New W Visa in Immigration Bill to ADd Millions of Low-Skilled Workers

By Joe Guzzardi
May 7, 2013

For readers keeping score on what the Gang of Eight promised would be included in its Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act versus what the legislation delivered, here are the results.

The Gang assured Americans that S. 744 would shut down the border, boost the economy and cost taxpayers next to nothing. But as the Judiciary Committee prepares this week to mark up S. 744, the Gang stands exposed as shameless liars.

First, no security “triggers” exist. The triggers were a provision Senator Marco Rubio insisted would be in place before illegal immigrants were granted legal status. Instead, aliens will be instantly legalized with only vague references to upgraded security.

Second, instead of providing an economic boom, S.744 would drive another nail in the rapidly vanishing American middle class’ coffin. During S. 744’s first decade, 33 million new green card holders will enter the labor force, further depress the already stagnant wage structure and put 22 million unemployed or under-employed Americans at greater risk.

Third, the Heritage Foundation reported that legalizing illegal immigrants would cost American taxpayers a net $6.3 trillion over the next fifty years. Heritage based its findings on Census Bureau data which reflects that many illegal immigrants don’t have a high school diploma and more than a third of illegal immigrant-headed households live below the poverty line and therefore consume more in services than they pay in taxes.

According to Robert Rector, the report’s lead author, during an illegal alien’s lifetime, each household would receive more $592,000 more in government benefits including Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance and workers compensation than in tax revenue generated. Rector and co-author Jason Richwine wrote that $592,000 “should be considered a minimum estimate” and added that no matter how the numbers are crunched, amnesty “will add a tremendous amount of pressure on America's already strained public purse.”

But the Gang’s legislation has more bad news. Not only will the existing 11 million illegal aliens automatically become legal residents, young aliens and agriculture workers would be put on an accelerated path to citizenship.

As contentious as those issues are, S. 744 also introduces a new “W” visa for low-skilled employees that will set off even more furious debates about the bill’s anti-American worker bias. If passed, S.744 would allow employers to import tens of thousands more dishwashers, chamber maids, nursing home care givers—jobs immigration advocates falsely insist Americans won’t do.

But Census Bureau data from 2009 through 2011 confirms that Americans will do any job. A Center for Immigration Studies study titled Are There Really Jobs Americans Won’t Do? found that of 472 civilian occupations, only six have majority legal and illegal immigrant employment. Those six represent less than 1 percent of the total U.S. workforce. There are no occupations in which the majority staff is illegal immigrants.

The W visa would most jeopardize Americans in the following professions, many of which don’t require a high school education: janitors (73 percent, American-born); porters, bellhops and concierges (72 percent American-born) construction workers (66 percent American-born) and butchers (63 percent American-born).

In short, S.744 is Beltway-driven, written by and intended to benefit elitists like the Chamber of Commerce, K. Street lobbyists, immigration lawyers, the agriculture industry and ethnic identity congressmen.

S. 744, an 867-page legislative monstrosity, hurts the average American and diminishes his chances of upward mobility. But if you’re looking for a silver lining, the lack of border security, growing wage disparity, millions of “W” workers and the bill’s staggering cost will make S.744 much tougher to pass than its supporters predicted weeks ago.

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Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow whose columns have been syndicated since 1986. Contact him at [email protected]