Why no immigration moratorium with 14 million Americans unemployed?

By Frosty Wooldridge

With America’s massive unemployment predicament, why hasn’t Congress and the president taken obvious steps to stop importing 200,000 legal immigrants every 30 days throughout the year?   In the past three months, only 54,000 jobs per month have been created.  With 14 million Americans unemployed, there is no way to employ them while another 200,000 workers hit our shores every month.

Economist Edwin Rubenstein said, “The stock market crashes, London is burning, America is seared by black flashmobs—and U.S. unemployment remains ominously high. But still no Establishment mention of immigration dimension. The economy added 117,000 jobs in July and the unemployment rate fell slightly to 9.1%, the government said Friday.

“But to put that in perspective, the U.S. is currently issuing an average of about 95,000 green cards a month—say 75,000 immigrants entering the labor market, subtracting those too old or too young to work. (See U.S. Legal Permanent Residents: 2009, by Randall Monger. U.S. Department of Homeland  Security.) Of course, this doesn’t count illegal aliens—who hold some eight million jobs at the Pew Hispanic Center‘s  conservative estimate  —or the children of immigrants, counted as “Americans” by the census bureau even if their parents are illegals.”

House Majority leader John Boehner’s reaction was standard GOP boilerplate with no mention of immigration:

“Today’s unemployment report is more proof that all of the Washington spending, taxing, and regulating is devastating our economy. While the American people are asking ‘where are the jobs?’ the Democrats running Washington are determined to punish small businesses with higher taxes and more red tape — including hundreds of new regulations last month alone — and to keep their spending binge going at all costs.” U.S. job market’s weakness subsiding: analysts, MarketWatch, August 5, 2011

 Over the past 12 months:

• Immigrants gained 15,000 jobs, a miniscule 0.1% increase; but natives did not fare much better, gaining 236,000 positions – a 0.2 percent rise. ADVANTAGE NATIVES
• Labor force participation rates fell by 0.9 points for immigrants and 0.6 points for natives. ADVANTAGE NATIVES
• The share of immigrants holding jobs fell by 0.6%; the share of natives holding jobs fell by 0.3%. ADVANTAGE NATIVES
• The immigrant working age population increased by 1.0%; the comparable native population increased by 0.7%. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS
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January 2009—the month President Obama took office—is also the earliest month of data published in BLS’s foreign and native-born employment table. Coincidence or not, this means we can piece together the monthly points to see the President’s priorities, or at least his practical effect.