Stop the presses: lots of illegal aliens who aren’t legally allowed to work in the U.S. are now – brace yourself – not working in the U.S. If irony could collect a paycheck, it’d be earning overtime.
Census Bureau data analyzed by Pew Research Center and reported by the Associated Press [1] shows over 1.2 million immigrants (combined number of illegal and legal immigrants) have vanished from the U.S. labor force since January, and the media is mourning like it’s a national tragedy.
One illegal alien who spoke anonymously to the AP talks about how anxious everyone is about getting deported. She said, “The worry is they’ll pull you over when you’re driving and ask for your papers. We need to work. We need to feed our families and pay our rent.”
How many issues do we have here to unpack? We have illegal aliens who shouldn’t be in the country; employers who shouldn’t be hiring them; and illegal aliens who shouldn’t be in homes and apartments and “renting” places that are needed for Americans.
But leftist outlets like the AP (and employers who are short staffed) are busy spinning sympathy pieces about foreigners who have no business being in the United States in the first place.
To make their case, they lean on statistics that highlight just how deeply immigrant labor has embedded itself in key industries. The AP reports that immigrants make up almost 20% of the U.S. workforce – with 45% of them working in farming, fishing and forestry; 30% in construction and 24% in the service industry.
This reality has finally caught the attention of the feds now that President Trump is in charge. To help save even more American jobs, the Department of Justice is stepping in to remind employers not to discriminate against American workers by favoring foreign hires. The DOJ has a hotline [2] for tips on companies that deliberately sideline Americans to bring in cheaper labor.
The sob stories we are hearing about “labor shortages” miss one glaring detail – most of those jobs were never supposed to be filled by illegal workers to begin with. For decades, businesses have relied on a shadow workforce instead of investing in American workers. They broke the law, raked in profits, and now they want sympathy because they can’t replace their under-the-table army overnight.
America doesn’t have a labor shortage. We have a shortage of companies who are willing to hire Americans because they have cheaper options. Enforcing immigration law might cause some short- term pain for businesses that built their empires on loopholes and illegality, but long term? It’s called restoring the rule of law. Maybe it’s time for companies to start building a job market that puts Americans first.