Leveling the Playing Field for American Workers

In nearly all officially sanctioned endeavors that involve competition, referees or other such officials are employed to make certain that all competitors are given a “level playing field” to create a fair environment. In baseball, umpires provide this vital component to the integrity of the sport.

Where government is concerned, laws and law enforcement officers are supposed to provide that same sort of fairness. Civil Rights laws have been enacted in the United States in an effort to provide equal treatment. In fact, the terms “just” and “fair” are often used in conjunction with one another. Among the duties of law enforcement officers is the role they are supposed to play as societal referees when they enforce the laws that are intended to protect lives and rights of those who live within their jurisdiction.

Today, competition can be found in many aspects of the lives of our citizens. Competition is especially keen where the search for jobs is concerned. Today many millions of American workers are either unemployed or underemployed. This has resulted in many Americans falling below the poverty line and many American families losing their homes to foreclosure because their “breadwinners” have lost their jobs.

The impact of this can be felt as it ripples throughout the economy of the United States where a glut of foreclosed houses have depressed real estate values in nearly every city and fewer Americans have the money to spend on nonessential items, thus creating a vicious downward cycle.

The immigration laws of the United States are supposed to prevent the entry and continued presence in the United States of aliens whose presence is harmful. Aliens who are engaged in criminal or terrorist activities are supposed to be prevented from entering the United States and removed (deported) from the United States when they found present in the United States. Aliens who are convicted of committing felonies are also supposed to be deported from the United States when they complete serving their prison sentences.

Aliens who would seek unauthorized employment to be prevented from entering the United States and are supposed to be arrested deported from the United States if such aliens succeed in entering the United States and seek employment. This is to prevent foreign workers from creating unfair and illegal competition for jobs Americans desperately need, especially in this era of economic hardship confronting all too many American workers and their families. This component of the immigration laws is nothing new. In fact, prior to the Second World War, the enforcement and administration of the immigration laws was the responsibility of the United States Department of Labor. Prior to World War II, where immigration was concerned, was the harm that unfettered immigration would do to American workers.

During the Second World War it became clear that the government needed to be concerned about the threats posed by aliens who would enter the United States to engage in espionage and acts of sabotage. On August 6, 2011 CAPS posted my commentary about the national security components of border security and immigration law enforcement, which was entitled, Do We Still Need Our Armed Forces When We Don’t Secure Our Own Borders?

Within the commentary I referenced an important article that appears on the FBI website about how, during WW II, the U.S. Coast Guard and the FBI worked cooperatively to thwart a Nazi plot to enable Nazi saboteurs to enter the United States to destroy factories that were producing weapons and other key products to assist the Allies.

Today, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and with increasing presence of transnational gangs and drug trafficking cartel members in the United States, America's borders have never been more important and the failures to secure those borders and effectively enforce and administer the immigration laws have never been of greater importance, yet the current administration is failing at securing the borders and has done nothing to enhance the integrity to the system by which applications for immigration benefits and, in fact, has made an utter mockery of that entire system by providing employment authorization to potentially millions of illegal alien “DREAMERS.”

A couple of months ago Fox News Latino posted my Op-Ed about my opposition to the administration's claimed use of “prosecutorial discretion.” My piece was entitled: Obama Invokes Prosecutorial Discretion to Circumvent Constitution and Congress.

In addition to creating a national security nightmare by providing terrorists with an opportunity to game this program and acquire brand new “clean” identities, these failures are also creating unfair and illegal competition for American workers of every race, religion and ethnicity. Indeed, the unemployment and poverty rates are highest among American minorities!

American workers are not only facing unfair and illegal competition from illegal aliens who evade the inspections process but by aliens who successfully game the visa process.

On April 30, 2009 the U.S. Senate's Subcommittee on Immigration, conducted a hearing on the topic: “Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2009, Can We Do It and How?” Among the witnesses called to testify before that hearing was Alan Greenspan, arguably one of the key architects of the economic crisis, who stated:

“…The second bonus (in accelerating the influx of skilled immigrant workers) would address the increasing concentration of income in this country. Greatly expanding our quotas for the highly skilled would lower wage premiums of skilled over lesser skilled. Skill shortages in America exist because we are shielding our skilled labor force from world competition. Quotas have been substituted for the wage pricing mechanism. In the process, we have created a privileged elite whose incomes are being supported at non-competitively high levels by immigration quotas on skilled professionals. Eliminating such restrictions would reduce at least some of our income inequality.”

Clearly Greenspan demonstrated unmitigated chutzpah, referring to skilled Americans as the “privileged elite!” His infuriating goal of reducing skill-based income inequality is nothing short of anti-American in both ways of interpreting that statement. It flies in the face of the American dream and would serve to pull the floor out from under American middle class workers and their families!

When the fans watching a baseball game disagree with the call of an umpire they are likely to yell, “Throw the bum out!”

Think of that simple, yet direct four word phrase on Election Day if you determine that the candidate for office for whom you are voting has failed to be fair to American workers and their families.