American Employment’s Biggest Enemy: Legal Immigration

By Joe Guzzardi
December 9, 2010

Californians for Population Stabilization recently began an advertising campaign to draw attention to how legal immigration undermines American workers.

The nonpartisan, non-profit Santa Barbara-based organization that works to stabilize California’s population, focuses its message on the destructive nature of federal immigration policy especially as it pertains to jobs. Currently, the United States accepts more than one million new immigrants annually even though the U.S. 9.8 percent unemployment rate is at its highest level in decades. The majority of the new arrivals are prospective employees.

California, with its unemployment rate above 12 percent, is particularly hard hit. More legal immigrants settle in California than any other state.

For several decades, illegal immigration has been the target of restrictionists. But even some of illegal immigration’s most vocal critics also support higher levels of legal immigration. Favoring more legal immigration or supporting its current one million rate is uninformed.

The driving engine behind unsustainable legal immigration is myriad visas for every conceivable category of visitor, worker or student. Most of these visas could be eliminated. The terms of those few visas that may legitimately be considered essential should be strictly enforced to ensure that the visa holder returns home when his term expires.

An excellent place to start to reduce legal immigration would be to end the practice of status adjustment. Under what is known as AOS, foreign nationals already in the U.S. (likely as holders of a non-immigrant visa) can apply for lawful permanent residence status with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services assuming he has a petitioner and meets the qualifications of a green card holder. To have his status adjusted, he does not have to leave the United States.

This scandalous procedure allows the applicant to maintain valid status while his application is being processed, however long that might take. If denied AOS, an appeal can be filed.

Under the worst of the AOS provisions, while an application is pending, an employment authorization document can also be filed. In other words, the AOS candidate can work while he waits.

Over the last decade, more than 5 million non-immigrant visas have been issued to foreign-born nationals who adjusted their status after arriving in America. Most remain in the country indefinitely, possibly for the rest of their lives, and many of them take jobs away from American citizens.

To lessen legal immigration, eliminating AOS is step one. But, as CAPS points out, the job market for Americans is so depressed that additional action must be taken.

First among the objectives is to stop issuing new categories of visas since they are immediately exploited. Second, existing visas that have a long history of fraud associated with them like the “R” (religious) and K-1 (fiancée) should be eliminated.

Although creating more jobs for Americans is the top priority in curtailing legal immigration, other dire consequences evolve if it isn’t controlled.

The 5 million who adjusted their status will have spouses and minor children join them and eventually, through another legal maneuver known as chain migration, bring brothers, sisters and other relatives to America.

The collective effect of increasing levels of legal immigration puts additional strain on America’s infrastructure, social services and creates more sprawl and reduces the quality of life for everyone.

With no end in sight to more foreign-born potential workers, the federal government must strictly limit legal immigration to give struggling American workers a fair opportunity at full employment.

Joe Guzzardi has written editorial columns—mostly about immigration and related social issues – since 1990. He is a senior writing fellow for Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) and his columns have frequently been syndicated in various U.S. newspapers and websites. He can be reached at [email protected].