Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is placing a hold on the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act (H.R. 3012) that overwhelmingly passed through the House Tuesday night 389-to-15. The bill would remove the per-country limitations placed on employment-based visas. NumbersUSA took no position on the bill since it would not change overall immigration levels.
At NumbersUSA we believe that the numerical level of immigration should be set in ways that: allow for a stabilizing U.S. population; allow for the preservation of Americans’ individual liberty; and allow for fairness in economic opportunity for Americans and legal workers.
Legal Immigrants in Maryland are speaking out against the state's new law that will offer in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens. According to a report by the Washington Post, many legal immigrants in the state have joined forces with a group leading the effort to repeal the law through a ballot initiative.
The economist Kenneth Boulding, the environmental adviser to President Kennedy, once famously said, "Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad - or an economist." This is the fourth of four blogs concerning immigration-sustainability questions policymakers should address.
When NumbersUSA aired the "Lower LEGAL Immigration" ad during two recent GOP national debates, a number of individuals posted comments on Twitter in disbelief that any organization would advocate lower legal immigration levels. Amnesty is the only form of LEGAL immigration that some are willing stand against. However, just because something is legal doesn't make it morally right. For example, if the African Slave trade were still in operation today, I would stand against it.
Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) spoke out against Oregonian forestry contractors who used stimulus money to hire legal foreign workers instead of unemployed Americans. Earlier this year, Rep. DeFazio introduced the bi-partisan Electronic Employment Eligibility Verification and Illegal Immigration Control Act (H.R.483) that would require all businesses to use E-Verify. Oregon's unemployment rate is slightly above the national average, standing at 9.6%.
Democratic Congressman Jared Polis sent out an interesting comment via Twitter on Wednesday afternoon. His Tweet simply said "Boulder residents r happiest ppl in the country :-)". And Boulder residents should be happy. While the U.S. population has increased at a rate close to 10% over the past 10 years, Boulder's population has grown by only 4.6% over the same period of time thanks to its strict population control policies.
Great Britain's Office for National Statistics has released new information that reveals that the nation's population will exceed 70 million people by the year 2027 and grow to more than 73 million within 25 years. The Office says new immigration and children born to new immigrants will contribute to 68% of the population growth.
With more than 22 million Americans looking for a full-time job, now is not the time to import high levels of foreign labor. But the federal government continues to issue new work permits to 75,000 new immigrants each month.
Tonight, the GOP Presidential Hopefuls get another chance to make an impression on voters in an early primary state during a debate in Las Vegas. The Perry campaign team is already trying to get a jump on the immigration issue; throughout the day, stories have popped up across the news wires quoting his political strategists who are saying Gov. Perry will try to reverse opinions about his position on immigration.
Bloomberg News hosted a round table last week of business leaders and academia to discuss, in addition to many other topics, how they could get more foreign workers to the United States. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor made an appearance at the panel and his statement to the group sounded off some alarms. Rep. Cantor said he sympathized with their concerns and, through his leadership position in Congress, would work to find ways to increase the number of available foreign workers.
The GOP Debate gets underway tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. I'll be
providng updates of any immigration-related questions that may be posed
to the Presidential Hopefuls. In the past two debates, the Hopefuls have
been asked basically the same questions they were asked in the
primary's first debate held in Ames, Iowa. So, we're hoping for some new
questions tonight, specifically questions that deal with mandatory
E-Verify and legal immigration numbers.
New research by Dr. Steve Camarota at the Center for Immigration Studies finds that 81% of the jobs created in Texas between the years 2007 and 2011 went to newly-arrived immigrants. Conclusions were based on an analysis of data from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey.
"By having lots of nationalities in there, we're trying to take ethnicity off the table," said Roy Beck, the founder of NumbersUSA. "We chose our name because we knew that too many people on both sides of the issue got sidetracked on who immigrants are."
Fully addressing the immigration debate without discussing today's non-traditional immigration numbers and asking whether they are sustainable is impossible. Yet Congress rarely talks about the immigration numbers, partly because the mainstream media does not analyze immigration from a sustainability perspective.
Polls may not suggest it, and the candidates may not be catering to it, but immigration is an issue that voters won’t let the GOP White House hopefuls escape.
Republican primary voters keep bringing immigration up as the candidates campaign in back yards, opera houses and recreation halls across Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. To a sizable chunk of those who will pick the GOP’s presidential nominee, immigration is an urgent issue, even a litmus test.
Canada should reduce immigration during deep economic recession, say the
Five GOP Presidential Hopefuls faced questions about legal immigration levels during a candidate forum hosted by Sen. Jim DeMint in South Carolina on Monday. Rep. Steve King asked both Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich for their opinions on current legal immigration levels as well as prior comments they made on illegal immigration.
The federal government's active promotion of labor rights for illegal immigrants irks Roy Beck, executive director of Virginia-based Numbers USA, which favors more stringent immigration laws.
"It just follows the pattern of the labor secretary," Beck said. "In these matters, she's the secretary of illegal labor rather than of legal labor."
New census data from the Population, Migration, and Religious Affairs office within the Mexican government reveals a historic trend in migration between Mexico and the United States. According to the deputy secretary of the agency, the number of Mexican nationals leaving the United States to return to Mexico is 2.7 times higher than the amount in 2000.
When Rick Perry got into the Republican presidential race, many party conservatives rejoiced that they had found their candidate. But not the party's vocal immigration hard-liners. On their issue, they rate the Texas governor slightly worse than the rest of the GOP presidential hopefuls.
In his August 14 column, "The Texas Unmiracle," Nobel-Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman arrives at similar conclusions about immigration and employment as NumbersUSA. First, Krugman acknowledges that immigration, in part, drove Texas job growth (more people = bigger economy) during the recession. Second, Krugman notes that job growth hasn't kept up with population growth in Texas (more jobs, but high unemployment). Finally, Krugman warns that the influx of workers has put downward pressure on wages (supply and demand).
U.S. Customs and Immigration Services has expanded its E-Verify self-check tool to include 21 states, allowing individuals to check their worker eligibility status before applying for a new job. The program is called Self Check and has been up and running for several months in states that have passed mandatory E-Verify laws such as Arizona and South Carolina.
“During his time as governor of Texas, Rick Perry consistently supported allowing illegal aliens to pay in-state tuition at Texas’ state colleges and universities,” says an assessment of Perry’s immigration record by NumbersUSA.
Here’s what Perry told the New Hampshire Union Leader on July 24: “To punish these young Texans for their parents’ actions is not what America has always been about.”
Since 1990, immigration numbers have been higher than in any other period in U.S. history. Over the last two decades, immigration has averaged about 1 million people per year, or three times our traditional average. U.S. population will more than double from 203 million in 1970 to 439 million in 2050, and immigration will cause eighty-two percent of all U.S. population growth between 2005 and 2050. The radical population growth Congress creates through its immigration policies has no end in sight, and is running up a bill future generations will have to pay.
Our call for replacement-level immigration (a reduction in annual numbers by perhaps 80%) has just received a huge boost of validity in a new book -- Man Swarm and the Killing of Wildlife -- by Dave Foreman. Over the last four decades, few people have been more true and highly-publicized in their championing of the U.S. environment than Foreman. Essentially, he concludes that wildlife in the U.S. face a dismal future without deep cuts in immigration.
Take Charlotte, N.C., for example. It is a jewel of the “new South.” The largest financial center outside of New York City, it's the showcase for next year’s Democratic National Convention. It was a land of hope and opportunity for many blacks with a four-year college degree or higher.
Federal judge Amy Berman Jackson dismissed a class action lawsuit filed by foreign nationals who were denied green cards because of a computer glitch during this year's visa lottery selection. The plantiffs were first notified by the State Department that they had won permanent residency in the United States due to the random lottery drawing, but the State Department realized that a computer glitch causes most of the winners to be picked from only a small sample of applicants.
Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), and Steve Palazzo (R-Miss.) have added their names to the growing list of co-sponsors for Rep. Phil Gingrey's Nuclear Family Priority Act (H.R.692) that would end chain migration. H.R.692 would eliminate all family-preference visa classes, except for spouses and minor children, and create a renewable visa class for parents.
Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), and Steve Palazzo (R-Miss.) have co-sponsored the bi-partisan SAFE for America Act of 2011 that would end the Visa Lottery. The Visa Lottery issues 50,000 green cards based on "random selection" instead of humanitarian need, family connection, or other economic or cultural value to the United States.
A new survey conducted by Gallup finds that a plurality of Americans favor reducing overall immigration levels. The poll released earlier today reveals that 43% of Americans thing overall immigration should be reduced while only 18% think overall immigration levels should be raised. Thirty-five percent of Americans feel that immigration levels should remain the same.
"[I]t's phony to say 'I'm for the environment but not for limiting immigration…'"
-Sen Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day
Those environmentalists who think we can double or triple U.S. population without wiping out wildlife and scalping our last wildernesses, are living in a fool's paradise....
Mayor Dave Bing of Detroit was asked what he thought of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's suggestion that new flows of immigration to Detroit would revitalize the city. Mayor Bing made it clear that the problems in Detroit don't stem from a shortage in the labor force, but rather a shortage of jobs.
Reps. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.), Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.), and Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) have added their names to the growing list of co-sponsors for Rep. Phil Gingrey's Nuclear Family Priority Act (H.R.692) that would end chain migration. H.R.692 would eliminate all family-preference visa classes, except for spouses and minor children, and create a renewable visa class for parents.
A new report from the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University has some discouraging news for young Americans graduating from college this spring. But instead of trying to help recent college graduates find work, Pres. Obama proposes flooding the job market with more foreign workers.
Rep. Mike Coffman has joined NumbersUSA's elite 5-for-5 Club after adding his name to the list of co-sponsors for the CLEAR Act (H.R.100). By adding his name to the CLEAR Act, Rep. Coffman has now co-sponsored at least one bill in each of our 5 Great Immigration-Reduction Solutions categories.
Detroit, Michigan has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Earlier this year, it ranked No. 15 on Forbes' list of the 20 most miserable cities in America. The Motor City needs a boost and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg both believe immigration can provide it. But does anyone seriously think that more immigrants can cure Detroit's 30 percent unemployment rate?
Freshman Rep. Lou Barletta has officially announced the creation of a freshmen caucus that will examine current immigration policy and look for ways to crack down on illegal immigration. Rep. Barletta was identified as a "True Reformer" during the mid-term elections, and before being elected to Congress, was the mayor of Hazelton, Penn. where he signed one of the nation's first local ordinances cracking down on illegal immigration.
Freshmen Reps. Nan Hayworth (R-N.Y.), Rich Nugent (R-Fla.), and Dennis Ross (R-Fla.) have co-sponsored the bi-partisan SAFE for America Act of 2011 that would end the Visa Lottery. The Visa Lottery issues 50,000 green cards based on "random selection" instead of humanitarian need, family connection, or other economic or cultural value to the United States.
Though it may surprise 25 million jobless Americans, the Chicago Tribune's editorial board believes there aren't enough available workers to meet the economy's demand.
We launch our Spring Into Action 2011 nationwide activism campaign that details what you can do during Congress' two-week April recess.
Dan Rather Reports, with the help of Policy Map, has put together an impressive database where you can search for companies that applied for H-2B foreign worker visas through the year 2009. The H-2B visa allows U.S. employers to hire foreign nationals for non-agricultural labor or service jobs where they can't find enough American workers, but Dan Rather reports that, "many of the companies that petitioned for H-2B guest worker visas were located in counties with particularly high unemployment."
Reps. Bill Flores (R-Texas) and Randy Forbes (R-Va.) have added their names to the growing list of co-sponsors for Rep. Phil Gingrey's Nuclear Family Priority Act (H.R.692) that would end chain migration. H.R.692 would eliminate all family-preference visa classes, except for spouses and minor children, and create a renewable visa class for parents.
