House Democrats parrotted big business talking points, pleading for more overall immigration to the United States to fill open jobs with border crossers, illegal aliens, and foreign visa workers rather than Americans on the sidelines of the labor market.
During a markup hearing for Rep. Chip Roy’s (R-TX) “Border Security and Enforcement Act” this week, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (R-WA) repeated lines from the likes of the Business Roundtable and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
“This country needs immigrants to survive,” Jayapal said:
Immigrants pick the food we eat, rebuild our communities after climate disasters, help construct our infrastructure, power our small business economy, clean our homes, and look after the most precious and our families — our children and our elders. [Emphasis added]
…
Today, America is facing serious labor shortages in many industries from caregiving to nursing to agriculture. [Emphasis added]
Earlier this year, Chamber of Commerce CEO Suzanne Clark delivered a similar speech, urging Congress to allow U.S. employers to have access to unlimited immigration whereby they can import foreign workers to fill American jobs at will.
Already, the U.S. gives more than a million green cards to foreign nationals annually in addition to another million temporary work visas to foreign workers. These historically-high, decades-long legal immigration levels are on top of hundreds of thousands of border crossers and illegal aliens who are being added to the workforce every year after securing work permits.
Meanwhile, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) was more overt in her comments, blatantly invoking the Business Roundtable’s decades-long calls for more overall immigration to the U.S.
“We’re ignoring the Business Roundtables of America who are crying out for employees to work alongside Americans,” Jackson Lee said. “Let me be very clear, we have jobs for Americans, we have tech jobs for Americans, teaching jobs for Americans, law enforcement, firefighter jobs for Americans, but we’re a growing nation.”
Jackson Lee also suggested that the U.S. follow Canada’s model of mass immigration. That model, as Breitbart News reported, has helped send housing prices skyrocketing for Canadians.
“What has Canada said? Canada has said, ‘We need to build on the immigrant population to grow our economy,'” Jackson Lee continued.
The remarks come as labor market data has shown that the Biden administration is growing the U.S. workforce by funneling millions of border crossers, illegal aliens, foreign visa workers, and legal immigrants into American jobs, while leaving millions of working and middle class Americans on the sidelines.
In the fourth quarter of 2022, for example, close to two million fewer native-born Americans were working in jobs compared to the same time in 2019, while two million foreign-born workers were added to the workforce.
Among the key provisions in Roy’s signature legislation is mandatory nationwide E-Verify to require all of the nation’s employers, regardless of how big or small, to certify that their employees are legal immigrants or American citizens.
Jayapal cited the big agricultural lobby, which is immensely powerful in Washington, DC, to make her case against mandating E-Verify for U.S. employers.
“Mandatory nationwide E-Verify … would further decimate our agricultural industry,” Jayapal claimed.
A flooded labor market from mass immigration has had a devastating impact on working and middle class Americans, while redistributing billions in wealth to the top one percent of earners and big business. While creating an economy that tilts in favor of employers, the mass immigration economic model has helped keep wages stagnant for decades.
On the other hand, tight labor markets have driven up U.S. wages.
Roy’s legislation also requires border crossers to make their asylum claims at official ports of entry — ensuring that those who cross between ports of entry are barred from claiming asylum in the U.S. Likewise, the bill eliminates the Catch and Release network at the border and bans administrations from using parole to mass release border crossers into the U.S. interior.
This week, the legislation passed out of the House Judiciary Committee.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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