LA Riots: Opposition to a legal workforce turns violent

The Trump administration is ramping up immigration enforcement in the workplace, and people are rioting in the streets. ICE is reporting a record number of arrests in a single day (2,300). Detention facilities are running out of space. The fate of immigration enforcement after the worst border crisis in history is now in the hands of the Senate, which is considering the “One Big Beautiful” Reconciliation bill, including $150 Billion in immigration funding.

The enforcement funding passed the House by a single vote. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says the Democrats are united in opposition. Majority Leader John Thune is working within a slim 3-vote margin of error.

Illegal hiring has become so rampant that some now consider illegal work a right

If these protests were flying flags that said “Mandatory E-Verify Now,” they might have a point worth considering. These riots (which are getting increasingly violent) aren’t about securing a more efficient means of securing the workplace, however; their aim is to keep the rewards for illegal immigration flowing.

Enforcement funding is money well spent; there is a high cost to cheap labor

Illegal immigration and its costs are, by nature, difficult to precisely calculate, but there is no avoiding the fact that illegal immigration exacts a steep fiscal drain, especially on state and local governments and taxpayers. The Biden-era border crisis increased the illegal population by roughly six million people (some estimates put the numbers even higher).

The Center For Immigration Studies estimates a net fiscal drain of $68 thousand per person over their lifetime. The Manhattan Institute estimates a $1.1 TRILLION lifetime cost of the border surge. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates illegal immigration to cost taxpayers $150 BILLION annually.

The “One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” by comparison, would invest $150 BILLION in enforcement over four years. That funding will enable the government to increase interior enforcement, including in the workplace.

The workplace is the obvious place to enforce immigration laws

The worksite is the obvious place to start reversing the border crisis. People will choose to remain in the country illegally as long as they are rewarded for doing so, and the biggest reward for violating immigration laws is a job.

White House border czar Thomas D. Homan promises to “flood the zone” with “more work site enforcement than you’ve ever seen in the history of this nation.” If word gets around that your place of illegal employment could be raided any day now, most people will weigh the costs and the benefits of remaining illegally and choose to go home on their own. That is the only way to undo the border crisis. Even if the Trump Administration managed to repeat their daily record for arrests every day for the rest of Trump’s term, it would only resolve half of the border crisis. Passing the immigration enforcement funding in the budget Reconciliation bill is necessary to maintain a meaningful level of enforcement.

Worksite enforcement protects law-abiding businesses and laborers

If you take the illegal jobs away, you are also depriving cartels and coyotes of the business model they use to entice people from all over the world to put their lives and treasure into the hands of human smugglers.

Worksite enforcement opens up new opportunities to the millions of Americans who are working but unable to fully support themselves.

Worksite enforcement opens up economic opportunity to sidelined American workers. The number of prime-working-age American men who aren’t working has been at or near record highs. Nearly 30 percent of non-college workers do not have jobs. According to Steven Camarota at the Center for Immigration Studies, if Americans were working at the labor force participation rate of the year 2000, FOUR MILLION more men would be working today!

Riots taking place as most Americans show support for enforcement

CBS polling from just before the LA riots show that a majority of Americans support the Trump Administration’s efforts to remove people who are in the country illegally; efforts that are dependent on the immigration funding in the Reconciliation bill now under consideration by the Senate.