Betrayed Again! Johnson Gives U.S. Workers Stick's Short End

The time has come to face the music or, in this case, the mournful funeral dirge. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s reversal on his pledge to insist that the immigration enforcement bill HR-2 be included in broader foreign assistance legislation bills that would give billions to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan without a single thin dime for U.S. border security represents a betrayal to working class Americans. In December, Johnson promised his fellow Republicans that border security and other immigration enforcement provisions would be “the hill to die on.” Four months later, Ukraine is set to receive an additional $60.8 billion in aid on top of the existing U.S. $73 billion funding already provided, including military and economic assistance, since the country’s futile war with Russia began more than two years ago. Ukraine has burned up existing aid but still has failed to make any territorial advances, and is, in the view of most military experts, embroiled in a forever war it cannot win. Logic dictates that to endlessly fund Ukraine with taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars is unsustainable, but another round of financing down the road appears inevitable.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement and border patrol agents take on Johnson’s failure sums up the nation’s mood. Text replies to inquiries regarding their sentiment about an aggregate $95 billion aid package to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan without anything for border security: “Unbelievable,” “We’re screwed,” and “So messed up.”

Nothing demonstrates the federal government’s disregard for middle- and lower-income Americans than its thirty-year failure to pass mandatory E-Verify, the program that would ensure that employers can only hire individuals who are legally authorized to work in the U.S. Protecting American workers against illegally present foreign nationals is one of the government’s most fundamental responsibilities. But for three decades, Republicans and Democrats have proven that they’re not only okay with illegal immigrants taking U.S. jobs, but they also prefer it because their donor base is appeased. Donors first; Americans come a distant second.

In 1996, Congress introduced E-Verify as Basic Pilot, and then included in Section 401 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. But the closest E-Verify ever got to becoming reality may have been the 2015 Legal Workforce Act which would have repealed the I-9 paper-based employment system and phased-in mandatory E-Verify participation depending on the number of employees at the work site. The proposed bill never came to the full House floor for a vote. At the time, the House Speaker was John Boehner (R-Ohio), hostile toward immigration enforcement. Paul Ryan (R-WI) succeeded Boehner and was more averse to E-Verify than his predecessor. No president since Congress introduced E-Verify has defended American workers even though when campaigning, they promise to create jobs. E-Verify, by removing unauthorized workers from the labor force, would increase available jobs---addition through subtraction. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump have all, to various degrees, subverted citizens to pave the way for foreign workers either through lax border enforcement or expanding unnecessary employment-based visas. The H-1B visa, for example, purports to import high-skilled U.S. tech workers when, in fact, the non-immigrant arrivals have only average ability. Qualified U.S. tech workers are displaced, and recent citizen tech graduates are effectively banned from job consideration.

President Biden delivered the greatest insult and knife-in-the back to U.S. workers, especially those just scraping by, when his Department of Homeland Security welcomed in millions of illegal immigrants, and then granted them parole, an immigration status that includes employment authorization. Between October 2021 and October 2023, the Biden administration expanded his illegal version of parole that allowed at least 1.8 million aliens to unlawfully enter the country. In the first half of fiscal 2023 alone, Biden admitted more parolees, 636,601, than legal immigrants received green cards, 549,419. For citizens employed in hospitality, health care, landscaping, and transportation, watch out. Illegal immigrants are coming up against free housing deadlines and need jobs.

In 1972, fifty years before Congress and the White House determined that working citizens’ dignity was inconsequential and more immigration solved all woes, Chicago author, radio host, and Pulitzer Prize winner Louis “Studs” Terkel published his best-seller “Working: People Talk about What They Do All Day and How They Feel about What They Do.” Turkel’s book provides an in-depth look at what’s been lost during the five decades when tens of millions of legal and illegal immigrants entered the U.S. employment market. Turkel interviewed coal miners, barbers, nurses, and gravediggers but he also spoke to executives, lawyers, and teachers. Across the board, Turkel found that work, no matter the job, dignified people. Moreover, working at any level for a living wage unified Americans through the commonality of labor. But with the labor pool filling up with illegal aliens from every corner of the world, a deeper, growing schism in an already fractured nation awaits America.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org