American Workers and Foreign Workers Trapped in a Web of ‘Unfair Competition’

Here is my commentary for the CAPS (Californians for Population Stabilization) website for this week.

Our government and our elected representatives are supposed to represent the citizens of our nation and to make decisions that are in the best interests of our nation and our citizens. Certainly there are different political ideologies that may cause politicians to take opposing positions where what needs to be done to live up to this goal.

The debates may rage about the benefits to increasing taxes or reducing taxes. To providing incentives for the wealthy to make contributions to charities or to increase or decrease various regulations. In a perfect world, the voters would listen to the positions taken by the candidates for various public offices and make their decisions as to who would best represent them when they vote.

However, today it is clear that the most of our citizens are not being represented by their representatives. This is not just conjecture of this columnist’s perspective but is the apparent conclusion that most of our fellow Americans have come to. Consider that Congress now has an approval rating that is quickly descending into the abyss of single digits!

Consider the increasing number of people who are staging demonstrations across our nation. I expect to delve into this issue in greater detail next week- so please stay tuned!

For years American jobs have been exported and foreign workers have been imported. This is actually getting worse rather than better even in this economic era of extreme hardship most American workers and their families are suffering through. While employers are certainly free to make whatever decisions that they think will best serve their companies and increase their profit margins, the government can impose tariffs and take other steps to stop the human tsunami of foreign workers who are here legally and illegally working in our country. However, nothing of real substance is being done by either major political party.

Think of how viciously candidates attack each other to attempt to deliver a knockout blow to eliminate their political competition while they stand by passively ignoring the plight of the average American who is drowning in ever increasing prices for essential commodities, where the costs of higher education continue to soar into the stratosphere and even when those student graduate, unlike their parents, they will not likely find that the degrees that cost so much money, time, talent and energy will provide them with employment opportunities.

This may well mark the beginning of the end of America’s Middle Class, the engine that powered America’s generation’s old success story.

Yet few if any politicians are even willing to address this issue!

The politicians engage in inane arguments over who has created more jobs- all too often those jobs pay little more than minimum wages- wages so low that no one could possibly survive on those meager paychecks- yet most of the candidate for the Presidency are not talking about the need to enforce the immigration laws to block the flood of H-1B “High Tech” workers and none of them have taken on President Obama for his decision to terminate deportation hearings for some 300,000 illegal aliens and then deciding to abuse his authority under the banner of “prosecutorial discretion” provide those illegal aliens with employment authorization!

Immigration is about far more than simply debating whether or not a fence should be built on the southern border. Immigration is far more than talking about going after employers who intentionally hire illegal aliens. Certainly those two issues must be addressed- but immigration is a system with many components and yet most of these other essential components of the immigration system are not even being talked about. The journalists are not asking the vitally important questions about these issues and the politicians are certainly not raising these issues!

This is a new and truly insidious version of “Don’t ask, don’t tell!”

Think about how workers become infuriated when a promotion becomes available on their jobs and the employers don’t hire some long time employee to fill that position, but rather hires someone from outside the company!

Workers want to know that if they are hard working, talented and diligent that they may advance their careers. Even if one of their colleagues get a promotion that they think they should have gotten, at least the promotion of an employee inside a company can reassure workers that there may well be a reward for hard work.

Today it is increasingly likely that not only will employers not promote long time company employees and simply look outside the company, today these employers may well look outside the country! Not because the person hired is better qualified but because that employee will work for lower wages and have reduced expectations of fringe benefits!

As more foreign workers enter the American labor market, accepting lower wages and reduced benefits, American workers are being forced to similarly accept reduced wages and reduced benefits! This is, illegal, but violations of law only matter if they result in those who violate those laws are fined and/or prosecuted. You are not likely to find any employer getting hammered for these employment practices, consequently, those laws do not matter!

Employers may well expect loyalty from their employees, but it is the rare employer who is loyal to his (her) employees and today, the American workers will likely find no one in their corner!

Even many unions are happy to welcome foreign workers, even if they are illegally present in the United States provided that those employees have one ability- the ability to pay union dues!

The time has come to deal with the immigration crisis in honest terms.

It is time for our nation’s leaders, on all levels, to come to terms with the fundamental fact that the basis of our immigration laws is to protect our nation and our citizens from aliens whose presence has the potential to have a serious adverse impact. Ignoring those laws exposes our nation and our citizens to a variety of serious threats and challenges!

A country without secure borders can no more stand than can a house without walls!

If our country is to survive and if our children and their children are to get their share of the “American Dream” the citizens of this nation must take their citizenship seriously!

We the People must be the best citizens we can be, citizens who are worthy of the gallantry demonstrated by our valiant men and women in the military, law enforcement and firefighters, who routinely go in harm’s way in defense of this nation and our citizens.

My goal in writing this and other commentaries is to point out our nations many failings before more victims pay the ultimate price for the incompetence and ineptitude of our government.

The first step in problem-solving is to first identify the problems and vulnerabilities and then devise strategies to overcome them.

If you find yourself to be in agreement with this commentary, I ask that you forward it to as many of your friends and family members as possible and encourage them to do the same. We need to create a “Bucket Brigade of Truth!”

The practice of good citizenship does not end in the voting booth, it only begins there.

The large scale apathy demonstrated by citizens of this nation has emboldened elected representatives to all but ignore the needs of the average American citizen in a quest for massive campaign funds and the promises of votes to be ostensibly delivered by special interest groups. There is much that we cannot do but there is one thing that We the People absolutely must do- we must stop sitting on the sidelines!

The collective failure of We the People to get involved in make our concerns known to our politicians have nearly made the concerns of the great majority of the citizens of this nation all but irrelevant to the politicians. I implore you to get involved!

I believe our nation’s is greatly benefited by the rich diversity of our people which is why I could never imagine living anywhere except New York City, arguably the most diverse city in our nation if not, in fact, the world. However, my idea of diversity most certainly does not include members of MS-13, the Mexican drug cartels or members of other transnational gangs or members of al-Qaeda!

If our government’s failures to secure our nation’s borders and effectively enforce our immigration laws concerns you or especially if it angers you, I ask you to call your Senators and Congressional “Representative. This is not only your right- it is your obligation!

All I ask is that you make it clear to our politicians that we are not as dumb as they hope we are!

We live in a perilous world and in a perilous era. The survival of our nation and the lives of our citizens hang in the balance.

This is neither a Conservative issue, nor is it a Liberal issue- simply stated, this is most certainly an AMERICAN issue!

You are either part of the solution or you are a part of the problem!

Democracy is not a spectator sport!

Lead, follow or get out of the way!

Unfair Competition

Michael Cutler, a former Senior INS Investigator, an expert witness in more than a dozen Congressional Hearings is a Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and an advisor to the ‘911 Families for a Secure America.’ He writes about the nexus between immigration and national security.