Immigration Blog

Sapna Rampersaud has written an article for National Review Online's The Corner titled "Illegal Immigrants Can Now Defend the Laws They Break", detailing how the states of New York and California have moved to permit illegal aliens to practice law. This is the kind of thing one might expect to see as a headline on the satirical website The Onion, but, sadly, it's true.

"I was not one of Abramoff's colleagues who was convicted."

That was a modest (if bizarre) statement made by Patrick Pizzella, the president's nominee for deputy secretary of labor, as a U.S. Senate committee considered his suitability for the job in question, according to a recent article in the Washington Examiner.

The H-2B worker program was designed to fill gaps in the labor force. In theory, as companies with a need for seasonal work grew, there would not be enough American citizens to fill the gaps. Businesses apply for "certified positions", or job vacancies approved by the Department of Labor that an immigrant holding an H-2B visa can fill. These businesses must show that "there are not enough U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available to do the temporary work" and that "employing H-2B workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers."

A few days ago, the Washington Post published an article titled "In memo, Trump administration weighs expanding the expedited deportation powers of DHS", an account apparently based on one of those pesky leaks that have plagued the administration from it

The White House has declared that this is "Buy American, Hire American" week.

The Department of Homeland Security, at just about the same time, took 15,000 potential jobs away from American workers and made them available to aliens. I'm sure I'm not the only writer to point out this irony.

The Trump administration is kicking off its "Buy American, Hire American" campaign in earnest today, following up on one of the president's recurring pre-election themes — a kind of subset of the president's "Make America Great Again" motto.

The Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rodney Frelinghuysen, siding with the Democrats on his committee and ruling against a roll call vote on the issue, gave a green light to DACA aliens (slightly legalized by Obama fiat) seeking jobs in the government. That includes Congress itself.

Speaking about summer jobs in Maine, at a time when no additional H-2B foreign workers are available, the executive director of a Maine Chamber of Commerce is quoted as saying:

The shortage is so acute ... other companies have gone so far as to offer higher wages to entice locals. (Emphasis added.)

Over the weekend, the governor of Jalisco, Mexico, noted that his state is prepared to welcome individuals from countries like India that live in the United States and are uncertain of the future of H-1B visas.

On Tuesday, the mayor of Santiago in the Dominican Republic, Abel Martínez Durán, confirmed that he is seeking to approve a resolution that declares illegal aliens in his municipality as "persona non grata".