegal aliens. The Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are lobbying the Senate to ensure that businesses can use Stimulus money to hire illegal aliens. Nearly every national Hispanic advocacy group is lobbying the Senate to ensure that illegal aliens have the same access to Stimulus jobs as unemployed Hispanic American citizens. It's a crazy world. Will the Senate endorse insanity or pass an E-Verify amendment?
So far you haven't seen the stats in the mainstream media. You haven't heard national politicians talking about them. But now an extensive nationwide educational campaign on cable TV will expose Americans to two outrageous government statistics. And the 2 banned statistics are . . . .
No Democrat in New York's large congressional delegation has shown more promise in truly bringing relief to the unemployed, especially in her approach to immigration issues. After only one term in the U.S. House, we still have a lot to learn about Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). On many immigration issues related to the welfare of American workers, she did not take a stand. But when she did take a stand, it was generally good -- earning her a respectable B Immigration-Reduction Grade from NumbersUSA.
Shirley (my wife) just got a call from her 99-year-old father (every year a Republican) who said Pres. Obama's inaugural speech made him hopeful. As for me, I was relieved that I didn't hear anything that spells trouble for us, and also hopeful because several major principles in his speech are recipes for doing the right thing on immigration -- even if Mr. Obama probably doesn't realize it.
