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Recent record levels of immigration, Santorum argues, have produced clear winners and losers:
Over
the past twenty years, nearly 35 million legal and illegal immigrants
have come to our shores. This is the largest mass immigration America
has seen in our history -- even surpassing the Great Wave from the turn
of the 20th Century. These immigrants are largely unskilled and
low-skilled labor and they are competing for the same jobs as the 74% of
Americans who do not have a college degree.
Because labor supply
and demand works, corporate profits are up and executives are doing
well. But the American worker has seen their wages stagnant for over a
decade. The American worker is struggling and as a result the American
family is struggling.
As
families struggle in this ever competitive labor market, we must make
sure our policies do not enact further roadblocks and dead ends to their
ability to succeed. We must rebuild this first economy, and one step is
to ensure we have a responsible immigration policy that puts the
American worker and their families first.
That is why I don't
just speak about securing our borders. Yes, we must secure our border
and we must fully implement e-verify so the market for illegal
immigrants to hold jobs American workers would otherwise hold is closed,
but we must do more.
There are over one million legal immigrants
coming into America each year, and most of my fellow Republican
presidential candidates have proposed increasing this number even
further. I dont. I believe we need to reduce our legal immigration
levels by 25%.
I believe immigration can be a very good thing.
But as with anything, there can also be too much of a good thing. When
our labor markets cannot manage the influx we are receiving, then it is
time to recalibrate. This is not anti-immigrant, it is common-sense
because stagnant wages and joblessness is not good for anyone regardless
of race, gender, or immigration status.
Specifically,
Santorum calls for reforming chain migration policies and ending the
visa lottery, both of which were key recommendations of the last
bi-partisan U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform (and top policy goals of NumbersUSA).
Santorum also addresses guest worker visas such as the H-1B visa:
Too
many foreign programmers and tech workers are utilizing this program
and are taking jobs that Americans could fill. We saw this when Disney
laid off Americans and replaced them with cheap foreign labor and when
Southern California Edison had its American workers train their foreign
replacements before firing them. Under my Administration, this will end.
There
is an unwritten rule in the mainstream media and political class that
we aren't supposed to talk about immigration numbers or limits. But if
Santorum's comments get wide exposure, they could force other candidates
to address the issue as well.
Spread the word,
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