The List: 26 GOP Senators, 97 House Republicans Ask for More Foreign Workers to Fill U.S. Jobs

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John Binder

123 Republicans in the Senate and House are pleading with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Chad Wolf to bring more foreign workers to the United States to compete against working-class Americans for jobs.

In a letter to Wolf, 26 Republican Senators and 97 Republican House members joined 66 Senate and House Democrats in demanding DHS allow businesses to bring an additional roughly 30,000 foreign workers on the H-2B visa program to take nonagricultural blue-collar U.S. jobs.

Every year, U.S. companies are allowed to import 66,000 low-skilled H-2B foreign workers to take blue-collar, non-agricultural jobs. For some time, the H-2B visa program has been used by businesses to bring in cheaper, foreign workers and has contributed to blue-collar Americans having their wages undercut.

“We urge DHS to release the maximum number of additional visas without delay,” the Senators and House members wrote. “These vital American businesses depend on the expeditious release of a sufficient number of additional visas.”

The 26 GOP Senators who signed the letter include:

  • Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD)
  • Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
  • Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC)
  • Sen. James Risch (R-ID)
  • Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK)
  • Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
  • Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH)
  • Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO)
  • Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY)
  • Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO)
  • Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)
  • Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
  • Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID)
  • Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY)
  • Sen. John Thune (R-SD)
  • Sen. James Lankford (R-OK)
  • Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)
  • Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS)
  • Sen. Todd Young (R-IN)
  • Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS)
  • Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
  • Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS)
  • Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA)
  • Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC)
  • Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS)
  • Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)

The 97 Republican House members who signed the letter include:

  • Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD)
  • Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI)
  • Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH)
  • Rep. John Curtis (R-UT)
  • Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN)
  • Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-PA)
  • Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC)
  • Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AZ)
  • Rep. Paul Mitchell (R-MI)
  • Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI)
  • Rep. Van Taylor (R-TX)
  • Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA)
  • Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI)
  • Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC)
  • Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL)
  • Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA)
  • Rep. Darren Soto (R-FL)
  • Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD)
  • Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO)
  • Rep. Michael Guest (R-MS)
  • Rep. Peter King (R-NY)
  • Rep. Roger Marshall (R-KS)
  • Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN)
  • Rep. Neal Dunn (R-FL)
  • Rep. Elise Stefancik (R-NY)
  • Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ)
  • Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA)
  • Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA)
  • Rep. Ralph Abraham (R-LA)
  • Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA)
  • Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA)
  • Rep. David Rouzer (R-NC)
  • Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA)
  • Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC)
  • Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL)
  • Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA)
  • Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI)
  • Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND)
  • Rep. Trent Kelly (R-MS)
  • Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH)
  • Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH)
  • Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX)
  • Rep. David Joyce (R-OH)
  • Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH)
  • Rep. Ron Estes (R-KS)
  • Rep. French Hill (R-AR)
  • Rep. Carol Miller (R-WV)
  • Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH)
  • Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO)
  • Rep. Billy Long (R-MO)
  • Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-OH)
  • Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)
  • Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY)
  • Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY)
  • Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY)
  • Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK)
  • Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH)
  • Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR)
  • Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY)
  • Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK)
  • Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA)
  • Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO)
  • Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA)
  • Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO)
  • Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-MS)
  • Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC)
  • Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH)
  • Rep. Don Young (R-AK)
  • Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-IN)
  • Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI)
  • Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
  • Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT)
  • Rep. David McKinley (R-WV)
  • Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO)
  • Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH)
  • Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI)
  • Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
  • Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX)
  • Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL)
  • Rep. Susan Brooks (R-IN)
  • Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK)
  • Rep. Roger Williams (R-TX)
  • Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL)
  • Rep. Fred Keller (R-PA)
  • Rep. Rob Woodall (R-GA)
  • Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL)
  • Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL)
  • Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX)
  • Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC)
  • Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA)
  • Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI)
  • Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL)
  • Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX)
  • Rep. John Carter (R-TX)
  • Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID)
  • Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH)
  • Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA)

The letter is in contrast to President Donald Trump’s tightening of the labor market, which has secured historic wage hikes for blue-collar and working-class Americans, as Breitbart News reported.

In November, the bottom 25 percent of wage earners saw their wages rise 4.5 percent compared to November 2018. These bottom-tier workers, those earning less than all other Americans, have secured a labor market that now resembles the labor market of top-tier workers — a result of less low-skilled foreign competition against Americans.

The long list of elected Republicans who are asking for more H-2B foreign workers comes as Republican and Democrat Senators Richard Blumenthal, Tom Cotton, Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Grassley, and Dick Durbin have asked DHS not to bring any more foreign workers to the U.S. through the low-skilled visa program.

In 2019, former DHS Secretaries Kirstjen Nielsen and Kevin McAleenan each approved 30,000 additional H-2B foreign visa workers for businesses to bring to the U.S. to take blue-collar jobs — all of which Americans can be recruited to take.

Today, federal employment data reveal that there is no labor shortage of working- and middle-class Americans who want a job. As of December 2019, there are more than 11 million Americans either unemployed, underemployed, or out of the workforce — all of whom want full-time employment.

The H-2B visa program has been widely used by businesses to drag down the wages of American workers in landscaping, conservation work, the meatpacking industry, the construction industry, and fishing jobs, a 2019 study from the Center for Immigration Studies finds.

When comparing the wages of H-2B foreign workers to the national wage average for each blue-collar industry, about 21 out of 25 of the industries offered lower wages to foreign workers than Americans.

In the construction industry, wage suppression is significant, with H-2B foreign workers being offered more than 20 percent less than their American counterparts. In the fishing industry, foreign workers were offered more than 30 percent less for their jobs than Americans in the field. In the meatpacking industry, foreign workers got 23 percent less pay than Americans.

Late last year, the Labor Department banned a South Dakota construction company from using the H-2B visa program after they discovered the employer was importing foreign workers in order to cut labor costs, then forcing those foreign workers to pay for their own housing, visa fees, and transportation costs — all of which are supposed to be covered by H-2B visa employers.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. 

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