President Donald Trump nominated interim Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief Chad Wolf to the permanent job on Tuesday, prompting a skeptical response from Trump’s supporters.
Wolf recently helped cut many exemptions through Trump’s June 22 curbs on the Fortune 500’s policy of hiring visa workers, said Kevin Lynn, founder of U.S. Tech Workers. Wolf “wrote the policy in the corporate interest, not in the interest of American workers, and that tells me everything I need to know about him,” Lynn said, shortly after Trump announced the news.
“Is Wolf the guy I would have picked if I were emperor? — probably not,” said Mark Krikorian, the director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “He’s the acting secretary and the first term ends in five months. It doesn’t seem productive to reshuffle the deck yet again, and if Trump wins reelection, then they can get a look at who might be better.”
Wolf has been working as the acting secretary of DHS since November 2019, when he was confirmed by the Senate as undersecretary for strategy, policy, and plans. The vote was 54-to-41, marking strong Democrat pressure against Trump’s nominees.
Wolf has strongly supported Trump’s efforts to block blue-collar migration across the southern border and has played a prominent role in denouncing the street rioters in Portland, Chicago, and other cities.
But he has done little to curb the Fortune 500’s outsourcing white-collar jobs to Indian and Chinese visa workers or to curb the universities’ huge Practical Training program. These programs keep at least 1.3 million foreign graduates in the jobs needed by U.S. graduates.
Similarly, Wolf has kept a very low profile on other critical issues, such as the enforcement of legal-worker laws against cheating employers, or the inflow of illegal workers via short-term travel visas, or the congressional fights over GOP Sen. Mike Lee’s S.386 and other draft laws.
Prior to Trump’s arrival, Wolf worked as a lobbyist for NASSCOM, the joint U.S.-Indian business group that supplies cheap labor for Fortune 500 companies.
“He hasn’t distinguished himself on the issue of worker protections, but I don’t get the sense that he is as bad as a lot of people fear,” Krikorian said. He continued:
This administration is not really all that hostile to guest-worker programs. They’re talking it up now [before the election, but] guest worker programs have never been something that President Trump has been opposed to. How much can you blame a cabinet member when the president has been ambivalent about guest-worker programs, at best?
Wolf worked as chief of staff to the prior DHS secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, said Lynn. “He was not a person who was looking to resist immigration,” Lynn said, adding, “Ultimately, Trump deserves all the blame because he’s the one who selected this guy.”
Since 2016, Trump’s administration has seen a back-and-forth struggle between populist voters and business donors in the high-stakes economic fight over imported workers, consumers, and renters.
In 2018 and 2019, Trump overcame stiff opposition from the “swamp” to eventually block illegal blue-collar migration over the southern border.
“He insisted on a near-total focus on issues that he said were central to his reelection — in particular building a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico,” said an op-ed by former DHS official Miles Taylor. He worked as a top aide to pro-migration appointees and Republicans before creating an anti-Trump group.
That border security policy helped push up wages for blue-collar Americans at a faster rate than white-collar wages, but it still leaves millions of illegal migrants in the United States, where they nudge down wages and push up rents.
Since June 2020, Trump has begun to trim the huge inflow of white-collar visa workers who take jobs from U.S. college graduates. That is a late and incomplete response to his March 2016 promise: “I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program. No exceptions.”
In contrast, Biden’s 2020 campaign is promising a nationwide amnesty for illegal immigrants, rapid increases in legal immigration, and a dramatic jump in refugee settlement. Democrats also promise a temporary halt to border enforcement, the inflow of more visa workers, plus a green card giveaway to many temporary visa workers who already have taken jobs from American graduates.
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