Watch: DHS Chief Mayorkas Refuses to Recognize Cost of Illegal Immigration to American Citizens

During a press conference Thursday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas detailed his globalist worldview wherein the United States acts as an economy for which foreign workers can flood the labor market, regardless of the costs to America’s working and middle class.

While holding the press conference, Mayorkas refused to discuss the costs of illegal immigration to American citizens, even as research shows that the arrival of illegal aliens burdens Americans to the tune of more than $143 billion annually — not including the cost of reduced wages, higher housing prices, and strained public resources.

In Yuma, Arizona, in recent months, taxpayers are forced to foot the bill for more than $26 million in uncompensated care for illegal aliens.

Instead, Mayorkas described his globalist worldview where foreign workers from around the globe can come to the U.S. and take American jobs to the benefit of employers, regardless of the impact on working and middle class Americans.

The exchange went as follows:

REPORTER: When you talk about costs, what’s the rough cost to American taxpayers since there have been roughly four million people come into this country illegally since January of 2021 as people show up at community hospitals, as they enter the school system, as they get other government help? Do you have a taxpayer cost? [Emphasis added]

MAYORKAS: Let me turn that question around … I’m going to turn it around to match the question that an international partner asked of me and the question that the international partner asked of me is ‘What is the economic cost of your broken immigration system?’ [Emphasis added]

Since there are businesses around this country that are desperate for workers, there are … desperate workers in foreign countries that are looking for jobs in the United States, where they can earn money lawfully and send much-needed remittances back home. ‘What is the cost of a broken immigration system?’ That is the question I am asked and that is the question that I pose to Congress, because it is extraordinary. [Emphasis added]

Mayorkas’s remarks come as Democrats this week continued to boast about the virtues of opening the nation’s labor market to the world’s migrants so as to benefit big business.

“Those folk who are coming across are the ones who are helping to put food on our table,” Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) said this week.

“Without them, we are not able to eat … we would have no food on our plates, we would have nobody taking care of the building, the construction of our homes, we would have nobody cleaning up in the hospitals, honest work that deserves an honest day’s pay,” Hank continued. “That’s the kind of system that we need to have in this country.”

Meanwhile, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has led the charge in the Senate against cutting wages by flooding the U.S. labor market, increasing housing costs by importing millions of foreign nationals, and using immigration as a cash cow for Wall Street and big business.

“Illegal immigration is theft, plain and simple,” Vance wrote in a Twitter post. “It steals wages from American workers, and drives up the cost of housing and food for our families. Many in the GOP establishment who howl about illegal immigration in public defend cheap labor in private.”

Illegal immigration is theft, plain and simple. It steals wages from American workers, and drives up the cost of housing and food for our families. Many in the GOP establishment who howl about illegal immigration in public defend cheap labor in private. https://t.co/PJrZwyj2DR

— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) May 10, 2023

The remarks come as labor market data has shown that President Joe Biden’s administration is growing the U.S. workforce by funneling millions of border crossers, illegal aliens, foreign visa workers, and legal immigrants into American jobs, while leaving millions of working and middle class Americans on the sidelines.

In the fourth quarter of 2022, for example, close to two million fewer native-born Americans were working in jobs compared to the same time in 2019, while two million foreign-born workers were added to the workforce.

A flooded labor market from mass immigration has had a devastating impact on working and middle class Americans, while redistributing billions in wealth to the top one percent of earners and big business. While creating an economy that tilts in favor of employers, the mass immigration economic model has helped keep wages stagnant for decades.

On the other hand, tight labor markets have driven up U.S. wages.

Housing prices for Americans, in particular, skyrocket as immigration increases. Decades of research have found that the more demand there is for housing in safe and vibrant American towns and cities, the higher housing prices climb.

“Increases in immigration into a metropolitan statistical area are linked with rising rents and home prices in that metropolitan statistical area and neighboring metropolitan statistical areas,” a 2017 study published in the Journal of Housing Economics revealed.

Today, the median sale price for a home in the U.S. is more than $400,000 — well out of range for most first-time buyers, as well as many working and middle class Americans.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.