Category Archives: Labor

In His SOTU, 2019, President Trump Walks Back Promise To Reduce Legal Immigration

Donald Trump, Elections, IMMIGRATION, Labor, Law, Welfare

During their two years without serious political opposition, the Republicans floated  “The RAISE (Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment) Act.”

The Act was not exactly negotiated for with great vigor during the Republican dominance on Capitol Hill, from 2017 till 2019.

Still, in his 2019 State of the Union Address, President Trump managed to renege on the promises briefly made in the neglected RAISE Act.

Back in 2017, Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies had motivated passionately for RAISE:

Seventy percent of legal immigrants enter the US based on family reunification visas, with no consideration given to their skills and education or the needs of the US economy. Legal immigration at current levels suppresses American wages, especially at the bottom rungs of the labor market. Most legal immigrants enter the US on family visas. RAISE would have slashed the family reunification immigration by 50 percent, from 11 million people every decade to 5 or 6 million, still enormous numbers. Fully half of the legal intake into the US is lacking in skills and constitutes a fiscal drain; roughly 50% of the legal flow enters the US with less than a high-school education. Again, a fiscal drain. The same proportion of households headed by immigrants access one of more the major welfare programs. Help out the poor and let the american taxpayer breathe. … The poor are very poor. You give them a raise by lowering the levels of legal immigration.

Tech Companies Help Generate Housing Shortages, Throw Money At The Problem

Business, Globalism, IMMIGRATION, Labor, Outsourcing, Technology

In guarded language, the Washington State Office of Financial Management divulges that:

Migration continues to be the primary driver behind Washington [State’s] population growth. From 2017 to 2018, net migration (people moving in versus people moving out) to Washington totaled 83,700, … Net migration accounted for 71 percent of the state’s population growth this year, with natural increase (births minus deaths) responsible for the other 29 percent (33,600 persons). … The state has grown by an average of 87,900 persons per year this decade, exceeding that of 83,000 in the previous decade. King County is the main contributor, with total growth of 259,000 persons over eight years, compared to 194,200 persons between 2000 and 2010.

At least where I live, the town is unrecognizable. Costco is like a bazaar in Calcutta. What was a small and friendly town is flooded with Microsoft’s imported labor. I doubt the same people would like it if people speaking loud American English were to flood their stomping grounds back in the Old Country, making it unrecognizable.

Young people can’t afford homes to raise families, as replacement labor with Microsoft salaries—no, it’s not cheap labor AT ALL, unless you call 6-figure compensation “cheap”—pushes prices of property beyond the means of the local residents.

And then demographers complain that Americans aren’t reproducing.

Microsoft has thrown some money at the housing problem, allocating $500 million toward low-income housing because Americans who should be inching into the middle-class can’t afford homes in Seattle and, increasingly, in the surrounding counties.

Again, the reason, in part: the glut of labor Microsoft and other tech companies keep importing.

NumbersUSA: “Pres. Trump Offers Amnesty for Border Wall Trade”

Democrats, Donald Trump, Government, Homeland Security, IMMIGRATION, Labor

NumbersUSA has this to say about the president’s immigration compromise: “The offer … is a loser for the forgotten American workers who were central to Trump’s campaign promises.”

So said the very credible Roy Beck, who wisely “seeks to reduce both legal and illegal immigration to the U.S.”

At least someone is NOT being a Trump toady.

Beck’s full statement:

Pres. Trump announced today that he’d be willing to support legislation that trades amnesty for DACA recipients and illegal aliens who have received temporary protected status (TPS) in exchange for $5.7 billion of border wall funding. The offer also would have to include additional funding for more border patrol agents and immigration judges to handle the backlog of immigration cases.

Notably, Pres. Trump’s offer fails to include any of the badly needed reforms to close the loopholes for asylum seekers and unaccompanied alien minors who are apprehended crossing the border illegally.

In response to Pres. Trump’s announcement, NumbersUSA President and founder, Roy Beck, issued the following release:

The offer the President announced today is a loser for the forgotten American workers who were central to his campaign promises. An amnesty-for-wall trade would once again reward previous immigration lawbreakers without preventing future immigration lawbreakers. This kind of amnesty deal will incentivize more caravans, more illegal border crossers and more visa overstayers at the expense of the most vulnerable American workers who have to compete with the illegal labor force.

The President’s full proposal includes:

$5.7 billion to fund a steel barrier system, including embedded investments in technology and roads, on our southern border in the priority areas cited by Border Patrol.
This is in addition to the more than 115 miles of barriers already built, replaced, or contracted under President Trump.
$805 million for technology, canines, and personnel to help stop the flow of illegal drugs, weapons and other contraband. This includes:
$675 million for drug detection inspection technology to help secure our ports of entry.
$130 million for canine units, training, personnel and portable scanners to help deter and detect smuggled narcotics, weapons, and other dangerous materials.
$800 million dollars in humanitarian assistance, medical support, and new temporary housing.
$782 million to hire an additional 2,750 border agents, law enforcement officers, and staff.
$563 million to support our immigration court system, including hiring 75 new immigration judge teams to reduce the immigration court backlog of 800,000 cases.

As part of President Trump’s willingness to compromise to reopen the Government, he is proposing to grant provisional status to current Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients.

Provisional status will be granted for three years for current DACA recipients, covering 700,000 illegal immigrants brought here by their parents at a young age.
This status will give them access to work permits, social security numbers, and protection from deportation.
Provisional status will be granted to certain current TPS recipients for three years, providing 300,000 immigrants whose protected status is facing expiration more certainty as Congress works on a larger immigration deal.

(“Pres. Trump Offers Amnesty for Border Wall Trade.”)

The base of course, of course, never critiques The Leader, but worships Him as would a serf. News flash: The only way to get something from leadership is to not worship them, but remind them THEY WORK FOR YOU.

UPDATED (2/27/019): Immigration: A Look-Away Issue For Neocons & Lite Libertarians

Argument, IMMIGRATION, Labor, libertarianism, Multiculturalism, Nationhood, Neoconservatism, Race

Michael Medved does the same as does Tim Carney in explaining the dismal situation of the working class. From a tony event, far from the madding working-class, Carney tweets this:

“The working class has lost access to the strong institutions of civil society that are the infrastructure of the good life. That’s my thesis,” states Carney, “to explain immobility, retreat from marriage, and Trump.”

For working-class misery, neoconservatives and lite libertarians blame everything BUT mass immigration, diversity, loss of community and sense of place. Anything but the truth.

That’s my thesis.

Conservatives engage in WhatAboutism: