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United States Congressional Budget Office

Published: Mon, Jan 13th 2020 @ 11:43 am EST

Immigration helps the U.S. economy, but its not as good for individual workers, particularly those at the low end of the wage scale for whom the increased competition for jobs leaves them worse off, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report last week. The findings both support and challenge conventional wisdom on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers from both parties generally view immigration as a net benefit. The CBO said thats true for the overall economy, but not for those in low-skilled jobs. The report added:

Among people with less education, a large percentage are foreign-born. Consequently, immigration has exerted downward pressure on the wages of relatively low-skilled workers who are already in the country, regardless of their birthplace.

And there are many new immigrant workers to compete with. Immigrants account for about half of all newcomers to the workforce each year, the CBO said. While this influx does fuel economic growth on the national macro-level, when one explores the individual micro-level impact such policies of uncontrolled mass immigration can be proven to have negative effects on American workers who are forced to directly compete with an artificially bloated labor market, a group predominately comprised of impoverished African American and Latino citizens - those our nation has promised to do better for.

The analysis, done for the House Budget Committee, comes at a time when immigration is effectively off the table as an issue for lawmakers, with deep differences between President Trump, who wants to see some stricter limits and amped-up national enforcement efforts, and Democrats, who want to see illegal aliens granted citizenship in mass amnesties, and who oppose attempts to limit any legal form of immigration, which includes family-based 'chain migration,' a key source for low-educated and non-skilled workers.

The CBO did concede that granting legal status to illegal aliens would give them a chance to improve their situations and that the economy benefits from higher immigration because the overall labor force is more productive, but Rosemary Jenks, the Director of Government Affairs at NumbersUSA stated:

They answered the question that we all already know the answer to whether expanding the labor force expands the GDP. They completely failed to answer the actual important question, which is how immigration impacts per capita GDP.

The furthest CBO went was to say that whether the native-born suffer or benefit from immigration depends on whos coming. But the analysts said it was tough to figure out the exact effects of immigration amid other factors such as technology.

To the extent that newly arrived workers have abilities similar to those of workers already in the country, immigration would have a negative effect on wages. To the extent that newly arrived workers have abilities that complement those of workers already in the country, immigration would foster productivity increases, having a positive effect on wages.

But this national economic expansion does not necessarily [deliver] to increases in output per capita, or income per person, the report said. For example, business leaders say the nations enormous population of immigrants has expanded the nations workforce, increased consumption, and driven up housing prices. But that inflow has also shrunk the wages of less-educated Americans.

Logically, the CBO states that for as long as the United States continues to import millions of low skilled immigrants, salaries for Americans in occupations that will be forced to compete with them will continue to be negatively affected. However, the CBO errs in their insinuation that if the United States were to switch from a focus on low-skilled immigration to something that "complements" lower-skilled Americans, say, high-skilled immigration, everything would be better. While it is true that such shifts in national immigration policy would have a positive effect on lower-skilled American wages, it would come at the balanced cost to higher-skilled American workers.

The CBO report contradicts business claims that a bigger economy ensures bigger wages for everyone. Put simply, whatever category of American workers are forced to compete with a labor market artificially inflated by mass immigration - will have negatively affected wages. The only immigration policy that truly helps all Americans is a reduction in overall immigration numbers.

For the full story, please visit The Washington Times, and Breitbart.

Read more from the original source:
CBO: Immigration Has 'Negative Effect on Wages' - NumbersUSA

The Border Patrol had to ride to the rescue of three migrants Sunday after they got stuck on top of President Trumps border wall in San Diego.

The man and two women tried to use dense fog to cover their attempt to climb a section of 30-foot-high fence part of nearly 100 miles of replacement wall built under Mr. Trump.

They cleared the primary fence up along the border but became stuck atop the fog-slicked secondary fence, which is set back from the boundary line, creating an enforcement corridor between the two fences.

Its not clear how they managed to scale the two walls, though Customs and Border Protection suggested they likely had smugglers who were helping them but then abandoned them when they got stuck.

Agents called out the San Diego Fire Department, which had to use a truck and lengthy extension ladder to get the migrants down.

All three were determined to be in the country without permission.

These three were very fortunate to not have fallen from the top of the wall, which could have resulted in serious injury or death, said Aaron Heitke, acting chief patrol agent in the San Diego sector. These dangers are not important considerations to smugglers, who place an emphasis on profits over safety.

Falls from the wall do happen, said Supervisory Agent Jeffrey R. Stephenson, who said agents then rush them to medical attention.

The falls have led to numerous serious injuries including broken legs, broken ankles, skull fractures, brain bleeds, broken scapula, fractured vertebrae and appendicitis, he said.

The wall is the most visible of Mr. Trumps get-tough efforts on illegal immigration, though its effectiveness in stemming last years surge in the flow of immigrants is heatedly debated.

Most analysts say the wall is more effective on drug-trafficking and on migrants from Mexico, who generally didnt attempt to exploit the loopholes used by Central Americans during the surge.

The new fence design is up to 30 feet of bollard-style barrier. In San Diego, it replaced what was known as landing mat fencing, an outdated design that used thin metal plates that were easily breached.

The new design is supposed to be more resistant to cutting and climbing.

The Washington Post reported late last year that smugglers were still managing to cut holes.

But Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, said he hasnt seen that.

Old sections, yes, there are a great many breaches and had the administration continued to build sections of wall like what was built under the Bush administration, those wall were breachable, Mr. Judd told The Washington Times on C-SPANs Newsmakers program in late December.

But there has been a lot of research and development that has gone into the new walls that are currently being built, he said. That research and development shows that they are much, much more difficult to breach, and again, we just havent seen any breaches.

Go here to see the original:
Illegal immigrants rescued after getting stuck on Trump's wall - Washington Times

Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is directing all components to conduct a review of states' driving license issuance and sharing policies.

This is in no small measure due to the recently enacted New York State "Green-Light" statute that:

New York's law is so broad that many county clerks object that it will open the door to massive identity theft, voter fraud, and even possibly providing licenses to terrorists and other national security threats. Litigation by counties fighting against implementation has begun (see here, here, and here).

The analysis Wolf has requested is an excellent idea. One wonders, in fact, why his own Office of Policy at DHS didn't take this upon itself earlier. Note that it is not just DHS's immigration agencies such as CBP, ICE, and USCIS that are impinged by these laws, but also the Transportation Security Administration, which relies upon the secure and appropriate issuance of state driver's licenses and official ID cards in its mission of granting or denying access to individuals seeking to board commercial aircraft in the United States. There are a number of problem areas that need to be explored in these analyses, some of which are discussed below.

First, state statutes that prohibit sharing of information on licenses issued to aliens, whether those aliens are legally or illegally in the United States, violate two federal statutes, 8 U.S.C. Section 1373 and 8 U.S.C. Section 1644.

This is no small matter, given the damaging implications not just in routine illegal immigration removal cases, but more significantly to national security, alien fugitive, and criminal alien cases. My colleague Art Arthur recently blogged about a Liberian war criminal who was released by New York City Police rather than honor an immigration detainer. Think how likely such interactions will likely play out with aliens seeking licenses, which is a much more common occurrence than being taken into custody by local police. How ironic that, in pursuit of "progressive" values, the state of New York chooses to turn a blind eye toward such individuals rather than cooperate with immigration officials.

Second, there are cogent reasons to think that states that issue driver's licenses to illegal aliens most especially when the acceptance threshold for documents submitted to verify identity, citizenship, and status are so broad as to raise significant possibilities of rampant fraud, identity theft, or national security threats cannot possibly be in substantive compliance with the provisions of the federal Real ID Act (Title II of Division B of Pub. Law 109-13).

The Real ID Act prescribes minimal thresholds that must be met for states to issue driver's licenses and identification cards (IDs) that will be accepted by the federal government for specified official purposes:

The term ''official purpose'' includes but is not limited to accessing Federal facilities, boarding federally regulated commercial aircraft, entering nuclear powerplants, and any other purposes that the [DHS] Secretary shall determine. [Emphasis added.]

The Act is clear and detailed in its mandate that states accept only foreign passports for documentation, and also that state authorities verify the individual's status prior to issuance, through exchange of information with the federal SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) database.

States that issue driver's licenses and IDs to illegal aliens will no doubt argue that they have created a bifurcated system for issuing two types of licenses and IDs: those that are Real ID Act compliant, and those that are not, which therefore satisfies the requirements of the law. Of course, such a two-tier system vitiates the intent behind the Real ID Act, which obviously was to leverage federal powers and systems to aid states in ensuring that their documents are not provided to those who would do us harm, leaving one to ponder exactly what "compliance" means. But how can a state purport to be submitting names and other biographic data through the SAVE system (which is maintained by immigration officials) in order to produce Real ID Act-compliant licenses and IDs as federal law requires, when their own law prohibits sharing information with the federal government? How do states purport to square that circle?

We also must ask how a state using a two-tier system can possibly ensure there is no bleed-over of ineligibles who end up receiving documents that assert Real ID compliance (usually with a gold star or some other indicia) when these individuals are illegally in the United States, or have engaged in identity theft by providing fake supporting documents to obtain the license or ID card. Time after time, we have seen state motor vehicle officials engage in exactly such confusion by allowing aliens to register to vote under the motor-voter law at the time they issue a driver's license (see here and here). Why should we think they would be any more discriminating or proficient with bifurcated document-issuing systems, especially when they are being obliged to accept a proliferation of foreign documents in other languages, including from countries in which there is endemic corruption and such documents are routinely forged or obtained through illicit means?

Part of the problem, though, is with DHS itself. The department has been absurdly lenient in how it chooses to accept a state's certification that it is Real-ID Act compliant. (This is self-evident with even the most cursory glance at the compliance map on DHS's website). Not one state has been found noncompliant, and only one is "under review" but how can that possibly be when so many states have gone down the two-tier path?

It is worse when states go further to prohibit access to a state's licensing and ID database(s) for cross-check and auditing purposes, because absent such access, DHS cannot possibly ensure that a state certification isn't literally a paper exercise with no legitimate foundation on which to believe that the "compliant" documents issued reflect reality. This is one of those areas where the secretary has chosen not to exercise his or her considerable powers under the law to refuse to accept at face value the assurances of states, or to conduct audits to probe under those potentially bug-ridden certifications.

Nor does it appear that any DHS secretary has fully considered the meaning of the statutory phrase "other purposes that the Secretary shall determine", as emphasized above, in order to fully flesh out the applicability of compliant (or noncompliant) licenses or IDs to places and circumstances beyond the bare bones of nuclear plants, airplanes, and federal installations.

Finally, there appears to be a failure on the part of DHS to coordinate its mandates and obligations with other federal departments and agencies. Consider, for example, the Department of Defense (DOD). There have been a number of instances in which illegal aliens have been part of the workforce permitted onto military facilities to engage in various kinds of construction or repair work (see, e.g., here and here). How do they get in at all, if the base commander is ensuring access only to individuals possessed of Real ID-compliant licenses or ID cards? Generally under DOD policy, each base commander sets, and oversees compliance with, the rules outlining access to the facility he or she commands. Some commanders are more stringent and demanding of accountability than others.

Similarly, consider the provisions of 49 U.S.C. Section 30302, which establishes a National Driver Register maintained by the federal Department of Transportation (DOT). States choose whether to participate, but because it's in their interest, almost all do. The registermaintains a database of driver's license offenders those whose licenses have been suspended, revoked, etc. for various reasons. It is of real use when an individual applies in any state so that state may make judgments about whether it should deny a license based on violations in other states that suggest the individual is unfit to operate a motor vehicle. For this reason, 45 states and the District of Columbia apparently have signed on (see here and here).

The DOT secretary is authorized to provide information in the registerto other federal departments and agencies upon request. Its use against aliens charged for DUI/DWI and hit-and-run or vehicular homicide offenses is self-evident. While the provisions establishing the registrermake clear that provision of information must be consistent with the federal Privacy Act, it's worth noting that the only individuals who are covered by the Privacy Act are U.S. citizens and alien residents nonimmigrants and aliens illegally in the country are excluded from coverage. But the question here is simple: Has DHS ever even reached out to DOT to negotiate a memorandum of understanding for access to the register? If not, why not?

Astute readers may have noticed that I mentioned, but have not discussed, illegal voting and registration fraud by aliens. DHS agents certainly have authority to conduct investigations of such cases. Voting by aliens and false claims to U.S. citizenship are federal criminal offenses; they are also a basis for removal. But principal authority for oversight of state voter registration lists was vested in the attorney general by the National Voter Registration Act ("NVRA", found at 52 U.S.C. 20501 et seq., see here and here), the "motor-voter" law that authorized registering voters when providing driver's licenses and official ID cards.

Readers may also recall that early in his tenure President Trump called for a commission to study the problem of alien voter fraud; certainly there have been plenty of indicators that such fraud exists (see here, here, here, and here). The commission disbanded without completing its work after recalcitrant states refused to cooperate. Unfortunately, the commission had no statutory basis to compel cooperation.

This is not true with the attorney general, who has authority under the NVRA to ensure against unlawful disenfranchisement of legitimate voters a significant concern, given our country's history but also to ensure that state-maintained voter registration lists consist only of legitimate voters, to ensure against the kind of fraud that dilutes the popular vote and throws close elections, such as double-voting, voting by dead people, voting by disenfranchised felons and, significant for this report, voting by aliens. The problem is that almost all of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division's efforts have been devoted to the first concern, and virtually none toward the second.

Should Attorney General Barr decide to right this imbalance, and there's every reason to think he should, then it would be right and appropriate for his office to reach out to the DHS secretary to seek assistance in the vetting of state lists through computer matching and other techniques, in order to identify aliens who may be illegally registered to vote in federal elections, purge them from the rolls, and take appropriate follow-up enforcement action against them.

Go here to see the original:
DHS Belatedly Initiates Analysis of State Laws Granting Driver's Licenses and IDs to Illegal Aliens - Immigration Blog

Dont let them find out about Wall Street.

The City Councils Committee on Immigration is mulling a bill that would bar municipal government workers from using the terms alien, illegal alien or illegal immigrant in official documents.

I introduced this bill because words matter and the language we use or choose to use has power and consequences, said Councilman Francisco Moya (D-Queens) who first floated the proposal late last month in a Thursday committee hearing.

The legislation proposes the term noncitizen as an alternative.

This isnt about replacing one word with another, said Moya. It is about treating the individuals these terms describe as human beings.

Not everyone is on board, though, with Councilman Joe Borelli calling it political correctness run amok.

Here we are, its 2020 and were banning words, said Borelli (R-SI).

The push, however, actually comes on the heels of a city measure passed last year making it against the law to call someone an illegal alien or threaten to call immigration authorities on them when motivated by hate, under penalty of fines as high as $250,000.

Bitta Mostofi, commissioner of Mayor Bill de Blasios Office of Immigrant Affairs, at the hearing signaled support for banning the offensive and dehumanizing term alien.

Originally posted here:
City Council introduces bill to bar the term 'illegal alien' - New York Post

Giving driver's licenses to illegal aliens is nothing new. Typically, Democrat-controlled states, like California and New York, are the ones who dole them out like candy.

A Republican in Idaho is shaking things up. Sen. Jim Guthrie introduced legislation that would allow illegal aliens to "earn" driver's licenses. The illegal alien would still have to undergo the same driving requirements as American citizens. The only difference is that illegal aliens would have to renew their driver's licenses on an annual basis and couldn't be used for voting or purchasing alcohol, the Idaho State Journal reported.

The reason Guthrie decided to make the move? He believes this would help attract agricultural workers throughout the state.

We have undocumented aliens in the country, and thats a given, Guthrie told the State Journal. Until the federal government decides to address the illegal alien situation, (the proposed legislation) gives us the opportunity to maximize that workforce while theyre here, because theyre here anyway and driving anyway.

The state senator has heard issues from his constituents who are farmers and ranchers. Some farmers haven't had enough truck drivers to transport their harvest. Other farmers have been concerned about field workers driving to and from work without a license.

One of the responsibilities of the Legislature is to be responsive to the needs of constituents, and Im hearing a very considerable need for this from my constituents, Guthrie said. I genuinely think it will help agriculture, and Im getting a receptive ear on the issue.

The Idaho Dairymens Association has helped Guthrie on the proposal and is taking the lead to promote it.

I think its way beyond dairy and way beyond agriculture. I think it has impacts on all of society collectively, Idaho Dairymens Association Bob Naerebout said. Quite frankly, if you take the time to look at (the issue) you should be supportive. You should be supportive of the fact that if we have people driving on the roads, they should be properly educated and trained to drive. We want people on the roads who have insurance."

Guthrie plans to introduce the legislation later this month or in February.

This is a disaster.One of the many, many reasons I left California was because of illegal immigration and the detrimental impact it has on the economy. Not only do they drag wages down but they also take away jobs from American citizens.

I've had personal experience with illegal aliens benefiting from these types of laws. An illegal alien hit my mom. Her car was totaled. And guess what? The guy walked away scot-free, even though the accident was 100 percent his fault. He had bogus insurance. Some companies exist where people pay $50 a year to get a piece of paper saying they're insured. And that's exactly what this guy had.

Giving driver's licenses to illegal aliens does nothing but gives them yet another incentive to break the law and come to America.

It's disastrous policies like these that will make the gorgeous state I've called home the last 3.5 years into the nightmare that New York and California have become. Once we give these people driver's licenses then they're going to want more: health care, welfare, child care. You name it and they'll demand it.

Read more here:
A Republican In a Red State Introduced Legislation to Provide Illegal Aliens a New Benefit - Townhall