Josh Hawley: Biden ‘More Focused’ on Amnesty than Working Class Job Losses

Sen. Josh Hawley says President Joe Biden is “more focused” on providing amnesty to millions of illegal aliens than grappling with potential economic doom for America’s working class.

Last week, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) introduced Biden’s amnesty legislation into the Senate. The plan seeks to legalize, and eventually provide American citizenship to, about 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the United States today.

Also, the plan is likely to double legal immigration levels — where already more than 1.2 million green cards are awarded to legal immigrants annually — even as more than 17 million Americans are jobless but wanting full-time employment.

Specifically, a McKinsey Global Institute analysis detailed by the Washington Post reveals that the overwhelming longterm economic burden, as a result of the Chinese coronavirus crisis, will be put on working and lower-middle class Americans.

The Post reports:

In a report coming out later this week that was previewed to The Washington Post, the McKinsey Global Institute says that 20 percent of business travel won’t come back and about 20 percent of workers could end up working from home indefinitely. These shifts mean fewer jobs at hotels, restaurants and downtown shops, in addition to ongoing automation of office support roles and some factory jobs. [Emphasis added]

…

“We think that there is a very real scenario in which a lot of the large employment, low-wage jobs in retail and in food service just go away in the coming years,” said Susan Lund, head of the McKinsey Global Institute. “It means that we’re going to need a lot more short-term training and credentialing programs.” [Emphasis added]

…

Indeed, the number of workers in need of retraining could be in the millions, according to McKinsey and David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who co-wrote a report warning that automation is accelerating in the pandemic. He predicts far fewer jobs in retail, rest, car dealerships and meatpacking facilities. [Emphasis added]

Hawley, in a statement online, called Biden out for pursuing an amnesty and increased foreign competition against Americans while millions remain jobless and millions more are underemployed and potentially looking at future unemployment.

“Can’t figure out why Joe Biden is more focused on supporting illegal immigration than working Americans,” Hawley wrote on Twitter.

Can’t figure out why Joe Biden is more focused on supporting illegal immigration than working Americans

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) February 22, 2021

In Hawley’s home state of Missouri, unemployment is especially hitting the working and middle class. For example, Americans in construction, extraction, building and grounds cleaning, food service, production, and transportation have the highest rates of unemployment as of last month.

In contrast, those in fields like engineering, architecture, and criminal justice — all of which are vastly less likely to have to compete for jobs against foreign workers — have some of the lowest unemployment rates.

Biden’s amnesty plan is being cheered by big business, tech conglomerates, and corporate special interests who boost their profit-margins by cutting labor costs, which often begins with hiring cheaper foreign workers over Americans.

“We look forward working w/ the administration & Congress to advance these proposed solutions,” Amazon executives wrote in a statement about the amnesty.

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 to the country the “largest anti-poverty program” at the expense of America’s working and lower-middle class.

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 that 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 that 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 that “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 are given green cards to permanently resettle in the U.S. In addition, 1.4 million foreign nationals are annually awarded temporary visas to full U.S. jobs that would otherwise go to Americans.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected] Follow him on Twitter here.