Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham says the United States should halt all immigration during the coronavirus crisis.
On Wednesday, State Department officials confirmed to Breitbart News that the refugee resettlement program — which has resettled nearly 2,500 refugees in the last six weeks — would be suspended until at least April 7.
Likewise, a State Department official told Reuters that most visa services through the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency would be suspended until further notice, though federal immigration officials have yet to clarify which visa programs will continue to bring foreign nationals to the U.S.
Ingraham suggested in a post online that the Trump administration should implement an immigration moratorium while trying to stop the coronavirus outbreak and as millions of Americans are forced to stay home from work. Many of those workers rely on hourly minimum wages and tips.
“All immigration to the US should be halted due to this national emergency — we sure as heck don’t need any foreign workers with millions of Americans on verge of losing their jobs,” Ingraham wrote, along with “#AmericaFirst.”
Even as White House officials are reportedly warning of a 20 percent unemployment rate, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials confirmed to the Washington Times that the agency would keep in place its recent decision to import an additional 35,000 H-2B foreign visa workers to take non-agricultural U.S. jobs.
Every year, U.S. companies are allowed to import 66,000 low-skilled H-2B foreign workers to take blue-collar, non-agricultural jobs. For some time, the H-2B visa program has been used by businesses to bring in cheaper, foreign workers and has contributed to blue-collar Americans having their wages undercut.
Center for Immigration Studies Director of Policy Jessica Vaughan wrote in a post online:
Trump official reportedly warns of potential 20% unemployment due to the pandemic (and the public response). So why are we still admitting visa workers? Especially the H-2B unskilled workers supposedly needed for seasonal or peak load. Shut it down.
As Breitbart News has reported, immigration moratoriums are not uncommon in American history. Currently, there are about 45 million foreign-born residents living in the U.S., a 108-year record high.
The country’s last immigration boom — between 1900 and 1920 — was eventually met with a near immigration moratorium. Between 1925 and 1966, the U.S. legal immigration level did not exceed 327,000 annual admissions.
Since major changes were enacted in 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson (D) and in the 1990s by President George H.W. Bush (R) — changes that allow foreign nationals to bring as many foreign relatives to the country as they want — legal immigration levels have continued booming for about five decades.
Today, about 1.2 million legal immigrants are admitted to the U.S. every year.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.