One hundred years ago, immigration slowed down and wages went up, for all Americans. The middle class opened up for all Americans. There was no single man or woman responsible for the change. There was no incumbent leading a solitary crusade. There was no savior waiting in the political wings. The change happened because a coalition of all Americans demanded it. The person you are waiting for is you.

I’m Jeremy Beck with Andre Barnes. Welcome to the Hiring Line Newsletter!

Ronald F. Ferguson

Three bad ideas: the political class strikes out

#1 Amnesty for Half a Million: Early this week, President Biden declared through executive action that illegal aliens who have avoided deportation for ten years, and are married to a U.S. citizen, shall be awarded with green cards.

Biden’s amnesty sets a horrible precedent. During his term, two-and-a-half million people have overstayed a visa, escaped detection at the border, or been released into the country every year despite being inadmissible. We’ve been alerting you when to call the White House. In the meantime, register your opposition to Congress.

#2 Expanding H-2 Visas: The DHS spending bill moving through the House of Representatives includes two expansions of blue-collar visa programs known to displace American workers with cheaper, exploitable guest workers. Congress would double H-2B (non-agricultural) visas from 66,000 to 132,000, and expand the unlimited H-2A (agricultural) program to non-seasonal jobs.

The expansions have nothing to do with homeland security. Congress is demonstrating a profound indifference to striving Americans during record inflation and economic uncertainty. Express your opposition here.

#3 Stapling Green Cards to Diplomas: Late this week, President Trump told a Silicon Valley podcast that if he is elected, he will grant green cards to every foreign student who graduates from a two or four year college or university, “and that includes junior colleges, too.” Roughly 700,000 foreign students graduate from U.S. colleges and universities every year, and the number has been climbing. Trump’s proposal would increase immigration by 70 percent!

Trump’s proposal would transform universities into visa mills whose business model would be selling not education but green cards. American students would face higher tuition and fewer slots as the American higher education system transforms itself into a global marketplace for U.S. citizenship. Instead, Congress should be ending policies like the Optional Practical Training Program that gives employers discounts for hiring foreign grads over Americans. Send a message now.

July 1: The “most important date in American history you’ve never heard of.”

We are writing this between national observances of emancipation and independence. Roy Beck, NumbersUSA’s founder and author of Back of the Hiring Line, is working on a new publication about the immigration restrictions that enabled the economic emancipation and independence of millions of Americans, transforming the country in the process. Here’s a sneak preview:

“July 1, 1924, may be the most important date in American history you’ve never heard of.

“Federal bureaucrats on that Tuesday began implementing the new permanent law that reactivated the promises of the Civil War Emancipation of the 1860s. Those promises of social, economic, and political freedom for Black Americans had been broken and largely abandoned since 1876.

“The Immigration Act of 1924 came to the rescue by doing one simple thing:

“It made it more difficult – over the decades – for employers to import foreign workers instead of recruiting Black U.S. citizens.”

During the 41 years between 1924 and 1965 that immigration averaged less than 200,000/year (compare that to the bad ideas above), economists and historians agree:

1. the United States became a middle-class country;
2. the sustained tighter labor markets were instrumental in the fastest income growth for workers in U.S. history;
3. inequality among classes and races shrank as workers shared in the fruits of their labor as never before;
4. the increased incomes nurtured the rise of a new class of Black professionals who opened the political gates for the passage of the civil rights acts of the 1960s.

Andre’s oped in the Houston Chronicle details how Congress reversed course in the 1960s and set off another era of moving Black Americans to the back of the hiring lines.

Our post on the Immigration Act of 1924 centenary is updated with dozens of support materials that you can read, listen, and watch. Lower immigration numbers would kick start a new middle class renaissance. As Andre says “we have a prescription” for what ails us.

“Reducing immigration, just as Congress did a century ago, would give Black families a fair shot at the American dream.”

Better immigration is possible.

Boston Crowd Listening to Andre

From Andre: My MA Media Blitz as the Border Comes to Boston

If you have not been paying attention, I am here to warn you that there is enthusiasm building for activism around mass immigration in Massachusetts. Gil Scott Herring said, “the revolution would not be televised”, so I am giving you an update about what I experienced in the great city of Boston! People of all races, classes, and creeds are all coming together to push back against mass immigration policy. Mass immigration stories were in the news, activists gave me updates, and community members expressed their concerns. Boston is ripe for activism. Read more here.

Talk Shop Live: Immigration and the Black Community

Andre is just returning from Chicago, where he participated in a live recording of Talk Shop Live with Theo Wilson. The setting was appropriate as Chicago has been dealing with tens of thousands of migrants who have arrived from the border since 2022. Andre also discussed the lost services and parks; as well as the poor working conditions, modern slavery, exploitation, and worker displacement on the David Webb show.

In Chicago, Andre says, they have “shut down schools; given up on whole communities; but then reopen the school to put in illegals.”

“We have every right to assert our boundaries,” Wilson says. “You have a right to be angry. You have a right. Anger is justified. God gave us anger. You have a right. Direct it properly.”

Calls to Action here.

Let’s talk about it,