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Mayorkas Now Subverting Labor Market

By Joe Guzzardi

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas isn’t content with criminally and unconstitutionally throwing open the Southwest border to all comers, disrupting the lives of border state residents and putting Americans at risk of hostile enemy attacks. Doubling down on his inconceivably blatant disregard for the nation’s well-being,  Mayorkas has independently and without congressional approval chosen to reward some of those aliens during fiscal year 2022 with an additional 20,000 temporary seasonal employment-based H-2B visas that will lead to good American jobs. Among those jobs are landscaper, lifeguard, forestry worker, housekeeper, waiter, cook, amusement park worker, among jobs in other employment sectors where Americans have traditionally worked.

The DHS press release announced that “the supplemental H-2B visa allocation consists of 13,500 visas available to returning workers who received an H-2B visa, or were otherwise granted H-2B status, during one of the last three fiscal years. The remaining 6,500 visas, which are exempt from the returning worker requirement, are reserved for nationals of Haiti and the Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.” Those nations are among the largest senders of illegal aliens.

Mayorkas also hinted that more H-2Bs are on the way. The press release included this warning: “In the coming months, DHS will seek to implement policies that will make the H-2B program even more responsive to the needs of our economy….” In conclusion, Mayorkas said what many consider a brazen pack of lies, the most glaring of which is that DHS will protect American workers and existing visa holders. The current U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services cap is 33,000 for workers who begin employment in the first half of the fiscal year, Oct. 1 – March 31, and 33,000 for workers who begin employment in the second half of the fiscal year, April 1 – Sept. 30. USCIS is an operational component of DHS, and is ultimately accountable to Mayorkas.

In his declaration, the always disingenuous Mayorkas falsely claimed that the extra visas would “help fuel the nation’s historic economic recovery” even as millions of unemployed Americans want to re-enter the labor market, assuming they could earn a decent wage.

Consider the message that Mayorkas is sending to the millions-strong worldwide community of prospective illegal aliens: Come! We won’t deter you! Once here, we’ll give you a federally issued work permit to lay out the red carpet that will smooth your way into the employment market. Neither DHS nor the Department of Labor give a hoot about unemployed American workers who might lose the opportunity to compete for a good job. We care about you, foreign nationals who knowingly and willingly broke U.S. laws!

A thumbnail sketch of Mayorkas’ disastrous year-long tenure as America’s alleged protector-in-chief: by the end of 2021, more than 2 million aliens from countries across the globe will enter the U.S., and be released into the general population, some are COVID-19 infected. Border patrol agents have identified other aliens as U.S.-convicted rapists, thieves or general “undesirables.” Drug and child sex traffickers ply their criminal multi-billion dollar enterprises with abandon while the White House looks the other way. CBP has apprehended two Yemeni and one Saudi “known or suspected terrorists;” others may be among the 600,000 “got-aways.” Yuma, Ariz., and Del Rio, Texas, declared states of emergency to deal with the alien surge.

Before his Senate confirmation hearing, many Capitol Hill skeptics cautioned against Mayorkas’ appointment. Serving as President Obama’s USCIS director, Mayorkas helped foreign investors with ties to prominent Democrats, including then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democratic National Committee Chair Terry McAuliffe, and former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, secure coveted EB-5 investor visas. In March 2015, the Office of Inspector General, Department of Homeland Security issued a scathing report that itemized in exhaustive detail Mayorkas’ misdeeds. Nevertheless, Mayorkas was confirmed, 56-43. Despite the alarm bells about Mayorkas’ questionable character and his partisan bias, six Republicans voted “yea.” The six are Shelley Capito, West Virginia; Susan Collins, Maine; Lisa Murkowski, Alaska; Dan Sullivan, Alaska; Rob Portman, Ohio, and Mitt Romney, Utah.

A president who cares about U.S. security and the future of America as a sovereign nation would demand that Mayorkas be impeached immediately. Sadly, Mayorkas’ destructive agenda is par for the America-last course that Biden and his cohorts fully embrace.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Mayorkas Now Subverting Labor Market