- Washington, DC -- Despite the bleak employment picture,
congressional leaders and the White House are moving forward with plans
to expand the number of foreign guest workers admitted to fill U.S. jobs.
Under pressure from some domestic industries and the Mexican government,
serious negotiations continue in an effort to add to the legions of foreign
guest workers already working in sectors of the economy ranging from high
tech, to manufacturing, to construction, to agriculture. The June unemployment
data indicate a gloomy Fourth of July for millions of American workers
as joblessness reached 6.4 percent of the workforce, the highest levels
since March 1994.
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- For the fifth straight month, American businesses have
trimmed payrolls, bringing the total number of jobs lost to 913,000 since
March of this year. "The most amazing thing is that there is not even
a hint of embarrassment on the part of American business or our government
that hundreds of thousands of Americans are receiving pink slips, while
they work feverishly to bring more foreign workers to this country,"
said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration
Reform (FAIR). "Many sectors of our economy seemingly believe that
access to cheap foreign labor is their right. Meanwhile, the politicians
who talk about jobs, jobs, jobs seem to be more than willing to trade jobs
for campaign dollars."
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- In addition to the disingenuousness of pursuing an expanded
guest worker program at the same time that unemployment is growing rapidly,
FAIR noted that the rush to move more foreign labor into this country potentially
threatens national security.
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- By their own admission, the new Department of Homeland
Security is still feeling its way around as they try to play catch-up on
decades of inattention to the connection between immigration and national
security,? said Stein.
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- On top of dealing with the formidable task already before
them, a new guest worker program would require significant time, manpower,
and money to vet a new influx of workers from dozens of countries.
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- "On our Independence Day holiday, it is clear that
the priorities of our government are not the ideals of life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness expressed by our Founding Fathers, but rather
the pursuit of cheap labor and votes," Stein said.
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- http://www.fairus.org/html/07447307.htm
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