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US Workers Lost Ground to Immigrants In January

By Joe Guzzardi

As always, the monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report requires scrutiny to uncover the nuances that obscure the truth. On February 7, the BLS released the January 2025 economic report. Throughout former President Biden’s four-year term, analysts cast a skeptical eye on what they claimed were inflated job creation totals. Last Labor Day, the BLS confirmed a significant error, and confessed to overstating job creation numbers from March 2023 to March 2024 by at least 818,000, the largest miscalculation in 15 years.

In January, total non-farm payroll employment rose by 143,000, with job gains concentrated in low-paying sectors including health care, retail trade, and social assistance. Conversely, employment declined in higher-paying industries such as mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction.

Immigration experts have long speculated about how the Biden administration’s border policies would manifest in monthly BLS data. During Biden’s presidency, millions of illegal aliens crossed the border, most requiring employment to support themselves. The CBP-One mobile phone app—an illegal Biden maneuver—was officially announced in 2023 but actually had begun in 2021, providing a means for illegal aliens to fly to their preferred U.S. city. The administration unconstitutionally granted them parole, an immigration status that includes employment authorization. The impact of these newly admitted millions on the workforce was inevitable, though it was unlikely to be highlighted during Biden’s tenure. Immigration, typically a taboo subject for Biden and his staff, was rarely discussed except in positive terms.

The Center for Immigration Studies’ (CIS) Director of Research, Steven Camarota, analyzed the January 2025 Household Survey, which finally accounted for the substantial legal and illegal immigration surge since 2020. The significant population increase predictably influenced the labor market. The new BLS data revealed that since January 2020—the period just before COVID and the immigration surge—88 percent of all employment growth has gone to legal and illegal immigrants, often referred to as foreign-born. Immigrant-dominated employment occurred simultaneously with a near-record share, 22.1 percent, of working-age U.S.-born men detached from the labor force.

As CIS previously noted, earlier surveys’ failure to fully account for the illegal immigration flow resulted in an underestimation of the total U.S. population. Good news for American workers appears on the horizon. President Trump’s commitment to securing the border and his immediate cancellation of the CBP-One app have dampened prospective illegal aliens’ enthusiasm for entering the U.S. unlawfully. In January, the U.S. manufacturing sector expanded for the first time after 26 months of contraction, as the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI)—an indicator of prevailing economic trends in manufacturing and service sectors—registered 50.9 percent, 1.7 percentage points higher than the seasonally adjusted 49.2 percent reported in December.

Of the subindexes that directly factor into PMI, new orders, production, employment, and supplier deliveries were in expansion territory compared to only two subindexes showing improvement in December, the last full month of the Biden administration. PMI has surged since President Trump’s November election, as manufacturers and buyers anticipate more business-friendly policies.

The remainder of the first calendar quarter will reveal whether Trump’s presidency truly represents an America-first agenda or if his current popularity is merely a temporary blip on the four-year political radar.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

Noem to Terminate Venezuela TPS

By Joe Guzzardi

The list of misguided federal immigration policies is extensive, making it challenging to identify the most detrimental one. Among the most harmful to U.S. citizens is the H-1B visa program, which has displaced tens of thousands of skilled U.S. IT workers and denied recent college graduates fair access to high-paying, white-collar jobs. While employers claim a shortage of U.S. engineers without supporting evidence, the visa has been continuously issued for over three decades. Carter administration Labor Secretary Ray Marshall called the H-1B visa “the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the public.”

Optional Practical Training (OPT), another concerning program, lacks congressional approval yet offers employers significant benefits. OPT employees are exempt from payroll tax, providing employers roughly 8% savings per hire. The program has expanded to become the nation’s largest guestworker program, with an estimated 300,000 participants annually—far exceeding the H-1B’s 85,000 cap.

Also prominent in current headlines is Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a quasi-amnesty that under President Joe Biden’s administration expanded to include seventeen nations, including those hostile to the U.S. like Somalia, Syria, and Venezuela.

TPS prevents deportations for 18-month periods and can be renewed indefinitely. Historically, terminating the program has proved challenging. In 2017 and 2018, the first Trump administration announced plans to end TPS designations for El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua, concluding that conditions in these countries no longer warranted protected status. Honduras and Nicaragua received their original TPS designation 27 years ago following Hurricane Mitch, while El Salvador’s status dates back 24 years to a 2001 earthquake—hardly “temporary” timeframes. However, in June 2023, then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas rescinded these terminations and granted 18-month extensions for all five countries. In one of his final official acts, Mayorkas extended Venezuela’s 2023 TPS designation from April 3, 2025, through October 2, 2026.

The new DHS Secretary, Kristi Noem, has given TPS critics hope for reform of the entire program. Of the estimated 600,000 Venezuelan TPS recipients currently living in the U.S., 350,000 will lose their employment authorization documents when their designations expire in April. The remaining 250,000, whose authorizations expire in September, will also see their TPS and employment privileges terminated under Noem’s direction.

The Federal Register’s notice regarding these changes highlighted how TPS has enabled thousands of inadmissible aliens to settle in the U.S., straining local resources and maxing out city shelters, police stations, and aid services. DHS also noted the increased presence of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA), a state-sponsored transnational criminal organization now active in at least seventeen states.

The notice cited the “potential magnetic effect” of anticipated 18-month extensions on illegal immigration. “The anticipated designation or extension for TPS and resulting benefit to access [work authorization documents] have been pull factors driving Venezuelan nationals to the United States.” Given President Trump’s January 20 executive orders, Secretary Noem determined that extending Venezuela’s 2023 TPS designation “is in fact contrary to the national interest.” DHS noted that while some challenging conditions persist in Venezuela, improvements in the economy, public health, and crime now allow for safe repatriation.

Though the State Department reissued a Level Four “Do Not Travel” Advisory for Venezuela in September 2024, U.S.-Venezuela relations show signs of improvement. Venezuela has agreed to accept deported illegal aliens, including TdA gang members, and President Nicolas Maduro released six American detainees. Over the past decade, more than 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled their country, creating one of the world’s largest migration crises. Regarding DHS’s immigration agenda under her leadership, Noem stated simply: “We’ve just gotten started.”

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org