A group of Republican and Democrat governors is begging President Joe Biden to import more foreign visa workers to take American jobs, even as hundreds of thousands of Americans in their states remain jobless.
In a letter to Biden, Govs. Spencer Cox of Utah (R), Jared Polis of Colorado (D), Janet Mills of Maine (D), Larry Hogan of Maryland (R), Charlie Baker of Massachusetts (R), Phil Scott of Vermont (R), David Ige of Hawaii (D), and Lou Leon Guerrero of Guam (D) ask the Biden administration to import more foreign workers through the J-1, H-2A, and H-2B visa programs to fill agricultural and nonagricultural jobs. The governors wrote:
We recognize there are many causes of the labor shortage, including some that are outside our control. However, that fact only highlights the importance of the policy solutions we can control. One such solution is to increase the number of temporary foreign workers coming into the United States under a variety of exchange or worker visas.
This week, I joined some of my fellow governors from both parties to ask President Biden to help us increase work-based visas to address persistent labor shortages, especially in the seafood industry. pic.twitter.com/GCGCSQfoco
— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) January 13, 2022
Already, more than a million foreign visa workers are brought to the United States annually to fill blue-collar and white-collar jobs in the American economy that would otherwise go to Americans.
Though the governors claim unemployment in their states is at “extraordinarily low” numbers, hundreds of thousands of Americans across the seven states remain unemployed, though all want full-time jobs.
Massachusetts, alone, has more than 145,000 residents unemployed as of December 2021, while nearly 156,500 Maryland residents are unemployed. In Maine, nearly 32,000 residents are jobless, as well as more than 154,000 in Colorado, over 37,000 in Hawaii, nearly 32,000 in Utah, and nearly 8,000 in Vermont.
A flooded labor market from mass legal and illegal immigration to the U.S. has had a devastating impact on the nation’s working and middle class while redistributing wealth to the highest earners. Creating an economy that tilts in favor of employers, the economic model helped keep wages stagnant for decades.
One particular study by the Center for Immigration Studies’ Steven Camarota revealed that for every one percent increase in the immigrant portion of an American workers’ occupation, their weekly wages are cut by perhaps 0.5 percent. This means the average native-born American worker today has his weekly wages reduced by potentially 8.75 percent, since more than 17 percent of the workforce is foreign-born.