2013-09-11

In a truly scandalous report, the Washington Examiner has found that many corporations calling for essentially unlimited Hispanic immigration and amnesty for all currently illegal residents of this country (citing the need for more and better workers), have laid off tens of thousands of Americans over the past few years.  I have always maintained that mass immigration tends to hurt lowest income Americans, and those with the least skills, the most. But then I guess we have trillions of dollars in federal spending/wealth transfers to deal with that, don’t we!  Including 90+% of Catholic Charities operating budget, which comes straight from Uncle Sam!:

On Tuesday, the chief human resources officers of more than 100 large corporations sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urging quick passage of a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

The officials represent companies with a vast array of business interests: General Electric, The Walt Disney Company, Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, McDonald’s Corporation, The Wendy’s Company, Coca-Cola, The Cheesecake Factory, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon Communications, Hewlett-Packard, General Mills, and many more. All want to see increases in immigration levels for low-skill as well as high-skill workers, in addition to a path to citizenship for the millions of immigrants currently in the U.S. illegally.

A new immigration law, the corporate officers say, “would be a long overdue step toward aligning our nation’s immigration policies with its workforce needs at all skill levels to ensure U.S. global competitiveness.” The officials cite a publication of their trade group, the HR Policy Association, which calls for immigration reform to “address the reality that there is a global war for talent.” The way for the United States to win that war for talent, they say, is more immigration.

Of course, the U.S. unemployment rate is at 7.3 percent, with millions of American workers at all skill levels out of work, and millions more so discouraged that they have left the work force altogether. In addition, at the same time the corporate officers seek higher numbers of immigrants, both low-skill and high-skill, many of their companies are laying off thousands of workers.

For example, Hewlett-Packard, whose Executive Vice President for Human Resources Tracy Keogh signed the letter, laid off 29,000 employees in 2012. In August of this year, Cisco Systems, whose Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Kathleen Weslock signed the letter, announced plans to lay off 4,000 — in addition to 8,000 cut in the last two years. United Technologies, whose Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Organization Elizabeth B. Amato signed the letter, announced layoffs of 3,000 this year. American Express, whose Chief Human Resources Officer L. Kevin Cox signed the letter, cut 5,400 jobs this year. Procter & Gamble, whose Chief Human Resources Officer Mark F. Biegger signed the letter, announced plans to cut 5,700 jobs in 2012.

Those are just a few of the layoffs at companies whose officials signed the letter.

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So, here’s the deal: American corporations desire unlimited immigration in order to drive down the salaries they have to pay to American workers, thus making the corporations perhaps a little more competitive, but leaving millions of Americans with the unfortunate side effect of being unable to survive on their incomes. This has always been one of the biggest complaints regarding the USCCB’s unlimited immigration/amnesty policy: it hurts the Americans least equipped to compete, those already often quite poor, the most.

What I sense in the whole immigration debate is that those pushing the hardest for amnesty and essentially unlimited Hispanic immigration all have huge self-interest at stake, that it’s not really about charitable concern for the less fortunate.  I remain sadly convinced that the USCCB would not be making their full-court press for amnesty if these immigrants were of a nominally different religion. But all nations bear responsibility to care for their own citizens first, and policies that can be foreseen to have hugely negative impacts on current American citizens should not be pursued, or should be done so in a very prudent, exploratory manner.  We should not see millions of presently law-breakign individuals converted into citizens overnight.  To do so is not prudent, it is uncharitable to millions of Americans, and it is unjust with respect to the rule of law and all those who have waited years to enter the US legally.

 

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