November 29, 2024

Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.

Will 2025 Put an End to the Disastrous Open Borders and Cheap Foreign Labor Experiment?

By Manzanita Miller

It has been six decades since the Immigration Act of 1965 vastly opened up the ability to import cheap foreign labor at the expense of American workers, and it has been four years of the Biden Administration’s disastrous open borders experiment.

With the election of President Donald J. Trump, the American people are fiercely rejecting the destructive open borders mandate and beginning to rethink cheap foreign labor as a viable economic strategy.

President Trump has promised to begin deporting millions of illegal immigrants on his first day back in office, and the American people are largely supportive of this plan to defend taxpayers and force businesses to pay citizens a livable wage instead of relying on cheap foreign labor.

Deportation is no longer a dirty word, and the public has largely accepted the deportation concept over the past four years in response to record-high illegal immigrant border crossings under the Biden Administration.

A new CBS News/YouGov poll finds that Americans support a national program to deport all illegals by a fourteen point margin, 57 percent to 43 percent. This includes a broad coalition of the electorate, with moderates supporting the deportation of all illegals by sixteen points, 58 percent to 42 percent, and independents supporting the move by twelve points, 56 percent to 44 percent.

The largest share of Americans – 45 percent – say deporting illegal immigrants should be a top priority for the incoming Trump administration, while just 27 percent say deporting illegals should not be a priority at all, and 28 percent say deportation should be a medium priority.

Moderates are highly motivated to deport illegals, with moderates saying by a fifteen-point margin – 39 percent to 24 percent – that deporting illegals should be a priority for the incoming Trump Administration. Independents agree, with independents saying by sixteen points – 42 percent to 26 percent – that deporting illegals should be a top priority. Hispanics say by seven points – 38 percent to 31 percent – that deporting illegals should be a top priority as well. 

Partisanship is certainly a factor, but support for deportation is increasing across traditional party lines, with one in five Democrats saying deportation should be a top priority for the incoming Trump Administration. Although a majority of Democrats – 49 percent – say deportation should not be a priority at all, 20 percent say deportation should be a top priority, and 31 percent admit it should be a medium priority. 

When asked directly if Trump were to begin deporting illegals whether he should use federal immigration and border patrol agencies to do so, Americans support the move 82 percent to eighteen percent, according to the CBS News/YouGov survey.

The American people are also increasingly critical of a broader immigration policy that has encouraged the flow of cheap labor into the country and undermined economic opportunities for the middle class.

Americans’ desire to curb immigration is on the rise, with the share of Americans saying they want immigration decreased (41%), far exceeding the share who want immigration increased (26%).     

In Washington speak, we are a nation of immigrants and if it is legal, immigration is unquestionably a net positive. The history of the U.S. is – obviously – one of immigration, but policies must change to adapt to modern realities, and the cheap labor movement has put millions of Americans out of work.

Cheap foreign labor directly competes with job-seeking Americans, and those at the highest risk of displacement are working class individuals without a college education.

According to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the share of working-age men born in the U.S. who are in the labor force was lower in 2000 than in 1960 and in all states except for one, that number fell further from 2000 to 2023.

CIS reports that U.S. born men have been taken out of the labor force in nearly every state. In 1960, 44 out of 50 states had healthy labor participation rates above 85%, but that number has declined to just five states in 2023.

The number of U.S.-born men without jobs has increased by 13.8 million individuals from 1960 to 2023, and the number of immigrant men in the labor force has risen by nearly the exact same number, 13.7 million. We have a growing population of Americans who have been displaced due to cheap foreign labor, causing a host of ramifications we have barely begun to understand.

Americans for Limited Government has long recognized the threat of cheap foreign labor and was instrumental in reminding Trump White House staffers that the President ran against outsourcing white-collar jobs through certain visas in his first administration.

That fight was a success, but politicians must be reminded at every turn that their obligation is to American citizens. There is strong consensus on the right that illegal immigration is an issue that needs to be solved in the next administration. However, our critique of the modern immigration system must go beyond solving the Biden border crisis and look fundamentally at an America First immigration policy.

Manzanita Miller is the senior political analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/11/will-2025-put-an-end-to-the-disastrous-open-borders-and-cheap-foreign-labor-experiment/

Kids Online Safety Act Will Result In Censorship

Nov. 27, 2024, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging the U.S. House to reject renewed efforts to pass the Kids Online Safety Act in the lame duck session:

“The misnamed Kids Online Safety Act allows civil actions by states and/or the Federal Trade Commission against any website or application that ‘predominantly provides a community forum for user-generated content’. Specific to states, it says, ‘In any case in which the attorney general of a State has reason to believe that a covered platform has violated or is violating section 103, 104, or 105, the State, as parens patriae, may bring a civil action on behalf of the residents of the State in a district court of the United States or a State court of appropriate jurisdiction…’

“It is not hard to imagine a far-left, California attorney general utilizing this power to prohibit access to, for example, Christian religious content including the Bible to minors under the guise of protecting them from truths that are unacceptable their gender-bending doxology. Ultimately, Silicon Valley, California-based companies will have significantly more liability in California courts, resulting in default bias against conservative thought and speech on these platforms under the guise of combating misinformation.

“The granting of national authority to the FTC requires a legislator to put blinders on regarding the unconstitutional, already expanded power of that agency under the Biden administration.

“The KOSA sounds like something everyone can get behind. Unfortunately, the devil is in the details, and those details demand that it be rejected as a Congressional approval for broad-based censorship of the internet. The First Amendment says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech and of the press. By authorizing the FTC to censor speech, it makes one ask what part of ‘Congress shall make no law’ do members not understand.”

To view online: https://getliberty.org/2024/11/kids-online-safety-act-will-result-in-censorship/