Senator Jeff Sessions on immigration

Senator Jeff Sessions wrote in Washington Post on April 9, 2015:

What we need now is immigration moderation: slowing the pace of new arrivals so that wages can rise, welfare rolls can shrink and the forces of assimilation can knit us all more closely together.

But high immigration rates help the financial elite (and the political elite who receive their contributions) by keeping wages down and profits up. For them, what’s not to like? That is why they have tried to enforce silence in the face of public desire for immigration reductions. They have sought to intimidate good and decent Americans into avoiding honest discussion of how uncontrolled immigration impacts their lives.

Senator Sessions published a “Immigration Handbook for the New Republican Majority” in January, 2015.

The last large-scale flow of legal immigration (from approximately 1880–1920) was followed by a sustained slowdown that allowed wages to rise, assimilation to occur, and the middle class to emerge. (page 3) The labor market tightened substantially as a result of policy changes, boosting wages for both the native-born and the millions of immigrants who had arrived previously—helping the great American middle class to emerge. (page 10)

The GOP should focus on discrete, targeted enforcement measures designed to have an outsize effect on reducing illegality, empowering immigration officers, restoring enforcement, and putting a stop to catch-and-release.

 Mandatory E-Verify to protect American jobs and wages
 Ending tax credit and welfare payments to illegal immigrants
 Closing asylum and refugee loopholes
 Cancelling federal funds to sanctuary cities
 Empowering local officials to coordinate with ICE officers
 Establishing criminal penalties for visa overstays
 Ending catch-and-release on the border with mandatory detention and expedited deportations
 Suspension of visas to countries with high overstay rates or those that won’t repatriate criminal aliens
 Mandating completion of the exit-entry system (page 8)

Here are the findings from a poll of likely U.S. voters commissioned by GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway:

 77% of respondents said jobs should go to current U.S.-born workers or legal immigrants already in the country—instead of bringing in new workers to fill those jobs
 Three in four respondents wished to see substantial immigration cuts. (page 16)

Every Member of Congress should read the incredibly important USA Today op-ed penned by five of the nation’s most esteemed academics who specialize in labor markets and guest workers. Excerpts from the op-ed follow:

“Legislation that expanded visas for IT personnel during the 1990s has kept average wages flat over the past 16 years. Indeed, guest workers have become the predominant source of new hires in these fields. Those supporting even greater expansion seem to have forgotten about the hundreds of thousands of American high-tech workers who are being shortchanged — by wages stuck at 1998 levels, by diminished career prospects and by repeated rounds of layoffs.” “Bill Gates’ Tech Worker Fantasy,” July 27, 2014.

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