Rep. Steve King: Immigration Enforcement A Boon To American Workers

“So when the federal government has been engaged in enforcement, the boon to American workers has been obvious,” says Congressman Steve King.

The federal government can quickly find jobs for millions of jobless Americans through immigration enforcement, says Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who also serves as the Ranking Member of the House Immigration Subcommittee: “You don’t have to look any further then when ICE conducted worksite enforcement to see the effects.”

Here are his prepared remarks for the recent Congressional Forum “American Jobs in Peril: The Impact of uncontrolled Immigration:”

The last time the Democrats on this committee held a forum on immigration’s impact on American workers was May, 2007. The unemployment rate then was 4.5%. In the ensuing two and a half years, the unemployment rate has skyrocketed into double-digits and is now 10.2%. But the Democrats have not had one committee hearing on this vital subject. Today, House Republicans will rectify this neglect.

It’s our duty as members of Congress to debate policy. We’re to make laws and address the concerns of the American people. Protecting jobs and economic opportunity for Americans is one of the most important topics Congress can discuss. A comprehensive immigration reform bill like the one being drafted by the Senate, the Obama administration and the open-borders lobby will not protect American jobs or the aspirations of so many Americans to better their lives. Importing millions of poorly educated foreign workers will hurt our country and hinder our economic recovery.

Americans are conditioned to believe that such immigrants are necessary to our economy because they take jobs Americans will not do. The reality is that employers hire desperate aliens who work for much less than Americans, driving wages down making it impossible for American workers to compete.

Even Alexander Aleinikoff who was on Obama’s immigration transition team and is now the Dean of the Georgetown University Law Center has stated that it is a myth to say that there is little to no competition between illegal alien workers and American workers.

What about the claims that there are jobs Americans won’t do? That claim is a slap in the face to millions of U.S. workers who go to work every day, working those very same jobs side by side. In fact, even in agriculture, the majority of workers are native born Americans even in the occupations with the highest percentage of illegal laborers. Seventy-nine percent of all service workers are native born. And according to the Department of Labor, the current unemployment rate for persons without a high school diploma is 15.5%. their underemployment rate is a staggering 32.8%.

Americans are willing to work any job. The hottest, dirtiest and most dangerous job in the world is rooting terrorists out of places like Fallujah, Iraq, Afghanistan, and our marine corps is out there doing it for about $8.09 an hour. And we’re being told there are jobs Americans won’t do.

There are about 69 million Americans who are not in the workforce. And at last estimate, there were about 7.8 million working illegal immigrants. We could get 1 in every 10 Americans who are not working a job if all of a sudden we woke up in a place where everyone was legal.

Some say enforcement hasn’t worked, so our only option is to amnesty millions of illegal immigrants. But enforcement has never been given a chance because no administration has taken it seriously enough. I can attest to that because when the amnesty bill was passed in 1986, I made certain that we had I-9 documents in our files for all applicants so that I could withstand a federal review or investigation. Of course it’s never happened, and just now, ICE released a statement that they’re going to do random audits of I-9 files.

So when the federal government has been engaged in enforcement, the boon to American workers has been obvious. You don’t have to look any further then when ICE conducted worksite enforcement to see the effects. After enforcement action at Georgia’s Crider Incorporated, the company lost over 600 illegal workers. But Crider increased wages by more than a dollar an hour and within days hired 1/3 of the missing workforce back and they continue to fill positions with legal workers.

Just three weeks after worksite enforcement efforts at Michael Bianco Incorporated in New Bedford, Massachusetts, 400 legal workers applied to fill 361 positions that were opened up by law enforcement. The companies were forced to raise wages and recruit local workers, many of whom had a difficult time finding jobs.

The American dream means you are the driver of your own destiny and you can work hard and smart to be successful. But you can’t work hard and smart enough towards a dream if the job is taken by someone willing to work for lower wages or lower benefits and then have an entire occupation depressed by illegal immigration.

Our focus should be on creating an immigration policy that puts the interest of Americans first instead of the interests of citizens from foreign countries and to enhance the economic, social and cultural well being of Americans.