Joe Biden: Illegal Immigration Bad, More Legal Immigration Good

JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
Neil Munro

Joe Biden promised to deliver more cheap-labor migrants into Americans’ labor markets, while also using CNN’s debate to portray himself as a moderate who will preserve laws which bar illegal migration.

“If you cross the border illegally, you should be able to be sent back. It’s a crime. It’s a crime… when people cross the border illegally, it is illegal to do it unless they’re seeking asylum,” Biden said in his June 31 pitch to the shrinking moderate caucus in the Democrat party’s base.

But, he insisted, “we should … [and] I proposed, significantly increasing the number of legal immigrants who are able to come. This country can tolerate a heck of a lot more people. And the reason we’re the country we are is we’ve been able to cherry-pick from the best of every culture. Immigrants built this country.”

Also, foreigners should be given work-permit or green cards if they get PhDs in U.S. universities, he argued:  “Anybody that crosses the [graduation] stage with a PhD., you should get a green card for seven years. We should keep them here.”

Biden did not address the economic damage done to ordinary Americans — including college graduates — which is caused by the federal government’s policy of annually flooding the labor market with legal migrants and visa workers. Instead, he touted the “nation of immigrants” claim used by employer groups:

We are a country of immigrants. All of us. All of us. Some here came against their will; others came because they in fact thought they could fundamentally change their lives … That’s what made us great.

Those economic harms include rising rents as young Americans, and desperate migrants, compete for apartments close to downtown jobs.

Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet followed Biden’s lead by promising to preserve criminal penalties at the border but also import many new workers and renters via the passage of his 2013 amnesty:

I disagree that we should decriminalize our border… I was part of the Gang of Eight that wrote … the immigration bill in 2013 with [Sen.] John McCain that passed the Senate with 68 votes, that gave a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people that are here, that would pass the most progressive DREAM Act that had ever been conceived.”

Bennet’s 2013 amnesty and cheap-labor bill would have shifted more of the nation’s new wealth from employees over to investors, according to a 2013 study of the bill by the Congressional Budget Office. “The rate of return on capital would be higher [than on labor] under the legislation than under current law throughout the next two decades,” says the report, titled “The Economic Impact of S. 744.”

The pro-migration pitch from the Democrats matched similar pro-migration demands from nine out of 10 Democrats in the first CNN debate:

Minor league candidate Julian Castro doubled-down on his promises of border decriminalization, more amnesty, and more legal migration:

The only way that we’re going to guarantee that we don’t have family separations in this country again is to repeal Section 1325 of the Immigration Nationality Act. That is the law that this president, this administration is using to incarcerate migrant parents and then physically separate them from their children. My immigration plan would also make sure that we put undocumented immigrants who haven’t committed a serious crime on a pathway to citizenship …

My immigration plan would also fix the broken legal immigration system, because we do have a problem with that … My immigration plan would also make sure that we put undocumented immigrants who haven’t committed a serious crime on a pathway to citizenship,

Yet in his closing speech, Castro promised to oppose rising rental costs, which are being driven upwards by the annual inflow of 1 million legal immigrants.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee also promised to invite more migrants into Americans’ labor and rental markets, even though rents have skyrocketed in his state’s capital city

We have to make America what it’s always been, a place of refuge. We got to boost the number of people we accept. I’m proud of being the first governor saying send us your Syrian refugees. I’m proud to have been the first governor to stand up against Donald Trump’s Muslim ban.

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand endorsed decriminalization, saying, “I believe that we should have a civil violation [for crossing the border]. No president before President Trump enforced the law in the way he has enforced it… It should be a civil violation, and we should make sure that we treat people humanely.”

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker opposed decriminalization but did not offer to defend Americans’ ability to earn decent wages in a flooded labor market:

We are not going to just let people cross the border. An unlawful crossing is an unlawful crossing, if you do it in the civil courts, or if you do in the criminal courts … We have seen, using the civil system, piloted programs that have 100 percent compliance with the civil courts, where people are evaluated. If they have no justifiable reason to be here, they are returned.

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard endorsed amnesty:

I think it’s important for us to fix our legal immigration system and look at the millions of undocumented immigrants in this country who have been suffering as they’ve been living in the shadows. And instead of putting a band-aid on this problem, fix our legal immigration system to provide them with that pathway to legal residency or citizenships, that they are no longer treated as second-class citizens in this country.

California Sen. Kamala Harris dodged CNN’s question about decriminalization by falsely arguing that President Donald Trump is treating migrant youths like criminals:

I saw children lined up single file based on gender being walked into barracks. The policies of this administration have been facilitated by laws on the books that allow them to be incarcerated as though they’ve committed crimes. These children have not committed crimes and should be not treated like criminals.

Immigration Numbers

Each year, roughly four million young Americans join the workforce after graduating from high school or university. This total includes roughly 800,000 Americans who graduate with skilled degrees in business or healthcare, engineering or science, software or statistics.

But the federal government then imports about 1.1 million legal immigrants and refreshes a resident population of roughly 1.5 million white-collar visa workers — including approximately 1 million H-1B workers and spouses —plus roughly 500,000 blue-collar visa workers.

The government also prints out more than one million work permits for foreigners, tolerates about eight million illegal workers, and does not punish companies for employing the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants who sneak across the border or overstay their legal visas each year.

This policy of inflating the labor supply boosts economic growth for investors because it transfers wages to investors and ensures that employers do not have to compete for American workers by offering higher wages and better working conditions.

This policy of flooding the market with cheap, foreign, white-collar graduates and blue-collar labor also shifts enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors, even as it also widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, and hurts children’s schools and college educations.

The cheap-labor economic strategy also pushes Americans away from high-tech careers and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions.

The labor policy also moves business investment and wealth from the heartland to the coastal cities, explodes rents and housing costs, shrivels real estate values in the Midwest, and rewards investors for creating low-tech, labor-intensive workplaces.

“If there is a growing flood of foreign labor, the American middle class is no longer going to exist, and Republicans will not have a constituency,” said Hilarie Gamm, a co-cofounder of the American Workers Coalition.

 

 

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