A top conservative immigration expert is arguing that a recent surge in immigration into the U.S. is likely to have a heavy impact on the job prospects of Black Americans — just as the Census Bureau found that foreign workers had made gains in the job market.
Data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an arm of the Department of Labor, shows native-born Americans lost more than 1.3 million jobs over the last 12 months, while foreign-born workers gained more than 1.2 million jobs.
As of August of this year, there are 129,712,000 native-born workers compared to 131,031,000 in August 2023, meaning a plummeting reduction of 1,319,000 jobs.
JOBS REPORT IS A BOOM FOR MIGRANTS, SLUM FOR AMERICANS
In comparison, there were 31,636,000 foreign-born workers in the U.S. as of last month, compared to 30,396,000 in August 2023, a surge of 1,240,000 jobs.
Roy Beck, who founded the group NumbersUSA which argues for lower levels of immigration, recently published “Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth.”
In that book, he outlines the history of government-induced migration impacting heavily on the prospects of Black Americans the most.
“Economic historians say that every time that immigration has gone to a high percentage, the incomes of black males have gone down and that income and that income disparity, racial disparity increases,” he said. “Every time you reduce immigration, the livelihoods of black families and black men increase.“
SURGE OF FOREIGN-BORN WORKERS REMAKE AMERICAN JOBS MARKET
August statistics show that the unemployment rate for adult men is 4% and adult women is 3.7%. For White Americans, it is 3.8%, and for Black Americans, it is 6.1%. The White House noted in May that the unemployment rate for Black workers – then at 5.6% in April – was still lower than the average unemployment rate for Black Americans for 2016 to 2020 (about 8%) and 2000 to 2015 (11%).
However, Beck argues that, while foreigners will often create jobs as well, some jobs that are taken by foreign workers would otherwise go to Americans of all races — and he argues that racial discrimination often means that Black Americans are hired last.
“There is still racial discrimination that happens among many employers and there’s a tendency that the last people recruited are the descendants of American slavery,” he said. “And so African-Americans, the descendants of American slavery, have always done best — all Americans have done best — but they’ve really done best in tight labor markets. And immigration is not the only thing that dictates loose and tight labor market, but it’s something you can control.”
Immigrants line up at a remote U.S. Border Patrol processing center after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border on Dec. 7, 2023 in Lukeville, Arizona. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
“The government can control how many foreign workers it brings in, he said. “But over the last three and a half years, there’s been virtually no control at all. I mean, we’ve never seen numbers, anything like the new foreign workers that have come over the last three and a half years,” he said.
As to why this is not a bigger issue for Black civil rights leaders, he said that major national leaders have not been speaking out, but some at the local level are getting louder.
“What you have is more and more black leaders in the communities, places like Chicago and Philadelphia and Houston, more and more, you’re seeing local black leaders who have their ear on the ground, their eyes on the ground, who are speaking out more and more.”
However, he blames national leaders for turning a blind eye due to “political alliances.”
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“The tragic thing is that part of it seems to be that the Black leaders feel like they have to make an alliance with Hispanic political leaders. But the fact is that polls show that a majority of Hispanic Americans don’t want this high immigration either,” he said.
However, he believes there is change coming.
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“At some point, these leaders are going to get left behind because the people in the local communities are going to just stop putting up with national leaders who just insist on flooding their communities with workers that aren’t needed and with people for whom there isn’t housing for them.”