Freedom from thought.

The establishment media has never been more hostile to our cause. Apathy and antipathy toward free speech is on the rise...from within the media itself.

But they haven't shut us down. In case you missed them, here are some recent commentaries about the new restrictions on guest worker programs worth reading and sharing.

Tom Broadwater in The Washington Times:

"Big Business lobbyists claim we need these guest workers because Americans won't do hard, dirty jobs like meatpacking or landscaping. That's nonsense. Consider that 62.5 percent of workers in the animal slaughtering and processing industry - a dirty job by anyone's standards - were born here in America. Only 37.5 percent were born abroad. In fact, there's not a single industry where foreign-born workers outnumber native-born ones, according to Brookings.

"The influx of foreign labor depresses Americans' wages, according to more than a dozen studies reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. And less-advantaged Americans, particularly minorities, suffer the biggest losses in earnings - since they compete most directly with foreigners."

Jessica Vaughan in Inside Sources:

"No doubt there are a variety of reasons for the underrepresentation of U.S. minorities in the tech industry. But it's not due to lack of qualified candidates....

"....Trump's proclamation addresses the one factor that the government can and should control, which is the flow of workers from abroad.

"Big Tech employers should be pressured to compete for qualified Black, Latino and female STEM grads the way the colleges competed for their enrollment.

"That won't happen as long as there is a constant stream of cheaper visa workers."

Ken Blackwell in American Thinker:

"To powerful interests like corporate lobbyists, immigration lawyers, the donor class, and some in Congress, the concept that available jobs in the United States should go to American citizens or legally present immigrants is distasteful.

"The visas that President Trump put on hold until the year's end - the H-1B, the H-2B, the J-1, and the L-1 - represent either a lost job that an American would do or a missed opportunity for a citizen to get a job because of the ready availability of cheaper foreign-born labor. President Trump's executive order means that regardless of an American worker's skill level, he'll have a better chance to get hired."

Lou Murray in the Boston Herald:

"As President Trump battles to create an immigration policy that puts American workers first, let's applaud changes to H-1B and hope for an end or a suspension of OPT. Route 128 may no longer be "America's Technology Highway," but there are many great American-born STEM students and entrepreneurs who would like the chance to repave all six lanes in gold."

Rachel Bovard in USA Today:

"Our legal immigration system is badly in need of substantive reform to ensure that visa programs, and the immigrants who benefit from them, are not exploited. But as millions of Americans struggle to find work, the measures announced by the White House will finally give them a fighting chance in industries where Americans are too often ignored and displaced."

The Hill's report on the Trump administration's guest worker pause certainly caught our eye (emphasis, mine):

"The order applies to H-1B visas, H-2B visas, H-4 visas, L-1 visas and certain J-1 visas. It is the latest effort by the Trump administration to satisfy immigration hawks and groups that argue American workers should be prioritized, especially amid the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic."

I'm not complaining about the description. In fact, I'd like for The Hill and other media outlets to bring this debate out into the open.

Which groups argue that American workers should not be prioritized?

Why do immigration "doves" (i.e. expansionists) believe immigration policy shouldn't prioritize them?

What is our responsibility to the millions of Americans who have lost jobs?

Alas, there appears to be little room for this debate within the establishment media, which is increasingly where opposing ideas go to die.

"Beginning on Friday, June 5th, a series of controversies rocked the media," writes journalist and media critic Matt Taibbi (Hate, Inc):

"By my count, at least eight news organizations dealt with internal uprisings (it was likely more). Most involved groups of reporters and staffers demanding the firing or reprimand of colleagues who'd made politically 'problematic' editorial or social media decisions."

The New York Times got rid of James Bennet, their editorial page editor, after he published an op-ed (not immigration-related) by Senator Tom Cotton that offended Times staff and readers. Staff took to social media and claimed their lives were endangered by the op-ed. At first Bennet defended his decision on the grounds that readers are well served by being exposed to the viewpoint of a sitting U.S. Senator, especially when those views are shared by the president and a majority of Americans. Roughly 24 hours later, Bennet had changed his tune, but his mea culpa wasn't enough to save his job.

Bennet's temporary replacement quickly issued a memo to staff directing them to contact her immediately if they saw "any piece of Opinion journalism, headlines, social posts, photos - you name it - that gives you the slightest pause."

News of this episode prompted Mickey Kaus to suggest a new slogan for The Times: "Nothing to give you the 'slightest pause'."

It's funny because it's true, but the ramifications are no laughing matter. Taibbi continues:

"All these episodes sent a signal to everyone in a business already shedding jobs at an extraordinary rate that failure to toe certain editorial lines can and will result in the loss of your job. Perhaps additionally, you could face a public shaming campaign in which you will be denounced as a racist and rendered unemployable."

It was just last summer that a leaked transcript of an internal Times townhall, which had been organized in response to a separate staff uprising, confirmed that it was the intention of the paper to cover immigration policy as a race issue. Executive editor Dean Baquet paid lip service to the importance of talking to "people who think immigration may cost them jobs" in the same breath that he decried "anti-immigrant conspiracies."

Given recent events, one gets the impression that the excerpt from The Hill that opens this update could get someone in serious trouble at The Times.

Faced with a threat to their own livelihoods, what incentive do journalists have to challenge the Times' narrative that immigration has only positive economic impacts by reporting, for example, that immigration policy redistributes roughly $500 billion from wage earners to the investor class every year?

As frustrating as the media's illiberal enforcement of a myopic view is to those of us working on these issues, the real victims are the people who are denied fair wages and opportunities by an immigration system that favors the wealthy over the worker. This affects Americans from many walks of life, but less-educated African Americans and Hispanics are disproportionately impacted. This is the story the media gatekeepers refuse to air.

On the last day of June, NPR's "1A" program (named after the 1st Amendment) publicly touted their decision not to talk to the Center for Immigration Studies for their episode on the guest worker restrictions. There would be no "immigration hawk" or group that argues for prioritizing American workers on NPR's panel. Jerry Kammer laments:

"If 1A had not been so blinded by its ideology, the program could have benefited from an interview with CIS fellow John Miano, a former computer programmer who became a lawyer because he wanted to represent American tech workers displaced by recipients of H-1B visas."

Jessica Vaughan would also have been a welcome addition to the program. She could have discussed her column about guest worker programs and black underrepresentation in the tech industry, an issue that "1A" didn't raise in the episode. Ironically, the "1A" host, Sasha-Ann Simons has expressed a longstanding concern about African Americans in tech. In the end, no one representing these groups or concerns got a seat at the table.

There is little wonder that more and more people are exploring new ways to get their news and engage with important questions, especially through the experience of long-form podcasts. Here is Matt Taibbi unravelling the twisted mess that journalism has become on the Joe Rogan podcast, which by some estimates gets over 200 million listens every month.

People are hungry for honest, substantive conversation about challenging issues. As always, we try to bring you the diamonds in the rough, so you can help elevate the voices - including your own - who contribute to a civil and honest debate about immigration policy.

Henry Olsen in The Washington Post:

"Trump cast his order as an attempt to help reduce high unemployment that has ensued from the covid-19 pandemic. Critics will cry foul, but he is certainly right about this. The headline unemployment rate is over 13 percent, which dramatically understates the true level because of errors in data collection and people dropping out of the labor force entirely. Youth and black unemployment rates are well above this level.

"Critics may claim that Trump's order bars visas for jobs that Americans can't fill, but in fact, companies are not required to show there is a labor shortage before hiring a foreign worker. All they must do is sign a statement that the immigrant will not displace a U.S. citizen for 90 days after their arrival. Stories abound of companies abusing this rule. In any case, it is surely political folly to bring foreigners in to work when so many Americans are out of work.

"In the short term, then, Democrats are caught between those who favor broadly expansive views of immigration -- especially among immigration advocacy groups and large businesses -- and the bulk of American voters. If I were the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, former vice president Joe Biden, I would not want to have to defend importing foreigners to work in the United States right now. A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll from late April found that 65 percent of Americans supported temporarily pausing immigration because of the covid-19 pandemic. This included 67 percent of independents, 61 percent of non-whites and even 49 percent of Democrats. A Pew Research Center poll from May found a similar response."

And, as is so often the case, Norm Matloff was there to clarify the record.

It was really good to see a labor union for workers in the construction and landscaping industries speak out in favor of the reforms in The Hill. Money quote:

"At LIUNA, where I serve as vice president and regional manager, we know this business. Our field organizers have reached out to thousands of landscaping companies offering qualified workers to fill seasonal jobs. Their response is all too often routine: H-2B visa holders are their go-to source of labor and undocumented workers come next. They will only consider documented non-visa holders or Americans as a last resort."

Roy Beck's thread on Twitter started with a quote from a June 24 editorial in The New York Times and launched into the history of the meat packing industry, economic and racial justice, cancel culture, and the fate of a middle class nation:

"A more equitable society requires a willingness to pay a little more for the burger or the bicycle -- and for the welfare of the Americans who make and sell those products." Americans are willing.

"In the nation's slaughterhouses, the average worker in 1982 made $24 an hour in inflation-adjusted dollars, or $50,000 a year. Today the average meatpacker processes significantly more meat -- and makes less than $14 an hour." IOW, no job Americans won't do if offered decent wage.

The tight labor market of the mid-20th century led to a healthy competition for workers, better conditions, higher wages, unionization, and increased opportunity for all Americans.

We began to think of ourselves as a middle class nation and cultivated a heightened awareness of persistent inequities elsewhere in American life, culminating in the Civil Rights Movement.

We overwhelmingly supported striking national-origin quotas from immigration policy. The Johnson admin and legislators complied, while assuring the public that reform would not increase overall numbers which would tilt the labor balance heavily against workers.

Over the next 30 years, immigration numbers quadrupled and have remained at record levels ever since. Unions, wages, working conditions, and opportunities declined, especially for descendants of slaves and recent immigrants. Economic inequality expanded across the board.

Elite consensus today: mass immigration is itself a social justice issue; those who acknowledge that it redistributes nearly $500B from wage earners to the investment class must be shunned, shamed, or cancelled. If this view prevails we will never be a middle class nation again.

Thank you for keeping the conversation going.