George W. Bush Center Opposes Donald Trump’s Migration Reforms

New George W. Bush
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Neil Munro

Americans need more migrants to recover from the coronavirus crash, according to former President George W. Bush’s presidential center.

The nation’s economic recovery will be slowed by the temporary suspension on importing foreign workers that President Donald Trump extended and expanded on June 22, said a June 23 tweet from the center:

The tweet links to a May 18 statement that said:

Temporarily suspending admission of immigrants will deprive us of the unique skills and contributions they can make to America’s recovery. We should not allow a temporary change like this to become permanent policy …

We need immigrants to continue working in our hospitals. We need immigrants to continue stocking our grocery shelves. We need immigrants to process the bacon we will eat at our first brunch out with friends.

The claim was signed by Laura Collins, director of the Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative. She posted her own tweet on June 23, saying, “immigration is good for the economy and necessary for the recovery.”

The United States already has more than40 million immigrants, including at least 11 million illegal migrants, among roughly 280 million Americans.

There is much data that Americans do not need immigrants. When CEOs offer decent pay, Americans do step forward as doctors and nurses, retail workers, and meat processors — a well as software developers, fruit pickers, and restaurant workers,

But business groups are pulling out all the stops as they denounce Trump’s temporary freeze and his modest reforms of H-1B visaworker program.

The visa worker reforms will be “catastrophic” if Trump is elected, said Todd Schulte, the director of FWD.us, an advocacy group for wealthy West Coast investors:

Schulte’s investors profit from cheap labor because it allows them to dramatically inflate their startup companies’ stock values. The group was created by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and now includes many investors who want to minimize payroll costs.

In contrast, Trump’s reforms may help Americans regain a foothold in the nation’s top technology companies, most of which are now mostly staffed by Chinese and Indian visa workers.

Most visa workers are hired in blocs to perform lower-skilled, routine software or accounting jobs. Very few perform high-skilled tasks that cannot be accomplished by Americans.

These H-1B workers are usually cheaper than Americans, but U.S. CEOs prefer them because they are compliant, controllable, and disposable.

U.S. executives know that visa workers are not immigrants. The visa workers have almost no legal rights in the United States and will rationally work long hours for many years in the hope of getting paid with a green card that allows them to escape India or China.

In contrast, American professionals are a labor headache for CEOs, C-suite executives, and hiring managers. They argue with their managers, demand time off on the weekend, quit for other opportunities, go on local TV when their department is laid off, testify in court when low-quality products cause damage, and they also try to develop innovative products.

Overall, investors and CEOs support high levels of immigration because it reduces wages and salaries. But immigration also boosts sales, rents, and real estate values as immigrants crowd into the nation’s retail stores, car lots, apartments, and housing markets.

When he was in power, President Bush strongly supported cheap labor migration. For example, he supported the “Any Willing Worker” plan that would have allowed U.S. employers to hire foreigners directly if Americans would not take the job at the offered wage. Bush also supported amnesties that would boost Wall Street values by flooding the U.S. labor market.

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