Foreign workers have gained over one million jobs while Americans have lost over 800,000, the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows.
“Over the last year, native-born Americans have lost almost 800k jobs while foreign-born workers have gained over 1 million jobs; the U.S. labor market is turning into a temp agency for foreign workers and gov’t bureaucrats,” Heritage Foundation Economist E.J. Antoni said.
Antoni says “native-born Americans still have fewer jobs today than before the pandemic (-873,000) while all net job growth has gone to foreign-born workers (+3.7 million).”
“Many Americans aren’t happy with the economy because they’re not the ones with the jobs,” Antoni said.
In May 2024, more than 40 mayors and county officials across the United States asked President Joe Biden to expedite work permits to grant millions of illegal immigrants jobs.
In a letter to Biden at the time, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, and other mayors and county officials asked the federal government to expedite work permits to potentially millions of migrants who have been released into the U.S.
“We, leaders representing local governments around the country are writing to respectfully request that the Department of Homeland Security leverage its authority to grant parole for long-term undocumented immigrants and our most recent arrivals to create a process for streamlined work authorization,” they said.
“Our request is rooted in the belief that extending the dignity of legal authorization to work for our residents born in Mexico, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and other countries would be a positive step forward. These individuals have embraced the United States as their home and have, over decades, worked diligently, paid taxes, raised families, started businesses, and bought homes,” the letter continued.
“Both recent arrivals and the long-standing undocumented community are susceptible to dangerous work conditions and exploitation that often result when individuals lack access to work authorization and the protections that come with it. It is our strong recommendation that in the development of this program, worker safety and worker choice is prioritized, and a worker’s legal presence is not solely tied to their employment by a single employer.”
