The rising level of illegal immigration is harming American workers. This was the core message of the testimony delivered by Steve Camarota of the the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) to the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment and Pensions.
According to CIS estimates, Camarota noted, the total illegal alien population in the U.S. grew from 10.2 million in January of 2021 to 12.6 million in May of this year. As many of nine million of them are in the workforce. Camarota denied the commonly heard claim that they to not compete with American workers. He noted that there are 5.7 million native-born workers in the two dozen occupations where illegal aliens comprise more than 15 percent of the workforce.
Camarota said there is “clear evidence” that illegal immigration is lowering the wages of American workers, particularly those of limited skills. These low wages have prompted a large number of working-age Americans to drop out of the workforce altogether.
Commenting on this growing problem, Camarota observed that “Using large-scale illegal immigration to fill jobs may please employers, but doing so has allowed policy-makers to largely ignore the extremely troubling decline in participation [in the workforce]. Research shows the fall-off in participation contributes to profound social problems, from crime and welfare dependency to suicide and drug overdoses.”
Read more at cis.org