Testimony To Demand Immediate Immigration Reductions

AirborneSapper7

The Key Numbers in My Testimony Added Up To Demand For Immediate Immigration Reductions

By Roy Beck, Friday, November 20, 2009, 12:29 AM EST - posted on NumbersUSA

I finally got my chance to get a formal hearing before Members of Congress on Thursday for NumbersUSA's year-long argument that U.S. unemployment requires deep, immediate cuts in immigration.

I let the key numbers do the talking. Do you know them? Take a look at the top three below.

Before I give you the first part of my testimony, I want to thank the activist members of NumbersUSA who showed up on Capitol Hill for the hearing. One woman told me she is living in a household with five adult workers, with three of them unemployed. Another woman said she has been unemployed so long that she has "burned through" two 401k retirement plans and has decided to sell her house rather than cash in the third and last pension plan.

Millions of Americans are in crisis because they have lost their jobs and can't get another one.

That is the crisis that I asked Members of Congress to address Thursday. Below, is most of the first section of my written testimony. I hope you will consider it carefully and determine if the main arguments here aren't ones that we should jointly repeat, repeat and repeat to each of our own Members of Congress until they explain why these key numbers should be allowed to stand.

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THE TESTIMONY

KEY NUMBERS POINT TO POLICY CHANGES THAT COULD QUICKLY SAVE LARGE NUMBERS OF JOBS FOR UNEMPLOYED AMERICANS

Excerpt of Written Testimony by Roy Beck, Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA

Congressional Forum, 'American Jobs in Peril: The Impact of Uncontrolled Immigration'

Nov. 19, 2009, 2237 Rayburn House Office Building

Congressman Smith (Lamar Smith, R-Texas) and other distinguished Members,

. . . . Your hearing today is a flicker of hope that somebody up here cares enough to pay attention to a few key numbers that tend to say all that needs to be said about the necessity of changing immigration policy immediately.I believe that my written testimony outlines convincingly that perhaps hundreds of thousands of additional Americans could be in jobs a year from now if Congress immediately passes a few simple changes in immigration law.

A few key numbers make the case.

First Number -- at least 7 million

The Pew Hispanic Center estimated last spring that 8 million illegal foreign workers held U.S. jobs at that time.

Pew said only 4% of them were in agriculture.

Since that report, many illegal aliens’ jobs have been eliminated. But it is likely that at least 7 million construction, service, manufacturing and transportation jobs are still currently held by illegal foreign workers.

Those are 7 million jobs being sought by more than 7 million less-educated Americans who are currently unemployed and actively seeking a job.

Members of Congress and this Administration need to look at those numbers and come to understand that immigration enforcement is about creating jobs for unemployed Americans. In general, when a government action results in an illegal foreign worker leaving a job, an unemployed American gets to go back to work.

Congressman Smith, the 920,000 members of NumbersUSA in every congressional district of our country wholeheartedly support your efforts to promote far more immigration enforcement as one of the most effective JOBS programs the government can have.

Second Number -- 75,000

It appears that American workers’ own federal government in October issued permanent work permits to about 75,000 working-age immigrants[2] -- 75,000 new LEGAL immigrant workers in just one month.

Third Number -- 190,000

In October, 190,000 U.S. jobs were eliminated.[3] Our government added 75,000 more permanent workers to compete with 16 million unemployed Americans[4] for 190,000 FEWER U.S. jobs.

Since Jan. 1 of this year, it appears that our government already has issued nearly three-quarters of a million new permanent work permits to immigrants.[5]

THESE NUMBERS ARE HIGHLY CREDIBLE

Congress has created an immigration system on auto-pilot so that the unemployment rate of Americans has virtually no effect on the numerical levels.

Consider these numbers from the Department of Homeland Security:

•Federal records show that two years ago – before the recession began – the federal government issued around 830,000 Green Cards (permanent work permits) to working-age immigrants.[6] 830,000.
•Last year during the first year of the recession, the government gave away around 875,000 permanent work permits to immigrants. That was an average of around 75,000 per month.[7]
Without any evidence to suggest a significant change this year, it is safe to assume that our government has continued to crank out around 75,000 new permanent work permits to immigrants every month without any regard for how that might affect American workers.

750,000 NEW FOREIGN WORKERS vs. 990,000 JOBS SAVED/CREATED

Based on last year’s rate, it appears that the hand extended by the federal government to unemployed Americans THIS YEAR has already given them nearly 750,000 new immigrants to compete with them for the dwindling number of jobs.

That number is particularly interesting when compared with another number that the White House proclaimed on Oct. 30. The number was 990,000.

The White House announced that the $159 billion of Stimulus money spent thus far, plus the $189 billion of tax relief this year, had created or saved 990,000 jobs.

Putting aside charges by critics that the estimated number was far higher than was credible, compare the 990,000 jobs with the 750,000 new working-age immigrants given permanent work permits during the same period. It would appear that the majority of the $348 billion of Stimulus and tax relief went for jobs needed to just keep up with the workers brought in by our immigration system.

(Please note that I am not even counting the hundreds of thousands of brand new temporary foreign workers during this period. Temporary visas deserve their own consideration but I want to limit my remarks to giving permits for foreign workers to hold U.S. jobs not just this year, but for every year the rest of their lives.)

Of course, not every new immigrant takes a job from a U.S. worker. Many find themselves standing in the same unemployment lines. The U-3 unemployment rate for immigrants has increased from 4.1% in 2007 to 9.7% in 2009.

Congress might ask itself why it is importing an increasing percentage of immigrant workers only to become dependents on government unemployment and social service programs. The 75,000-a-month new permanent worker number is challenged by groups that support the status quo of labor importation. They point out – accurately – that a high percentage of those 75,000 were already in the country at the time they received their Green Card.

For example, an estimated 9,000 to 20,000 each month are illegal aliens who are being granted legal work authorization for the first time.

Other new Green Card recipients have been in the United States a short time on temporary visas for students, workers, tourists and others.The fact that those foreign workers were already here doesn’t mean that they had to stay. The federal government doesn’t have to adjust the status of most of these illegal or temporary visitors into permanent competitors for U.S. jobs.

It could—in the middle of an unemployment disaster -- let the visas run out and the workers, tourists and students go home as they promised when they sought the visas in the first place.

NUMBERS ADD UP TO NECESSITY FOR POLICY CHANGE

The questions that most Americans hearing these startling numbers are sure to ask are:

•Why does Congress continue to order up 75,000 new permanent foreign workers each month at a time of so much suffering by unemployed Americans and the families that often depend on them?
•And: Why not cut the 75,000 each month as close to zero as possible as long as the overall U-3 unemployment rate remains above, say, 5%?
Congressman Smith and other distinguished Members, I suggest to you that these few simple numbers demand immediate attention.The numbers demand the introduction of legislation to SUSPEND the issuance of as many permanent work visas as possible during this Jobs Depression.And the numbers demand tenacious and concerted public education efforts to build support for the Suspension Legislation among the general public. . . .

(more testimony will be posted at a later date)

[2] Monger, Randall and Nancy Rytina. “U.S. Legal Permanent Residents: 2008.” Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics. March 2009. In 2008 the United States issued 880,636 permanent residency permits to aliens aged 15-64 – an average of 73,386 per month.

[3] United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to data released on November 6, 2009, 190,000 payroll jobs were lost in October, 2009.

[4] Ibid., According to data released on November 6, 2009, 15.7 million Americans were considered to be unemployed in October, 2009. This is the U-3 category counting only those actively looking for a job who can’t find any job, not even a part-time one.

[5] Monger, Randall and Nancy Rytina. “U.S. Legal Permanent Residents: 2008.” Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics. March 2009. In 2008 the United States issued 880,636 permanent residency permits to aliens aged 15-64. Based on that same rate for this year (for which no official data has been released), approximately 733,860 permanent residency permits would have been issued during the first 10 months of 2009.

[6] Ibid., In 2007 the United States issued 835,697 permanent residency permits to aliens aged 15-64.

[7] Ibid., In 2008 the United States issued 880,636 permanent residency permits to aliens aged 15-64 – an average of 73,386 per month.

[8] An October 30, 2009, White House press release (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/new-recipient-reports-confirm...) states that 640,329 jobs were created/saved due to stimulus spending. Later that day, the White House released data showing that 350,000 jobs were created/saved due to tax relief. Roughly 990,000 jobs were created/saved due to a combination of stimulus funds and tax relief, according to the White House. In an October 31, 2009, statement (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/weekly-address-president-obam...), President Obama notes that more than one million jobs have been created or saved.

[9] Camarota, Steven and Karen Jensenius. “Trends in Immigrant and Native Employment.” Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder. Using public data from the United States Census Bureau’s Current Population Survy, Camarota and Jensenius determine that 4.1% of immigrants sixteen and older were unemployed in the third quarter of 2007 while 9.7% were unemployed in the first quarter of 2009.

[10] Ibid., Using data from the Office of Immigration Statistics, Camarota and Jensenius determine that between 100,00 and 250,000 illegal aliens were given legal resident status in 2009.

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I'm a Conservative ~ "BOO" and According to Obama and Napolitano I am (AKA) the "Boogieman"

AirborneSapper7 · Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 6:26 pm Post subject:

Libertarians: Can You Help CATO Come To Its Senses (not enough high school dropouts in U.S.?)

By Roy Beck, Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 11:17 PM EST - posted on NumbersUSA

CATO Institute's Dan Griswold suggests that the U.S. faces a crisis in filling lower skilled jobs because we aren't producing as many high school dropouts as in the past.

. . . the cohort of U.S. workers who have traditionally filled those jobs, namely high school dropouts, continues to shrink. In the past decade, the number of adults 25 and older without a high school diploma fell by 3.2 million, and their ranks will fall by another 2 million to 3 million in the next decade.

-- CATO's Dan Griswold
This is the kind of open-border libertarianism that gives the willies to thoughtful libertarians who believe in national communities.

He was writing this in the Washington Times -- which is read heavily by the Republican staffers and Members of Congress. He was warning that the Democratic proposals for "comprehensive immigration reform" are not likely to bring enough low-educated, low-skilled foreign workers into our country, even after giving an amnesty to approximately 8 million low-educated, low-skilled illegal alien workers already here.

Griswold said the amnesty needs to greatly increase temporary worker programs for low-educated, low-skilled foreign workers.

. . .recognize the reality that the U.S. economy benefits from low-skilled immigration. As the United States shakes off a deep recession, it is only a matter of time before job growth resumes, including lower-end jobs in retail, landscaping, food preparation and service, and home and commercial cleaning that attract low-skilled immigrants. . . .Yet our current immigration system offers no legal pathway for anywhere near a sufficient number of foreign-born workers to fill that growing, structural gap in our labor market.
-- CATO's Dan Griswold

OK, how about a little reality check?

First, American schools and disfunctional families are doing a much better job than Griswold gives them credit for producing high school drop-outs.

•We have around 15 million native-born Americans between 18 and 65 who are high school dropouts.
•Less than 7 million of them have jobs.
The official U-3 unemployment rate for the high school dropouts of our own is more than DOUBLE that of the rest of the nation's citizens, who are doing pretty awful themselves.

Wages and poverty rates for those who DO have jobs have been deteriorating for years.

Nothing in any government statistics suggests to me that our high school dropouts are in short supply and highly valued for their essential work.

Frankly, I am guessing that the Griswold idea is that people who do retail, landscaping, food preparation and service, and home and commercial cleaning deserve really low wages, and we might someday have to pay them a livable wage if we don't import enough foreign peasants to be our semi-slaves.

Feel free to share your opinion about the need for more foreign drop-outs with the folks at CATO.

ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA

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I'm a Conservative ~ "BOO" and According to Obama and Napolitano I am (AKA) the "Boogieman"

vortex · Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 6:35 pm Post subject:

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Immigration is not a right that belongs to anybody and everybody who wants to come here. It is a privilege we Americans alone decide to convey. - Patrick J. Buchanan