Illegal immigration hurts the poor — even if Dems deny it

By Steven A. Camarota on May 10, 2023

MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle: “You’re sending 1,500 troops to the border. People on the left criticize and say it’s inhumane. People on the right say you’re not putting American priorities first. And employers around this country are saying we need more workers; this is an economic issue.”

President Biden: “Bingo. . . . We need these farm workers.”

Even before the end of pandemic-era border restrictions scheduled for Thursday, the present scale of illegal immigration is nothing short of astonishing.

From the time President Biden took office in January of 2021 through the end of last month, there were 5.1 million “encounters” at the southern border, with a minimum of 2 million migrants released into the country.

If you ask Biden or liberal activists, however, it doesn’t matter. We “need” workers, they claim, in varying degrees of offensiveness. The president told MSNBC last week that we “need these farmworkers.” “Immigrants pick the food we eat … clean our homes,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said in April.

Of course, to Biden’s argument, there is already an unlimited guest worker program for agriculture.

But more broadly, those who insist we “need” immigrant workers are displaying a callous disregard for the poorest and least educated American workers. . . .

[Read the rest at the New York Post]