This past weekend, President Trump appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) singing a different tune. Instead of sticking to his previous opposition to the country’s mass legal immigration system, Trump promoted a legal immigration system that will benefit “our corporations,” putting American workers on the back burner.
While Trump mentioned he wanted to end the process known as “chain migration,” where newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the country, and the Diversity Visa Lottery, which admits 55,000 random foreign nationals from around the globe to the U.S. every year, the president said he supported admitting more foreign workers to take coveted American jobs to help the big business lobby and corporate interests.
“We need an immigration policy that helps all Americans thrive, flourish, prosper. We need an immigration policy that’s going to be great for our corporations and our great companies. We need an immigration policy where people coming into our country can love our country and love our fellow citizens,” explained Trump. “And now, we want people to come in, we need workers to come in but they’ve got to come in legally and they’ve got to come in through merit.”
During the last two months, Trump has continuously promoted his support for allowing more foreign workers into the country to compete against the hardworking middle-class Americans. Despite the fact that he was once supportive of reducing the number of illegals in the American labor competition, his new views will allow the competition to continue and grow. “Before any new green cards are issued to foreign workers abroad, there will be a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers,” read Trump’s 2015 immigration policy papers.
Trump’s shift in opinion from a wage-boosting immigration system, to one that is beneficial for corporations and shareholders, falls in line with the influence that the big business lobby has over the White House at the command of advisers Jared Kushner and Brooke Rollins. According to Breitbart News, a group of globalist organizations and businesses have been involved with discussions about the national legal immigration policy at the White House. Among these groups are the George W. Bush Center, Koch Industries, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
If the U.S. chooses to increase the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country, then job prospects for at least 13 million working-age Americans will be cut. Out of those 13 million Americans, 6.5 million are already unemployed. Close to 13% of that 6.5 million are teenagers who are ready to hit the job market. Approximately 1.6 million Americans don’t have a job at all, but they do want one. Also, there are about 5.1 millions Americans who want a full-time job, but they’re only working part-time at the moment. And more than 1.4 million Americans that are working part-time have tried looking for full-time work but weren’t able to find one.
It doesn’t matter if mass immigration is done through legal or illegal means, it puts an incredible amount of pressure on the wages Americans receive. According to researcher Steven Camarotta, every time the number of immigrants working American jobs increases by only 1%, the weekly wages they receive decreases by 0.5%. This means that the average American-born worker has had their wages reduced by approximately 8.5% because of the legal immigration policies that are currently in place.
Take, for example, a state like Florida. In Florida, immigrants make up approximately 25.4% of the total labor force. And because of that, Floridian workers have had their wages reduced by more than 12.5%. Across the country in California, immigrants make up 34% of the total labor force, and their wages have potentially been reduced by 17%. When the immigration composition of low-skilled U.S. jobs increases by even 1% reduces wages by approximately 0.8%. If the amount of low-skilled jobs was held by foreign workers, then the wages of American-born workers would be reduced by 12%.
Corporate executives, big business, multi-national conglomerates, and real estate investors make up the large portion of people who benefit from rising legal immigration levels. They would most certainly benefit from a flooded labor market, which would add more workers, more people who need housing, lower wages, and more consumers to use their services or buy their products.
Thanks to President H.W. Bush’s Immigration Act of 1990, which expanded the levels of legal immigration in the U.S., more than four million graduates won’t be able to find work due to the loss of job opportunities. In just the last ten years, the U.S. allowed ten million legal immigrants to find work in the U.S., forcing American workers into competition for work. By 2060, there will be 69 million foreign-born residents of the United States if legal immigration continues at this rate.
