A group of House and Senate Democrats is urging President Joe Biden to include amnesty for millions of illegal aliens in an infrastructure package as nearly 17 million Americans remain jobless.

In a letter to Biden, the group of 22 Democrats, including Reps. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) and Ted Lieu (D-CA), as well as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Alex Padilla (D-CA), ask the White House to add amnesty for at least 5.2 million illegal aliens in any economic relief and infrastructure package.

Illegal aliens holding American jobs, the Democrats write, are a “truly important part of our nation’s critical infrastructure and crucial part of the backbone of our society” and thus “have more than earned” amnesty, which would include eventually securing United States citizenship.

“Essential workers are American heroes — and they have earned the right to become American citizens,” the Democrats write:

The Citizenship for Essential Workers Act directly relates to the priority of rebuilding America’s economic infrastructure and aligns entirely with the administration’s priority on defeating COVID19. If Republicans continue to refuse to advance immigration legislation supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people, the next reconciliation package on jobs and infrastructure should include citizenship for essential workers. Speaker Pelosi has already indicated her support for including immigration legislation in legislative packages advanced through budget reconciliation given the clear “case about the budget implications of immigration,” while the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and 100 members of the Democratic Caucus have also urged the inclusion of a pathway to citizenship for essential workers in COVID-19 relief legislation. The upcoming legislative package on jobs and infrastructure is the best opportunity to recognize and reward the sacrifices and labor of essential workers. [Emphasis added]

Read the full letter here:

Letter Citizenship for Esse… by John Binder

Castro’s amnesty plan would allow illegal aliens taking American jobs in at least 20 different occupations to adjust status to become legal permanent residents, thus securing a green card to remain in the U.S.

From there, those eligible illegal aliens would be able to apply for American citizenship after five years of living in the U.S. on a green card.

Biden, himself, has proposed an amnesty plan that Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) quickly admitted “doesn’t have support” in an interview last month. Biden’s amnesty would bring a foreign population to the U.S. close to the size of California by 2031 — permanently resettling more than 37.3 million foreign nationals in the nation.

Corporate interests and donors have led lobbying initiatives to pressure Washington, D.C., lawmakers to back an amnesty this year. Last week, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Vice President Neil Bradley called amnesty for illegal aliens “critically important.”

A flooded U.S. labor market has been well documented for its wage-crushing side effects, so much so that economist George Borjas has called mass immigration the “largest anti-poverty program” at the expense of America’s working and lower-middle class. The biggest winners are corporations and investors who can keep the cost of labor low and have a steady stream of consumers to buy their products and services.

Other research finds current legal immigration to the U.S. results in more than $530 billion worth of lost wages for Americans.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), likewise, has repeatedly noted mass immigration cuts Americans’ wages.

In 2013, CBO analysis stated that the “Gang of Eight” amnesty plan would “slightly” push down wages for the American workers. A 2020 CBO analysis stated “immigration has exerted downward pressure on the wages of relatively low-skilled workers who are already in the country, regardless of their birthplace.”

Every year, about 1.2 million legal immigrants receive green cards to permanently resettle in the U.S. In addition, 1.4 million foreign nationals get temporary visas to fill U.S. jobs that would otherwise go to Americans.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.