Taking a trip to Latin America during the weekend of October 6th to the 9th, NYC Mayor Eric Adams brought everything on his checklist with him. Toothbrush, changes of clothes, and Democratic playbook for the liberal offense. He wasn’t there to work on his suntan though, instead, he wanted to lay some groundwork.
Knowing full well that the bright lights and big city dreams that people across the world associate with New York City will draw them in, he wanted to snuff that hope out. Hitting up Mexico, Ecuador, and ending in Colombia, his message to the masses was simple; the American dream is not dead. Come here, the Americans want and need hard workers. Just not in NYC.
You read that right. The very city that is proud of its Sanctuary City status, which enjoys the same status across the state, is telling the illegals to resist the temptation for greatness when they arrive and instead go elsewhere. He believes they should keep pushing on elsewhere. While he read the room in Mexico well and knew full well where they wanted to go, he didn’t push the message like he did in Columbia. There, he told the room that getting over the border would grant them the right to earn a living.
Talking to the people who were hanging on to the interpretation, he emphasized that position. “When you look at Colombia they have really shown how to absorb individuals into their societies, and one of the most important ways to do it is to allow people to work. Nothing is more humane and, nothing is more American than your right to work, and we believe that is a right we should extend.”
President Biden has been backing this notion, with he and other liberal elected officials have been pushing them into jobs across the nation, with over 44 million native-born Americans still looking for work. While the liberals love trumpeting about job creation, many of these jobs are going to illegals. Others are positions advertised to the public, only for them to promote within and then not backfill this newly vacant position.
In September, Center for Immigration Studies Director of Research Steven Camarota provided testimony to Congress about this very ignorant idea. One that is being compounded by the addition of more illegals to the workforce.
“One of the things immigration is doing is holding down wages, there’s some crowding out … it’s letting us ignore this problem [of non-work]. If we didn’t have access to all this immigrant labor, employers, and the American people … would demand that we try to reinstall the value of work. Raising wages would be one of the most important things to make work more attractive. Immigration lets us not do any of that, including the current flow of massive illegal immigration.”
Adding in labor that will do the same jobs for less money is something that most employers cannot pass up. Given the taxes being levied and the cost of doing business going up, many are looking to save anywhere they can. Illegals make the labor market disproportionally tilted in their favor.
The national minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and that is about the average pay for a dishwasher in a kitchen. For that same job, they can get illegals under the table who will gladly do it for $5 an hour. Should the employer play the game with their state officials, they can hire illegals with “asylum papers,” and they’ll pay them the same $7.25 an hour. However, the state will provide them with a stipend to help cover those costs. All so that someone will give the illegals a chance to earn as they await citizenship.
A safety net to catch Americans working in fast food, kitchens, or mechanic shops is going bye-bye as each day passes. As people like Mayor Adams keep encouraging them to come here, it’s the famous Democratic policy as always- we want you here; just not right next to us.
