Retiring Paul Ryan today lamented his failure to deliver a global supply of migrant labor to businesses and investors — regardless of ordinary Americans’ desire for decent wages.
Ryan’s failure was ensured by Donald Trump’s 2016 election — and so Trump’s “Hire American” policy is now allowing Americans’ wages to rise amid a shortage of blue-collar workers and protests by business leaders.
Ryan’s lament came as his final efforts to outsource more Americans jobs to foreign workers were discarded in the confused negotiations over Congress’s failure to pass a 2019 budget for the Department of Homeland Security. That defeat for Ryan was missed by media coverage over funding for the border wall.
In Ryan’s farewell speech at the Library of Congress, he said “immigration reform” is needed because it would be good for “the nation,” not because it would be good for individual Americans.
“No less than our full potential as a nation here is at stake. But the right mix of policy solutions, it is there,” he said.
In contrast, pro-American immigration reformers say immigration policy should ensure that Americans can earn good wages, raise families and build wealth — despite investors’ desires for more cheap labor.
www.c-span.org/video/?c4768987/paul-ryans-exit-speech-immigration
Ryan echoed President George W. Bush’s “any willing worker” goal, which said U.S. companies should be allowed to freely hire foreign visa-workers for jobs at wages that Americans would reject. Ryan said:
[A reform needs] border security and interior enforcement for starters, but also a modernization of our visa system so that it makes sense for our economy and for our people so that anyone who wants to play by the rules, work hard and be part of American fabric can contribute.
Ryan has repeatedly pushed this “any willing worker” plan, even though it would force down wages and pressure Americans to vote for Democratic-style welfare policies.
His ideological support for open borders goes back to 1994 when Ryan helped defeat pro-American immigration reforms in California.
That policy helped deliver a wave of cheap labor migrants that has transformed the Golden State in a Democratic bastion where wealthy donors, real estate owners, teachers’ unions and welfare-dependent poor have forced many middle class Americans to migrate into other states. California used to elect many Republicans to Washington — but the state is now utterly dominated by the Democratic Party.
Nationwide, Ryan’s pro-migration and cheap labor policies have helped the Democrats gain a majority of seats in the House.
Ryan also used his speech to call for national amnesty of illegals, saying a deal must “includes the Dreamers — those who came here through no fault of their own – and ultimately the undocumented population.”
But his call for amnesty was not accompanied by any reciprocal demand that would aid the Americans who would lose jobs, wages, and government resources to the government-dependent arrivals.
Ryan also declared that his cheap labor policy is “an economic and moral imperative and it would go a long way towards taking some of the venom out of our discourse.”
But venom exists because the establishment leaders of the federal government refuse to enforce existing law, and instead use large-scale migration to change the nation, grow government power, and reward business donors.
For example, Ryan echoed President Barack Obama’s “get right with the law” language as he suggested that the federal immigration law can only work if it gives foreign migrants the legal status they are demanding: “In order to truly enforce the law, you have to get people right with the law.”
Ryan’s speech helps to explain why and how he used his authority and allies to block Trump’s immigration policies, including House passage of the “Four Pillars” immigration reforms, even as the national media wrung its hands over Trump’s popular agenda.
But Ryan was not able to block all of Trump’s agenda.
Wages are now rising because Trump refused to provide companies with waves of new migrants, either via immigration laws, refugee programs, visa-worker programs, or by turning a blind eye to illegal migration at the border or the airports.
Bush and Obama knowingly used those tricks to pump up the supply of foreign workers, so transferring many billions of dollars from employees’ pay packets into donors’ profits and capital ,gains on Wall Street.
Ryan’s complaint about venom also disguised his own 2018 surprise effort to annually import 5,000 extra Irish graduates for jobs sought by Americans:
This year, Ryan also pushed for a massive expansion of white-collar outsourcing to Indian graduates:
Ryan also pushed for a 2019 expansion of the H-2B program, which now allows U.S. companies to hire foreign laborers instead of Americans.
Ryan’s departure is a big loss for the donor class, which still dominates the GOP and hopes Ryan can restore the GOP establishment to power when Trump quits politics.“He’s a young guy with a lot of people who support him,”a fundraiser and Ryan ally told the Washington Post.
“A lot of folks, including many donors, are wondering how they can keep helping him … I certainly hope he doesn’t close any doors.”
But with Ryan gone, Trump can shift the party’s focus towards getting wage raises for voters as he heads for reelection in 2020:
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