It’s been said time and time again: The United States is the global leader in science and technology. However, if we want to retain our position at the head of the pack, we need to rapidly rethink some of our immigration policies. Since the advent of the current tech boom in the mid-1990s, U.S. employers have been begging the federal government to subsidize their business activities by increasing their access to cheap, compliant foreign labor.
You read that correctly. High-tech employers are now trying to cut their labor costs using the very same technique that has become infamous in the agricultural, construction and hospitality industries: massive infusions of foreign guest workers.
Americans woke up to dual headlines last Thursday: 4.4 million Americans filed first-time unemployment claims, bringing the five-week job loss total to 26 million, and President Trump signed an Executive Order temporarily halting immigration to the United States.
One headline was true, while the other one wasn’t. Sadly, the epic job losses resulting from the coronavirus crisis continues unabated. And, regrettably, the Executive Order that President Trump signed late Wednesday which, in the president’s words, is intended to “ensure that American workers of all backgrounds will be first in line for jobs as our economy reopens,” does nothing of the kind.
Check out what Preston wrote for the Daily Caller:
Foreign guest worker programs and outsourcing are two heads of the same monster decimating the working class and blue collar workers — the same people that propelled Donald Trump to victory in 2016. These policies harm Americans by robbing them of the opportunity to earn a fair wage at a decent job. This reality underscores the importance of President Trump’s recent executive orderthat protects these workers by mandating that all federal agencies focus on hiring citizens for federal contracts, among other measures.
The order is a direct reaction to the news that the federally-owned Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) planned to export as much as 20 percent of their work overseas while slashing 120 American jobs, with plans to cut another 100. This sort of action would be cause for uproar at a private company. At a government-owned corporation, it is outrageous. The TVA is a large employer across parts of the rural South, a region that lags behind the nation in economic development, where the company provides electricity and jobs for residents.
The German theologian Martin Niemöller famously summed up how dangerous social pathologies begin incrementally before snowballing into full-blown assaults on the core of civilized societies. Recounting how Nazi doctrine tightened its grip on Germany, he observed, “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.” The trade unionists and the Jews were next until finally they came for him, “and there was no on left to speak for me,” he lamented.
The subversion of laws that exist to serve the welfare of society, by those who want to undermine that society, always begins slowly. People have to become inured to the erosion of the society’s foundational principles through relentless campaigns that make the perfect the enemy of the good.
Immigration policy, which was a defining issue in the 2016 campaign, finally got a mention in the final 2020 presidential debate. In that debate, much of the time devoted to discussion of immigration centered on the 545 minors who remain separated from their parents as a result of a 2018 policy intended to discourage people from using their kids to gain entry to the United States.
While the 2020 election result is not yet final due to pending litigation and recounts, most signs point to an eventual defeat for President Donald Trump.
If he is defeated, then many things likely contributed to the president’s 2020 loss. But one thing is clear: his views on immigration along with the very policies his administration implemented have nothing to do with it.
Joe Biden was elected to be the steady, competent hand to guide the nation through COVID-19 health and economic crises, and perhaps heal social divisions. The president-elect has yet to reveal his plan for getting the pandemic under control, but sources close to him have indicated that it could entail a lengthy national lockdown in addition to other stringent measures.
I am an immigrant and a naturalized citizen. I came to this country at the age of ten, grew up in a blue-collar immigrant household, was raised around primarily Central-Eastern European and Hispanic working-class immigrants, and ultimately married another immigrant. So, according to the left, I represent a demographic that should support open borders and unchecked mass immigration (both legal and illegal), both out of self-interest and for moral reasons. I see things differently, however, and opt for national sovereignty, secure borders and common-sense immigration policies that benefit the United States and its people.
President Joe Biden and his administration continue to peddle the public relations snake oil that spending money in the Northern Triangle countries will help regain control of the southern border and reduce illegal immigration. The administration plans to spend $4 billion as part of its strategy to look like they’re trying to control the border, provide more than $300 million in emergency aid and has contemplated granting direct cash payments to migrants.
Of course many in the Biden administration were perplexed by Vice President Kamala Harris’ performance during her recent trip to Guatemala and Mexico. They must have been watching the same NBC News interview the rest of the nation watched, in which a clearly frustrated Lester Holt pressed the vice president on why she was visiting Guatemala without having been to this nation’s southern border, which is ground zero of the border crisis.