Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas isn’t content with criminally and unconstitutionally throwing open the Southern border to all comers, disrupting the lives of border state residents and putting Americans at risk of hostile enemy attacks.
Doubling down on his inconceivably blatant disregard for the nation’s well-being, he has independently and without congressional approval chosen to reward some of those aliens during fiscal year 2022 with an additional 20,000 temporary seasonal employment-based H-2B visas that will lead to good American jobs.
Among those jobs are landscaper, lifeguard, forestry worker, housekeeper, waiter, cook, amusement park worker, among jobs in other employment sectors where Americans have traditionally worked.
A Homeland Security Department news release announced that “the supplemental H-2B visa allocation consists of 13,500 visas available to returning workers who received an H-2B visa, or were otherwise granted H-2B status, during one of the last three fiscal years. The remaining 6,500 visas, which are exempt from the returning worker requirement, are reserved for nationals of Haiti and the Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.”
Those three nations are among the largest senders of illegal aliens.
Mayorkas also hinted that more H-2Bs are on the way.
The news release included this warning: “In the coming months, DHS will seek to implement policies that will make the H-2B program even more responsive to the needs of our economy …”
In conclusion, Mayorkas said what many consider a brazen pack of lies, the most glaring of which is that the Homeland Security Department will protect American workers and existing visa holders.
The current U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services cap is 33,000 for workers who begin employment in the first half of the fiscal year, Oct. 1 to March 31, and 33,000 for workers who begin employment in the second half of the fiscal year, April 1 to Sept. 30. USCIS is an operational component of DHS, and is ultimately accountable to Mayorkas.
In his declaration, the always disingenuous Mayorkas falsely claimed that the extra visas would “help fuel the nation’s historic economic recovery” even as millions of unemployed Americans want to re-enter the labor market, assuming they could earn a decent wage.
Consider the message that Mayorkas is sending to the millions-strong worldwide community of prospective illegal aliens: Come! We won’t deter you! Once here, we’ll give you a federally issued work permit to lay out the red carpet that will smooth your way into the employment market.
Neither DHS nor the Labor Department give a hoot about unemployed American workers who might lose the opportunity to compete for a good job. We care about you, foreign nationals who knowingly and willingly broke U.S. laws!
A thumbnail sketch of Mayorkas’ disastrous year-long tenure as America’s alleged protector-in-chief: by the end of 2021, more than 2 million aliens from countries across the globe will enter the United States and be released into the general population, some are COVID-19 infected.
Border patrol agents have identified other aliens as U.S.-convicted rapists, thieves or general “undesirables.” Drug and child sex traffickers ply their multibillion-dollar criminal enterprises with abandon while the White House looks the other way.
U.S Customs and Border Protection has apprehended two Yemeni and one Saudi “known or suspected terrorists;” others may be among the 600,000 “got-aways.” Yuma, Arizona, and Del Rio, Texas, declared states of emergency to deal with the alien surge.
Before his Senate confirmation hearing, many Capitol Hill skeptics cautioned against Mayorkas’ appointment. Serving as USCIS director under President Barack Obama, he helped foreign investors with ties to prominent Democrats, including the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada; Terry McAuliffe, then chairman of the Democratic National Committee; and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, secure coveted EB-5 investor visas.
In March 2015, the Homeland Security Department’s Office of Inspector General issued a scathing report that itemized in exhaustive detail Mayorkas’ misdeeds. Nevertheless, he was confirmed, 56-43.
Despite the alarm bells about Mayorkas’ questionable character and his partisan bias, six Republicans voted “yea” in the Democratic-controlled Senate: Sens. Shelley Capito of West Virginia, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio, Mitt Romney of Utah and Dan Sullivan of Alaska.
A president who cares about U.S. security and the future of America as a sovereign nation would demand that Mayorkas be impeached immediately. Sadly, Mayorkas’ destructive agenda is par for the America-last course that President Joe Biden and his cohorts fully embrace.
— Joe Guzzardi is an analyst and researcher with Progressives for Immigration Reform who now lives in Pittsburgh. He can be reached at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org, or follow him on Twitter: @joeguzzardi19. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.