Illegal Immigration - Border Crisis

President Biden hasn’t mentioned Afghanistan since he turned the phased, conditional withdrawal under Trump into an unconditional surrender to the Taliban.  Nor has he yet found the time to see the chaos his policies have produced by collapsing our southern border. 

Today we will hear from Dr. Ronil Hira of the damage done to American workers – and to the foreign workers themselves -- through abuses in guestworker programs like H-1B, L-1 and the Optical Practical Training program, and how despite assurances of the left, pay far below the market rates for labor and displace skilled American workers. This has resulted in continuing scandals as skilled American workers have been ordered to train their foreign replacements as a condition of receiving severance pay, including major corporations like Southern California Edison, Siemens, Disney, AT&T and the University of California. Under the OPT program, employers don’t have to pay payroll taxes if they hire foreign nationals here on student visas for 29 months after graduation. If you know a college graduate who has a science, technical, engineering or mathematics degree who can’t find an entry level job, you need look no farther than this discriminatory program.

On March 4th, the Ranking Member of the Full Committee along with all six Republican members of this subcommittee wrote to you requesting a hearing on the border crisis caused by President Biden’s decision to stop the MPP program, abandon the border wall and instruct ICE not to faithfully execute the laws of the United States.

We are way beyond any question of whether we face a border crisis – the question now is whether we have a border at all. When I put that question directly to the President of the Border Patrol, his answer was an emphatic NO.

Last year, we finally achieved operational control of our southern border for the first time in decades. The Trump Administration had made it clear that our border would be enforced, and illegal immigration dropped dramatically. That all ended on January 20th, when Joe Biden issued executive orders to stop deporting illegal immigrants, abandon the border wall, to admit anyone claiming to be under 18, and rescinding the remain in Mexico policy for asylum claims. That message has been heard loud and clear. The border patrol reported more than 100,000 encounters in February alone. That’s the entire population of South Bend, Indiana or Green Bay, Wisconsin. In a single month. And it’s getting worse.

It was no accident that when we finally won control of the border and cut the flow of low wage labor, Americans saw the strongest wage growth in 40 years, the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years and the lowest poverty rate in 60 years – and for the first time in decades the wage gap between rich and poor narrowed. This bill extends amnesty, green cards and a path to citizenship to somewhere between 1 and 2 ½ million illegal immigrants now working in agriculture – and their families -- in a manner that will depress wages not just in agriculture, but in every field of the economy for years to come.