President Trump has shown he’s willing to take a stick to the overgrown hornet’s nest that is the federal government, but if he wants to truly tackle illegal immigration, he needs to yank away the many carrots used to attract foreigners to illegally compete with Americans for jobs while depressing their wages to boot. The first line of attack is employers.
Trump must take away illegal immigrants’ opportunities to make a living or to sustain themselves with government help through handouts such as food stamps and Medicare (including help from charities that want to continue to get government grants). Because of the overly generous way in which the 14th Amendment has been interpreted (see the birthright citizenship debate), this may be difficult.
However, what shouldn’t be difficult is for large companies to feel the weight of enforcement of federal immigration laws. This may include being threatened and fined in some cases to coerce them to stop employing immigrants and instead give preference to American citizens in employment.
Image by Pixlr AI.
If you really want to see the economy explode in growth, enable blue-collar Americans to earn a decent living by removing the glut of workers and the wage-reducing effect they have on employment. This can be done—for the most part—by enforcing laws making it illegal or just expensive to employ illegal aliens of any kind (even those who overstayed a work visa decades ago).
In the construction industry alone, immigrants account for a seemingly uncountable number of workers. (The government seems unwilling to count.) Some sources will peg that number at around 30 percent, but contractors will tell you it’s much higher, and in some places it’s the vast majority of employees (75 percent or more, and they all tend to be Spanish-speaking).
Where I live, in a fast-gentrifying, former mill-town area of Pittsburgh, it is the very rare renovation or new home or apartment build that is being done entirely by American = workers, or even with a majority of them. And when I say “Americans,” I mean people born here of citizen parents and, in most cases, descended from many generations of American ancestors. Even some construction unions around here have phone messages in Spanish and English. While native Americans of every race are hurting for good jobs, unions are hiring immigrants into their unions to have some of the best-paying gigs in the sector. Maybe it’s not a surprise that ordinary Americans are turning against the unions.
Immigration is depressing wages in construction and other sectors, and only those who feel they’re benefitting from it will argue the opposite. Right-minded justice officials need to go after unions for hiring illegal aliens, and they need to go after large construction companies and landscaping companies that do so, too. All the deportations in the world won’t remove the blight that is the corrupt employment practices of many unions and large corporations in the U.S.
It should be noted that U.S. construction workers have among the highest rates of addiction and suicide among all American workers. Could depressed wages, fewer opportunities, poorer working conditions, and fewer paychecks have anything to do with it?
Pam Bondi is right to pursue so-called “sanctuary cities,” but that should be the beginning, not the end. But she and her boss, President Trump, must go much farther.
J.B. Pensyltucky is a pseudonym.