Sen. Angus King (I-ME) says Congress ought to pass a legislative package that expands legal immigration levels to fill unfilled United States jobs with foreign workers rather than pulling jobless Americans off the labor market sidelines.

In an interview with CBS News, King said such a package should include border-related reforms, an amnesty for millions of illegal aliens, and an expansion of the nation’s legal immigration levels. which already bring more than a million green card holders to the U.S. annually in addition to more than a million foreign visa workers to take American jobs.

“To me, there’s an obvious deal on immigration, which is heightened border security, which is very complicated,” King said:

And I want to talk to the congresswoman that you just had on talking about what the ideas that she has, Republicans along the border, the Republican Congressman Gonzalez, I want to learn and there are a lot of people working on how do we figure out the border. But the deal is increased border security, a path to citizenship for Dreamers and workforce. [Emphasis added]

I’m hearing from businesses in Maine all the time about a shortage of workers. It’s one of our biggest economic problems after inflation. So we’ve got to work on legal immigration for workforce. So I think, as I say, there’s a package. And border security is where it starts. And I believe I’m delighted the administration’s president’s gone down there today. They should have gone sooner, in my view. But let’s let’s work on this because we can’t have the chaos and the humanitarian crisis that we have. Let’s find that. But then put together a package involving Dreamers and involving workforce. That’s where I think we can move. And we ought to be able to move in in a bipartisan way.
[Emphasis added]

King’s comments come as Maine, and many other states, is suffering from record low labor force participation, with just 58 percent of the state’s working-age population holding a job in November 2022. In all but one of Maine’s counties, the number of residents employed declined compared to the same time last year, suggesting many are dropping out of the workforce.

Maine, in November 2022, had an unemployment rate of 3.7 percent, as more than 23,000 residents wanted full-time work but were jobless nonetheless.

An analysis last year, conducted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), showed the widespread issue of the nation’s declining labor force participation rate as politicians focus on importing foreign workers instead of those Americans leaving the workforce.

“There are approximately 11.5 million job openings in the United States right now, and 14.73 million employable Americans,” FAIR researchers noted in July 2022. “This means that there are 3.23 million more workers in the country than open jobs.”

Meanwhile, more recently published research shows that some 100 million Americans are not in the labor force today, but could be. In particular, the issue is deepening for American men from 25 to 54 as U.S. wages remain stagnant and, in many sectors, actually decline.

While working and middle class Americans are already forced to compete for jobs against the largest foreign-born population in American history, likely tens of thousands of border crossers are being added to the U.S. labor market every month after they are rewarded with work permits and released into American communities from the southern border.

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