Mass amnesty? Heck no!

Congress is trying to sneak the biggest-ever amnesty for illegal aliens into the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill, which cannot be filibustered.

This is terrible news for blue-collar Americans, who will have to compete against these foreign workers for jobs. Even before the pandemic added millions to the ranks of the unemployed, many American workers were struggling to get ahead, or even just to get by. Despite decades of economic growth and rising productivity, average inflation-adjusted wages have flatlined since the 1970s. For those with a high-school degree or less, wages have actually fallen over that period.

Some states have had it worse than others, of course. Here in Alaska, the economy was just pulling out of its longest-ever recession when Covid-19 began spreading.

Many of our key industries struggled during the pandemic. Fish harvests were down 15% when compared to pre-pandemic levels, and the hotel industry reported a loss of more than four thousand direct jobs.

Workers who lack a college degree have been among those most harmed by the pandemic. They are also a group that chases the same jobs as the majority of entry-level immigrants.

As the economist George Borjas of Harvard University has observed, immigration has grown the pool of low-skilled workers by 25% over the last two decades. This, in turn, has cut the earnings of native-born high-school dropouts by between $800 and $1,500 a year.

Things are starting to look up for the nation’s economy. The latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that the leisure and hospitality sectors added nearly 400,000 new jobs in July.

But an immigration amnesty that allows millions of illegal aliens to compete freely in the job market — and that entices even more people to come to this country in anticipation of future amnesties — would stop the recovery for blue-collar Americans in its tracks.

Democratic lawmakers are trying to ram through the most seismic change to immigration policy in decades on a narrow party-line vote. It’s up to rock-ribbed conservatives like Senator Dan Sullivan, as well as moderates like Senator Lisa Murkowski — who has long worked across the aisle with her liberal colleagues — to defeat this amnesty by any means necessary.

Robert Coulter is a policy expert who focuses on protecting the interest of Alaska’s seniors. The Wasilla resident is also an entrepreneur and small business owner.