[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 36 (Thursday, February 25, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H621-H622]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                OPEN BORDERS BETRAY BLUE COLLAR WORKERS

  The SPEAKER. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. 
McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, before the lockdown left took a 
wrecking ball to our economy, we were enjoying one of the greatest 
expansions of economic opportunity in our lifetimes. Unemployment was 
at its lowest rate in 50 years. The poverty rate was at its lowest rate 
in 60 years. Most importantly, wage growth was the strongest in 40 
years, and the wage gap between rich and poor was narrowing for the 
first time in many years as blue-collar wages increased dramatically. 
The unemployment rate for women was the lowest in 70 years. For African 
Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, veterans, disabled 
Americans, and those without a high school diploma, unemployment was 
the lowest ever recorded.
  Now, the tax and regulatory relief we won in 2017 and 2018 explained 
much of that success. But something else was going on that caused the 
extraordinary improvement of wages for unskilled or low-skilled 
workers. It was because the Trump administration restored control of 
our borders and stemmed the flood of low-wage labor that had been 
suppressing wages for American workers for decades. Big business and 
big agriculture hated this policy because it required them to pay 
higher wages to Americans, but in the growing economy it produced, 
working Americans who had been left behind for decades finally began to 
prosper.
  Now, did we learn nothing from this blue-collar boom?
  The Democrats that these families trusted to look out for their 
interests in the recent election are betraying them at every turn. 
Nowhere is that clearer than the Democrats' zeal to open our borders to 
a new wave of illegal immigration.
  The President's executive orders have already produced a new migrant 
crisis on the southern border. One abandoned the border wall in mid-
construction. Another undermines the longstanding requirement that 
immigrants be able to support themselves and not burden American 
taxpayers.
  Another ends the Remain in Mexico policy for those making asylum 
claims, the vast majority of those claims being dubious. Yet another 
effectively releases illegal immigrants accompanied by youths under 18 
directly into the United States.
  Another grants what amounts to sanctuary status for a wide variety of 
criminal offenses, including drunk driving and sex offenses. Another 
restores unrestricted travel from hotbeds of international terrorism.
  The worst one orders ICE not to deport illegal immigrants for 100 
days. That order now enjoined by a Federal judge begs the question: 
What is the difference between abolishing ICE and forbidding ICE to do 
its job?
  Customs and Border Protection agents report in the last month the 
flow on the southern border has nearly doubled from 2,000 a day to 
3,500 a day. The number of illegal immigrants encountered on the 
southern border during the first 4 months of the last fiscal year was 
nearly 165,000. That number has nearly doubled this year to more than 
295,000.
  Every American needs to clearly understand what this means to their 
lives, their families, their communities, and their futures.
  How are American workers helped by flooding the labor market with 
another wave of illegal immigration?
  How are our children, who have been robbed of an entire year of their 
educations, helped by filling their classrooms with non-English 
speaking classmates?
  How are our streets made safer by allowing aliens who drive drunk to 
remain on our roads rather than be arrested and placed in removal 
proceedings?
  How is our Nation made safer by reopening virtually unrestricted 
travel with nations that foster terrorism?
  How are our communities made safer by making it harder to deport 
criminal illegal aliens and gang members?
  How are our hospitals made more accessible by overwhelming emergency 
rooms by illegal immigrants demanding care?
  Why would they pursue these policies that strike most acutely and 
painfully at America's working families? Especially now when those 
families are reeling from the effects of a year of repressive 
lockdowns?
  Those blue-collar workers who made the greatest gains during the 
Trump economic expansion are the most harmed by reversing the 
immigration enforcement that produced it.
  Let us not forget that millions of legal immigrants who obeyed our 
laws, respected our Nation's sovereignty, waited patiently, and have 
done everything our country has asked of them have also been made 
victims of the Democrats' pursuit of open borders.

[[Page H622]]

  Without enforcement of our immigration laws, our borders are 
meaningless. And if our borders are meaningless, then America ceases to 
be a nation and instead becomes a vast international territory between 
Canada and Mexico.
  Mr. Speaker, I fear that is the ultimate objective of the left and 
that the only force that can stop them now is the American people at 
the ballot box.

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