Earlier this week, eight House Republicans joined with Democrats to derail Marjorie Taylor Greene’s efforts to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. That may seem bizarre to you. Mayorkas has blatantly ignored U.S. law, is aiding and abetting an invasion of this country, and is endangering all of our lives even as the terror threat worldwide skyrockets. This should have been a slam dunk right?
Wrong. Here’s the problem. You may want immigration under control, but a lot of very powerful people in this country do not. They are getting rich off an endless supply of cheap, compliant labor.
Recently, New York City opened a new shelter at Floyd Bennett’s Field in Brooklyn for illegal immigrants. When the City began to move illegals to the new location, however, it ran into a problem. The illegals wouldn’t stay there. Their chief complaint?
It was too far to commute to work.
“We weren’t told where we were going,” one of the bused migrant dads griped to The New York Post. “I work in the Bronx. My kids go to school in the Bronx. For us to live out here is ridiculous.
“We’re going back,” he fumed.
That wasn’t an isolated case. Across the board, the illegals who were moved to Brooklyn complained saying things like, ‘It’s so isolated, how could I possibly get back and forth to work?’ or, ‘Getting my children to school from here would be insane.’
Say what? They are here as “refugees” waiting for hearings on their status. They don’t have permission to work.
Who needs permission? The country is filled with employers more than happy to pay somebody under the table at less than minimum wage, especially when that person is highly unlikely to complain about working conditions, workplace safety, sexual harassment, and the like.
You often hear complaints from Americans to the effect that illegal immigrants are coming here simply to live off of welfare and public benefits. While the tsunami of illegal immigrants is clearly costing American citizens dearly, this complaint largely misses the point. Illegals are coming here and being put to work, and they are taking jobs away from people who are already here.
There are an estimated 8.8 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. labor force. This number is growing daily. Since January 2021, at least 2.4 million illegals have entered the United States. Those in the labor force are heavily concentrated in lower-wage less-skilled jobs such as construction labor, building cleaning and maintenance, food service and preparation, groundskeeping, retail sales, and food processing. That means they are taking jobs that would otherwise be held overwhelmingly by blue-collar native-born Americans.
When you take a look at the numbers by industry, the impact is even more striking. Take a look at the percentage of illegal workers by industry:
25 percent of workers in farming, fishing, and forestry occupations.
16 percent of workers in construction and extraction occupations.
15 percent of workers in building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations.
7 percent of workers in food preparation and serving-related occupations.
20 percent of landscaping workers, maids, or housekeepers.
20 percent of construction laborers.
The situation is so out of control, and yet paradoxically so institutionalized, that we are beginning to see all sorts of bizarre twists in this story. The New York Post recently reported that illegals who have been here for some time working off the books are now beginning to lose jobs to newly arrived illegals who will work for even less money. The Post spoke to one man who had been here working cash jobs for 20 years but now finds that he is losing work to men who will work for a small fraction of what he charges. Ironically, the City of New York is aiding and abetting this process since newly arrived illegals live free in city-provided shelters while the “old timers” have to pay rent and utilities somewhere.
The flood of illegals is also putting pressure on American businesses to break the law. If you try to hire a legal immigrant, you may experience all sorts of delays and procedural issues. In contrast, you can readily find illegal workers and hire them assuming you have no problem with doing so. If you follow the law you are penalized. If you break the law you prosper.
In fact, the trade in “migrants” is now big business. Even as unemployment remains a huge issue for native-born Americans and participation in the workforce trends down jurisdictions all over the county are holding job fairs at which lip service is paid to the fantasy that jobs are only being given to those legally entitled to work in the United States. That is a blatant lie, but everyone repeats it.
Early this month a job fair was held in Chicago for 500 “refugees” from Venezuela, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Ukraine. Interpreters were even provided. Representatives showed up from the healthcare, manufacturing, hospitality, and logistics industries. One of the organizers of the event was a man named Siam Pasarly, the co-founder of Kaar Poh Staffing Agency. Siam is from Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, in Chicago, black unemployment stands at somewhere in the neighborhood of 57 %. Nobody seems to be conducting job fairs for members of that community. Father Michael Pfleger a priest in Chicago summed up the impact of all this quite succinctly when he posed these questions.
“What are we putting in place to make sure that there are no institutions in this city, this state, and country that will fire Black people because they have to pay them $15 or $16 an hour and then hire a migrant and pay them $5 an hour? What are we putting in place?” the Father asked.
In New York State they don’t rely on private businessmen to carry on the trade in illegals. They operate a state website that functions as a job board marketing illegals to private businesses. Governor Kathy Hochul says she has identified 32,000 jobs waiting for illegals to take them. She also maintains the fiction that somehow these individuals can get legal authorization to work. Everyone knows that is a lie.
You may think that Secretary Mayorkas is supposed to keep us safe and control the border. He knows the truth as do those eight Republicans who just protected him. His job is to maintain a steady supply of merchandise for the trade of “asylum seekers.”
One of those eight 'Republicans' is from my state. There is a movement to primary him, as there should be for the other seven. Those that were absent to vote should be suspect also.
"Infuriating" doesn't even begin to describe the situation.
Corporate interests - and political interests at their behest - also use taxpayer-paid welfare as, in effect, a CORPORATE SUBSIDY (for legals, but especially for illegals).
Medicaid, "free" emergency rooms, subsidized housing, and free education for illegals - if by no other means than through their "eligibility" due to anchor babies - means that employers can pay a "living wage" that is far lower, since the "worker" will accept lower wages than they otherwise would, because with the "benefits" they can "live" on that.
Many miss the fact that our welfare system is as much, if not more, a corporate subsidy as it is "to help the poor."