Ninety percent take jobs in almost every industry in America. from goodpaying construction jobs to coveted positions at technology firms in Silicon Valley. The pressures on the middleclass are great. We have a large flow of permanent immigration and temporary workers. The elimination of many goodpaying jobs at factories and plants due to advances in robotics. the shedding of manufacturing jobs due to overseas competition. a sluggish and overregulated economy that is growing too slow to keep pace with the population growth and the high costs of energy. health care. income and household goods. Policymakers in Washington need to be reducing the burdens on working families. not making their lives more difficultbut that is exactly what we have been doing. Professor George Borjasan top expert on these matters who has worked on them for decadesestimates that high immigration flows from 1980 to 2000 reduced the wages of lower skilled American workers by 7.4 percentabout $260 per monthas a direct result of the size and flow of immigration from 1980 to 2000. I dont think it is defensible for colleagues to say it will help wages to bring in more people. Thats why the Congressional Budget office said the Senate immigration bill. rejected by the House. would have reduced wages for the next dozen years. Professor Borjas estimates a current net loss of $402 billion for American workers who compete with foreign labor. Mr. President. $402 billion. Furthermore. as documented for the Center for Immigration Studies. relying exclusively on government data. all net employment gains among the workingage since the year 2000 have gone to immigrant workersnet gains. This remarkable trend occurred even as the number of workingage nativeborn Americans increased by nearly 17 million. So the 17 million is a dramatic figure.
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immigration immigrant Immigration