Republican Sen. [crscore]Jeff Sessions[/crscore] and Republican Rep. [crscore]Dave Brat[/crscore] reiterated a call for the U.S. to moderate the pace of legal immigration for the sake of current residents, pointing to a Pew Research projection that new immigrants and their children will add a population to the U.S. five times the size of Los Angeles in the next 50 years.
“It is not caring, but callous, to bring in so many workers that there are not enough jobs for them or those already living here,” Sessions and Brat wrote in Roll Call Monday. “It is not mainstream, but extreme, to continue surging immigration beyond all historical precedent. And it is not rational, but radical, to refuse to recognize limits.”
Sessions and Brat describe in detail the surge in legal and illegal immigration over the past 50 years and its apparently negative affect on U.S. wages. They referred to these facts and their implication for U.S. workers and communities as “the forbidden conversation.” (RELATED: 1965 Immigration Law Exploded Foreign-Born Population)
“Pew Research Projects that new immigrants and their children will add another 103 million residents to the U.S. over the next five decades,” they wrote. “That’s the population equivalent of 25 cities of Los Angeles. Did any American vote for this extreme and untested policy?”
Since 1970, the foreign-born population has increased by more than 325 percent, while wages and share of income have fallen. Wages remain flat and record numbers of Americans are not in the workforce. In September, nearly 40 percent of people in the U.S. ages 16 and older were not employed or looking for work. (RELATED: Wages Declined As Immigration Surged)
By 2023 the foreign-born population will exceed 51 million — the largest share of total population ever recorded in American history — the Census Bureau recently projected. And nearly one in five U.S. residents will be an immigrant by 2060. (RELATED: Future Immigrants Will Dominate U.S. Population Growth)
If federal law is not changed, the U.S. is on track to issue 10 million green cards over the next decade — a massive new permanent resident bloc larger than the combined populations of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
“If we allow our immigration system to replicate in America the same failed conditions which people have left, we are hurting the country and any who would seek to enter it in the future,” Sessions and Brat wrote. “For that reason, we should only admit as many new arrivals as we can reasonably expect to absorb into our schools, labor markets and communities.” (RELATED: NYT, Brookings Unwittingly Show How Immigration Affects Wages)
“We must never admit so large a number that the immigrants themselves are unlikely to enter the middle class or achieve stable incomes,” they continued. “And we have to recognize that there are record millions already living inside our borders in desperate need of a job.” (RELATED: Once Again Foreign-Born Jobs Are UP, U.S.-Born Jobs Down)
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