Former Democrat Dennis Kucinich: Joe Biden’s ‘Reprehensible’ Border Agenda ‘a Plan to Drive Down Wages’

Former Democrat congressman Dennis Kucinich, who most recently served as campaign manager for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent run for president, said President Joe Biden’s “reprehensible” border agenda is merely “a plan to drive down wages” for America’s working and middle class.

Kucinich appeared on the Jimmy Dore Show this month, calling on Biden to “seal the border” and suggesting that Congress authorize an audit of all taxpayer money allocated and spent by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“My position, some people may think it’s heartless, seal the border. You don’t have a country if you don’t have borders,” Kucinich said. “People can’t get into Canada, just walk over, it’s not going to happen. You can’t get over there in a boat or a plane. You’re not going to walk across the bridge to Ontario or from Niagra Falls.”

Most significantly, Kucinich said Biden’s border agenda — which has welcomed at least 6.2 million illegal aliens to the United States in three years — is a scheme for Wall Street and big business to cut the cost of labor to drive up their profit margins and investments.

Kucinich said:

The immigration should be regularized and we’ve gotten away from that. And as a result, it’s not just … a plan to drive down wages, which Bernie Sanders has pointed out, and perhaps a plan to get more people in the military but it’s also, we’ve opened the door, the borders to mules and drug cartels and anybody that wants to assault American cities with their illicit economic activity.
[Emphasis added]

Frankly, this whole thing about the border is a nightmare. And the fact that the Biden administration has let it continue, to me, is reprehensible. [Emphasis added]

Kucinich, running as an independent in Ohio’s 7th congressional district, referenced legislation from Reps. Pat Ryan (D-NY) and John James (R-MI), introduced Friday, that would incentivize illegal aliens to join the U.S. Armed Forces in order to secure an expedited path to naturalized American citizenship.

A new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report states plainly that mass immigration to the U.S. will, in fact, drive down Americans’ wages while driving up Growth Domestic Product (GDP) — the metric Wall Street and other so-called progressives routinely cite to promote their goal of increasing legal immigration levels.

The CBO report states:

CBO also estimates that the increase in population will put downward pressure on average real wages in the near term. That effect is projected to partially reverse after 2027, but average real wages are expected to be slightly lower by 2034 than they would be otherwise. [Emphasis added]

Most of the increase in the projected population reflects larger net immigration. That greater immigration is projected to boost the growth rate of the nation’s real gross domestic product (GDP) by an average of 0.2 percentage points a year from 2024 to 2034, leaving real GDP roughly 2 percent larger in 2034 than it would be otherwise. [Emphasis added]

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) parroted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s talking points on the issue, writing on Twitter, “Turns out immigrants aren’t ‘takers’ after all — they’re givers to the U.S. economy and essential to a sustainable future, especially if we want elder generations to age with dignity,” citing the slight GDP boost from mass immigration.

The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed that new U.S. jobs are overwhelmingly going to foreign workers over native-born Americans.

“In just the last year, a net 193k native-born workers lost their jobs, while a net 1.2 million foreign-born workers gained jobs,” Heritage economist E.J. Antoni noted.

In just the last year, a net 193k native-born workers lost their jobs, while a net 1.2 million foreign-born workers gained jobs (important to use Y/Y comparisons w/ these datasets b/c they're not seasonally adjusted): pic.twitter.com/9cHXHtnS59

— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) February 2, 2024

At the same time, tens of millions of native-born Americans — primarily working class — remain on the labor market sidelines, struggling to reenter the workforce as the Biden administration adds millions of foreign workers annually for whom they must compete for limited jobs.