While Americans have struggled to remain in the workforce, the powerful business lobby is urging President Joe Biden to increase the share of foreign visa workers whom they can hire to what would be the highest level on record.
Nearly 130 special interest business groups — including many Chamber of Commerce chapters, construction companies, farms, landscaping businesses, restaurants, and retail stores — wrote to Biden asking him to expand the inflow of foreign visa workers to fill millions of American jobs.
“We respectfully request that you expand a special category of immigration permits for individuals who can fill positions where labor shortages exist, for people migrating to the United States, and long-term immigrant contributors like DREAMers, farm workers, and essential workers,” the business groups write.
Already, the U.S. imports more than a million legal immigrants on green cards annually in addition to more than a million foreign visa workers who arrive specifically to take American jobs. Likewise, under Biden, tens of thousands are securing work permits after crossing the southern border.
In particular, the business groups pointed to a plan touted by Republican Govs. Eric Holcomb of Indiana and Spencer Cox of Utah that gives states the ability to import foreign visa workers whenever business interests in such states decided that there are labor shortages that cannot be filled with Americans.
“One plan advanced by Republican governors, Eric Holcomb of Indiana and Spencer Cox of Utah, would allow states to ‘sponsor’ immigrant workers,” the business groups wrote:
With that authority, states could decide how many visas are needed each year for specific jobs. U.S Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) support the idea, as does New York Governor Kathy Hochul. [Emphasis added]
…
With congressional action on permanent immigration reform gridlocked, we look to your administration to expand the use of visas under current regulations and give states the authority to act on their workforce needs, so that migrants are treated humanely and businesses can rev up the engines that drive state and national economies. [Emphasis added]
The latest push by special interest business groups to open a constant flow of foreign visa workers to hire comes as Biden has ballooned the nation’s labor market through mass immigration while remaining largely unconcerned with the issue of Americans dropping out of the workforce.
For instance, last year, foreign-born workers saw their share of the U.S. labor market hit the highest level in almost 30 years at more than 18 percent, with close to 30 million now holding American jobs.
At the same time, the number of native-born Americans in the workforce has declined by 0.5 percent. Likewise, unemployment for foreign-born workers was lower last year, at 3.4 percent, than the unemployment rate for native-born Americans, at 3.7 percent.
The boon of foreign visa workers in the U.S. labor market, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) recently detailed, means lower wages for working class native-born Americans in addition to more foreign workforce competition.
“Between the fourth quarters of 2016 and 2019, real (inflation-adjusted) weekly earnings for full-time, U.S.-born workers without a bachelor’s grew 3.2 percent,” CIS researchers write. “During this time, growth in the total immigrant population (legal and illegal) averaged about 400,000 a year, compared to about 730,000 a year from 2012 to 2016, when earnings actually fell slightly for the less-educated U.S.-born.”
Americans, by a majority, say businesses should work harder to recruit those on the labor market sidelines rather than the federal government importing foreign workers for them.
In the most recent Rasmussen Reports survey, nearly 6-in-10 Americans said it is “better for businesses to raise the pay and try harder to recruit non-working Americans even if it causes prices to rise” when faced with labor shortages. A minority of only 26 percent said it is better for the government to provide such businesses with foreign workers to hire.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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