When candidate Donald Trump promised to drain the swamp, he had little idea how clogged it is with wayward Republicans. First, House Speaker Paul Ryan torpedoed President Trump on the Omnibus budget – no wall, no defunded sanctuary cities, and business as usual on refugee resettlement.
Ryan, President Trump may or may not know, enthusiastically supports refugee resettlement, and could have, but didn’t, scuttle it in previous Omnibus bills. Another clue that Ryan isn’t on board with President Trump’s immigration agenda – going back to his days as House Budget Committee chairman, Ryan worked closely but unsuccessfully with Democrats, including arch-enemy No. 1, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, to pass an amnesty.
While the budget failure disappointed most Republicans, D.C. insiders weren’t surprised – they know how entrenched the Republican globalist faction is. But the second broadside directed at President Trump came from Ryan’s fellow congressional Wisconsinite, Sen. Ron Johnson, and dismayed the establishment.
Last week, Johnson introduced the State Sponsored Visa Pilot Program Act of 2017 (SSVPP) that would allow individual states, or compacts of states, to apply for a 500,000 aggregate total of W guest worker visas which would be valid in any employment category. The SSVPP is unparalleled for its craven, anti-American worker provisions.
Each state plus the District of Columbia would receive 5,000 visas totaling 255,000 with the 245,000 balance to be distributed among the states based on their population. As outrageous as the 500,000 is, not included in the half million would be spouses and children who would also be work authorized. While allegedly temporary, the W visa would be indefinitely renewable, thus leading to 500,000 more workers each year with none of the prior visa recipients ever going home. The program has giveaways and loopholes like canceling final deportation orders and lax identification requirements. Fraud would be child’s play.
Johnson’s preposterous proposal to introduce more foreign labor into the U.S. market that has more than 12 million unemployed and under-employed Americans is a scandal. Since President Obama’s inauguration, the growing presence of employed legal and illegal immigrants, 4.5 million added from 2009 through August 2016, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, goes unacknowledged month after month in media reports.
A Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics report found that each month an average 64,000 employment authorization documents are issued to working-age immigrants. Assuming that the economy must create at least 150,000 jobs monthly to keep pace with natural population growth, the 64,000 added immigrant workers makes employment more elusive for Americans, especially hard-hit blacks, minorities, teenagers and adults without a college education.
Johnson’s thought process is impossible to fathom. President Trump campaigned on recasting immigration so that it benefits Americans – “Hire American” – a message that resonated so strongly that even Johnson’s deep blue Wisconsin got the message, although he apparently didn’t.
The mere mention of visas sets off an alarm bell. Each visa represents a lost job opportunity for an American, or worse, will put an American on the unemployment line. Instead of proposing that more unnecessary workers be imported, Johnson should get busy promoting the Senate’s mandatory E-Verify bill to protect American jobs. Johnson has plenty of obstructionist company. Of 52 Republican senators, none of them named Johnson, only 11 have co-sponsored the E-Verify bill.
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Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @joeguzzardi19.
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