Multinational corporate executives, who often serve as the biggest donors for the nation’s political class, are the driving forces behind an amnesty plan passed by House Democrats and nine House Republicans.
Last week, the House passed H.R. 6, known as the “Dream and Promise Act of 2021,” to provide potentially 4.4 million illegal aliens with amnesty and put them on a track for American citizenship. All 218 House Democrats voted to support the amnesty and nine House Republicans joined them, including:
- Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE)
- Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL)
- Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA)
- Rep. David Valadao (R-CA)
- Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI)
- Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
- Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ)
- Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL)
- Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
The amnesty’s biggest backers are a series of multinational corporations and their executives who often provide campaign cash to lawmakers.
In a March letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the corporations’ executives urged the Senate to pass the expansive amnesty.
“This important legislation has our strong support and we ask that you and your colleagues consider and pass it in the immediate weeks ahead,” the executives wrote.
The full letter can be read here:
Schumer McConnell Letter by John Binder
Those who signed off on the letter include tech conglomerates like Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Google, IBM, Uber, and PayPal. Also lobbying for the amnesty is the United States Chamber of Commerce, Visa, Marriott International, Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, Chobani, Starbucks, General Motors, Target, and Hilton.
A flooded U.S. labor market has been well documented for its wage-crushing side effects, so much so that economist George Borjas has called mass immigration the “largest anti-poverty program” at the expense of America’s working and lower-middle class. The biggest winners are corporations and investors who can not only keep the cost of labor low, but also have a steady stream of consumers to buy their products and services.
Other research finds current legal immigration to the U.S. results in more than $530 billion worth of lost wages for Americans.
Recent peer-reviewed research by economist Christoph Albert acknowledges that “as immigrants accept lower wages, they are preferably chosen by firms and therefore have higher job finding rates than natives, consistent with evidence found in US data.”
Albert’s research also finds immigration “raises competition” for native-born Americans in the labor market. Similarly, research from June 2020 on U.S. wages and the labor market shows that a continuous flow of mass immigration exerts “stronger labor market competition” on newly arrived immigrants than even native-born Americans, thus contributing to the wage gap.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), likewise, has repeatedly noted mass immigration cuts Americans’ wages.
In 2013, CBO analysis stated that the “Gang of Eight” amnesty plan would “slightly” push down wages for the American workers. A 2020 CBO analysis stated “immigration has exerted downward pressure on the wages of relatively low-skilled workers who are already in the country, regardless of their birthplace.”
Every year, about 1.2 million legal immigrants receive green cards to permanently resettle in the U.S. In addition, 1.4 million foreign nationals get temporary visas to fill U.S. jobs that would otherwise go to Americans.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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