Protecting American Workers - Holding Employers and Congress Accountable – with Rosemary Jenks – [Ep. 265]

Linda J. Hansen:  Welcome. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Prosperity 101 Breakroom Economics® Podcast. My name is Linda J. Hansen, your host and the author of Prosperity 101, Job Security Through Business Prosperity, the Essential Guide to Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck® and the creator of the Breakroom Economics® Online course. The book, the course, and the entire podcast library can be found on prosperity101.com. 

I seek to connect boardroom to breakroom and policy to paycheck. By empowering and encouraging employers to educate employees about the public policy issues that affect their jobs. My goal is to help people understand the foundations of prosperity, the policies of prosperity, and how to protect their prosperity by becoming informed, involved, and impactful®.

I believe this will lead to greater employee loyalty, engagement, and retention, and to an increased awareness of the blessings and responsibilities of living in a free society. Listen each week to hear from exciting guests and be sure to visit prosperity101.com.

Thank you so much for joining with me today. It is as always a pleasure to have you join us. Today I have a special guest talking about the immigration issue. We know that that is in the news all the time and it is a hot topic. 

But before I introduce my guest, I do want to say thank you to our prosperity partners, those who help us keep the podcast on the air with their financial support, either monthly or just a one-time gift now and then. But thank you, prosperity partners. If you'd like to become a prosperity partner, please go to the website, prosperity101.com and just hit the prosperity partner link and help us keep the freedom message on the air. 

I'd like to say thank you to our strategic partners. We'll mention them at the end of the episode. Those who join with us, like-minded businesses and organizations who really want to help promote freedom and the values that made America great. So stay with us to the end and you'll hear all about our strategic partners.

Now, on to the immigration issue and my special guest. Today, I have a repeat guest, Rosemary Jenks. She is the co-founder and policy director of the Immigration Accountability Project. Rosemary's been on the podcast before, and I appreciate her insights so much because she really looks into some deeper issues about the immigration issue and how it affects all of us, not just looking at current happenings, but really trends over time and what it means to American citizens and really to our nation overall.

So, Rosemary, thank you so much for being with me again. I just appreciate you taking time to come back on the podcast, and I appreciate your work more than you know. 

Rosemary Jenks: Thank you very much, Linda. It's great to be with you again. I'm thrilled to be back on the podcast. 

Linda J. Hansen: Well, you have just such important information and we'll be giving the website and everything to people as we move forward.

But tell us just a little bit about yourself for those who didn't hear your first time on the podcast, but tell us just a little bit about yourself and what led you to become part of the Immigration Accountability Project. 

Rosemary Jenks: So I actually have been working in the immigration field for 35 years now and I realized early on that immigration policy affects basically every other issue that I care about. So whether it's health care or education or national security, all of it is impacted significantly by the immigration policy of our nation.

And it occurred to me that we have never actually really had a national debate on what our immigration policy should be. Members of Congress decide to add a program here or a program there, and we never talk about what the overall policy should be and how it impacts everyday Americans, and we should be talking about that. So that's what got me in and has kept me in.

About a year and a half ago, I co-founded the Immigration Accountability Project because, as I mentioned, Congress is the body that sets our immigration policy under the Constitution, and there was no other group that was focusing exclusively on Congress and the administration to revamp our policy. So, we decided that that is where we would focus, and that is what we have done. And the work continues, even under the Trump administration, which is doing a fantastic job in a lot of areas on immigration. There's still a lot of work to be done, and we are pushing as hard as we can. 

Linda J. Hansen: Well, there is a lot of work to be done. There's so many policies that are at the federal level. Then, as we look at the state policies as well and how states respond in immigration crisis or immigration issues, but we have so much that people, I think, don't realize when it comes to immigration and how illegal immigration hurts our society so much. Legal immigration is something that made America great. We love legal immigration when it's done properly and people come in legally and our nation is applauding and helping people to assimilate into our nation and culture.

The illegal immigration that comes and takes our jobs, takes our resources, brings crime and corruption, there's so much. I mean, people don't realize that illegal immigrants do not have the same rights as citizens. If you listen to the media now, it's like, these illegal immigrants who committed a crime by coming into our country illegally, it's like everyone should just open the doors and let illegals have the very same rights as American citizens.

And we, as American citizens, should pay the taxes that pay all the expenses of these illegal immigrants. This is just wrong. I mean, I think common sense, when people start to really understand what's happening with the policies, they say, well, I don't agree with that.

One of the things that's in the news now, and has been, but you are much more eloquent to speak about it than I, and that is what's happening with, say H-1B visas and the gutting of the jobs of the American workers. Can you explain some of that and what we need to do as citizens in response? 

Rosemary Jenks: Sure. Well, as you said, the legal immigration system needs to be managed properly. That means that it needs to serve the American workers' interests. This is a public policy, just like any other, and it should be designed to serve our interests, not special interests, not just employers' interests. So the H-1B program is a visa category that was created specifically to allow foreigners who have specific skills to come into the country at a limited number.

The cap is set at 85,000, but in its infinite wisdom, Congress has created exceptions to the cap. So there's an unlimited exception for universities and non-profits to hire foreign workers who have specialized skills, and the government even hires foreign workers who have specialized skills under the H-1B program, and state governments do the same thing. So we now have this massive program that the original visa, when you come on an H-1B, is good for three years, and then it's extendable once. So a total of six years.

So if you take 85,000 plus an unlimited extension for non-profits and universities, we have well over a million H-1B workers in this country at any given time. And then, again, in its infinite wisdom, Congress decided that if an employer wants to sponsor an H-1B alien for a green card, meaning lawful permanent residence, then that worker can just stay here indefinitely on the H-1B visa until a green card becomes available, because we have numerical limits on green cards as well. So we have literally millions of these people who came in supposedly temporarily to fill a labor shortage where an employer was unable to find an American to fill that.

And it's supposed to be you fill the labor shortage until you can find or train an American worker to do the job. Instead, what we have is American workers training their H-1B replacements to take their jobs. That is not in the interest of our country. It is not in the interest of our workers. 

So this program has been massively abused. A lot of people, when they talk about abuse of the H-1B program, they talk about third party staffing agencies. And those are a huge problem.  Groups like Tata Consultancy, where they basically apply for as many H-1B visas as they can get. They park the H-1B aliens in their kind of holding company until they can rent them out to other employers.

So the employers who are actually hiring them don't have any responsibility for them. They just give them pay and then they give a cut to the staffing agency. But the staffing agencies are allowed to use them to replace American workers because if you sponsor an H-1B, you're not supposed to lay anyone off in a similar job in six months.

So what they do is bring in the third party contractors, have their current employees train the contractors for six months, and then fire them. So, I mean, the abuse of this system is just massive. And the problem is that the employers are big donors. They're big political donors. Microsoft and Apple and Amazon and all of the big tech companies hire, and Tesla, hire H-1B workers. So those employers have an incentive to put their money behind lobbying Congress to keep that supply chain coming.

So it's just never ending. And there are almost 12 million American STEM graduates, science, technology, engineering, and math, who are not employed in STEM jobs because they can't find them. Almost 12 million. That's crazy. They have spent all of the time doing exactly what they were told to do, to go into these tough fields and get the degrees and learn the skills. They come out and they can't find jobs.

Or they get an entry-level job. They turn 35 and the employer replaces them with an H-1B. And now they're out of luck because no employer is going to hire a 35-year-old American who's going to cost a lot more than a brand new H-1B visa holder. And the statistics show that H-1B visa holders are paid roughly 30% less than an American worker in the same job. So this is decimating Americans.

Linda J. Hansen: It truly is. I heard you on an interview recently where you were talking about these 12 million people who really have gone through and gotten STEM degrees of some sort and cannot find jobs. It's heartbreaking to me when you think about the last couple of generations, it's all STEM teaching in the schools and so much on technology, which is great. I mean, it's good.

But to displace the American workers, not only do we have the problem with the H-1B visas, but there's another whole episode that we could discuss on AI and replacing the American worker with robotic workers or just AI technology. I mean, this is really heartbreaking. I think this is why we see so much resurgence about the trades, too. People are saying, oh, people should go into the trades, but it would be the same there as well. Correct? 

Rosemary Jenks: Actually, there are other visa programs, not surprisingly, where they're more likely to compete with the trade skills, including H-2B. I mean, literally the visas that we have for temporary workers go from A to, I think the last one is V. And there are subcategories like H is H-1B, H-2A, H-2B, and H-4.

So, there are literally dozens and dozens of different visas that people come in under to work, including visas under the trade agreements, like the North American trade agreement where skilled workers and unskilled workers can come in and perform services here with a visa. The Department of Homeland Security can't even answer how many of those visas have been given out. So, Americans are facing a threat from every corner, whether it's AI or outsourcing or importing foreign workers to do these jobs.

You may remember there was a time when Biden was talking to coal miners and he was planning to shut down coal mines. He said, go learn to code. Well, how can I help you? Right. You can't go learn to code and expect to get a job in the United States, which is really sad. 

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah, it is sad because that's exactly what they were told to do. As we train young people and encourage young people, how do you get a job in today's market? This is it. But then you find out that they get a job and they're busy training their replacement, and how heartbreaking is that? I mean, I've heard these stories as well. You hear these just heartbreaking stories of how people are eliminated after serving well.

Now, the other thing about when we allow the foreign workers to really dominate our workforce in so many ways, we're changing the entire culture of America, too. We're not getting workers in these companies who care about the stability and national security of America. 

You mentioned how Homeland Security doesn't even really know the full number. That's something we need to close up. We need to make sure that immigration policy is enacted in a way that protects our national security, not opens it up to more vulnerability. 

Rosemary Jenks: That's absolutely right. Again, we have to go back to the problem being Congress. It's not the immigrants coming in. They're doing exactly what they're being told to do. It's not even the employers who are demanding the cheaper labor, because, of course, employers are going to try to get the cheapest labor they can get and cut their costs as much as possible to increase profits. That should be expected. The problem is when Congress says, OK, we'll help you.

That's where the issue is. It's Congress needing to reorganize all of these policies, reestablish that the whole point of immigration policy is to serve America's interests. 

And if you do that, then you eliminate the national security risks. You eliminate the taxpayer burden. You make employers pay the full cost of bringing people in rather than having taxpayers subsidize. 

If an alien comes here on a visa and has a medical emergency, they go to the emergency room. If they can't pay for it, we have to. It doesn't matter if they're here on an H-1B visa or any other visa or if they're here illegally. We pay the bill if they can't.

So they put their kids in public schools. With the H-1B visa, their wives or their spouses are allowed to get a work permit under the H-4 visa. And that means that their spouses are competing for jobs in other fields, maybe STEM, maybe not. So that's an unaccounted for job competition program. The whole system is a mess and it is really designed to hurt American workers and quite frankly, to keep wages low. 

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah, it's just heartbreaking. You mentioned going to the emergency room. If we go to the emergency room, we have to pay the bill. So we not only have to pay our own bills, but we have to pay for illegals coming in.

A lot of times it's for illegals who aren't working too. There's a lot of illegals that are not working. And the toxic empathy, I would say, about how we're all supposed to care about these people and everything. Well, common sense says yes, but people also, anybody who can work should work and illegals should be deported because they are illegal. There is a legal path to citizenship. We are not saying that people cannot become legal citizens, but that's the way they should come through the front door.

Rosemary Jenks: Yeah, I mean, the biggest problem with illegal immigration is that in addition to costs and all of that, is that it undermines the rule of law. 

Linda J. Hansen: It does.

Rosemary Jenks: If we're not serious about our immigration laws, what other laws are we not serious about? And if you come here illegally and get rewarded with benefits and cash and public education and all of that, then your view of this country is they're not serious about their laws.

So why wouldn't you break other laws, too? If I'm looking as an American at our illegal immigration crisis under Joe Biden, I'm saying, well, which laws can I break? Do I have to pay my taxes? 

Linda J. Hansen: Right. 

Rosemary Jenks: Do I have to obey road signs or speed limits? So that's the real problem. But the fact is, with both legal and illegal immigration, these are people coming here to work primarily… primarily, not always.

But so it doesn't really matter in terms of worksite competition, whether they're legal or illegal, because they're still taking a job and they're still flooding the labor market. And the law of supply and demand says that wages will be suppressed if the labor market's flooded. So whether you're talking about H-1Bs at the top end of the labor market or illegal aliens or H-2Bs, construction workers and so on, at the lower end of the labor market, you're still talking about foreigners coming in and taking American jobs.

Now, if there is an actual shortage, that's fine. That's one thing. And wages are going to have to keep going up because you've got an actual labor shortage. So you bring in a foreigner to take a job, it's not going to suppress wages. But that's not the situation we're in now. You know, we take over a million lawful permanent residents every single year.

Those are people with green cards who are never going to leave. We take another probably million and a half or so temporary workers, legally. And then, of course, over the last four years, we had 10 million illegal aliens come in.

So, I mean, the whole system is devastating American workers. It's suppressing wages. It's costing taxpayers money that they can't afford. And there's no excuse for not revamping this system. 

Linda J. Hansen: Exactly. There's no excuse, really. In order to protect American jobs, American families, American national security, we need to do this. You know, recently, so listeners, viewers, look back a few episodes ago, I had a two-part episode with Shannon Everett from American Truckers United. This is another example of the immigration policies gone awry because so many commercial truck drivers basically have been given licenses that, they don't even know their names. They don't know. They don't have a license necessarily from America. They can't read our road signs. They don't understand English. They're willing to be paid so much less. And so these brokers, everybody… it's taking advantage of the fact that these people are coming in and they're causing accidents. There's crime. It's everything. And it's gutting the trucking industry.

The truckers who keep us supplied and American truckers, thank God for American truckers, right? So every worker, every job matters and every person matters. These people who are working so hard. Now you mentioned and talk about people working hard. Not everybody in Congress works hard on our behalf, right? 

You mentioned Congress and I'm like, I'd like Congress to work a little harder on this issue. So what would you recommend to everybody in our audience in terms of what they can do? Give them an action step that they can do to make a difference here. So if this whole issue upsets them and they'd like to see something improve in our immigration policy, what do you recommend they do this week, next week, every week?

Rosemary Jenks: Yeah. So, I mean, contacting your representative and two senators is the most important thing you can do because Congress has to change this policy, all of these policies. So if you call your member of Congress or email them, calling them is better, frankly, and tell them you want the immigration system fixed. You want the H-1B system fixed.

I mean, I think they have the message at this point that Americans want illegal immigration stopped. You can reinforce that. But it is really critical for them to know that Americans want the legal immigration system, including the H-1B system fixed so that it benefits Americans.

If America first means anything, it has to mean Americans first. It just has to. 

Linda J. Hansen: It has to. This is an action point that is relevant right now. 

Is there, to your knowledge, any type of legislation that might be currently moving within the Senate or the House that would address this? Is there something that they can speak to specifically or is it just more general, make sure we take care of this issue? 

Rosemary Jenks: Unfortunately, there isn't legislation to fix the H-1B issue. I'm hoping that that will be coming soon. But the next thing that I expect the House of Representatives will be trying to move is H.R. 2. You may remember from the last Congress, H.R. 2 was the Republicans' signature border security bill. It closes a lot of the loopholes in the law that allowed the Biden administration to essentially open our borders. So it's a very important piece of legislation.

The president has done a great job on closing the border and doing everything he can to deport illegal aliens. But the fact is that without changes to the law, the next president can come in and do exactly what Joe Biden did. We cannot survive another four years of that kind of malpractice in the immigration field.

It's going to take us a generation to clean up the mess that he created. So we cannot do that again. It is critical for Congress to close those loopholes so that another administration cannot repeat that pattern.

So H.R. 2 is going to be a big deal. I hope everyone will be supporting H.R. 2 and telling your member of Congress to support H.R. 2. We're working with several members of Congress to try to get a fix for the H-1B issue. The easiest thing would be to just eliminate it.

But nobody seems too interested in doing that because there are so many big employers who are very intent on their cheap labor flow. I think that there will be additional legislation introduced on a variety of legal immigration issues that hopefully will be good and will get some momentum. We've come a long way in the last 20 years or so on how Congress views immigration.

They're no longer willing to just listen to anything employers want and do it. So, we're moving in the right direction. But we are starting to recognize in Congress that American workers matter and somebody has to stand up for them. So that's what we're moving toward. 

Linda J. Hansen: Well, definitely American workers matter. I appreciate you bringing up employers. And as we've talked before, you know, my goal is to help employers educate employees about all the issues that affect their jobs. Even at just a basic understanding of the freedom that we have in America and why we need to responsibly protect it, appreciate it and protect it. These rights guaranteed to us through the Constitution. Those are really for our citizens. They are for our citizens. So employers… what would you say to employers who need to educate their employees on these issues?

Rosemary Jenks: I would say, first of all, there are a lot of really great employers who care about their workers, who care about their communities. That's one key point, that every employer is part of a community. The more they embrace that, I think the better their policies are and the better off their workers are. 

When we recognize that America is a nation with a culture and history and traditions and the rule of law and not just an economic zone, we are a step ahead. There are, again, a lot of employers who do recognize that and who do amazing things for their communities and their country. We need more of that. We need to realize that putting America first is worth maybe a percentage or two of profit.

If you can find an American worker instead of hiring a foreign worker, hire the American. It's going to be better for your company culture. It's going to be better for your longevity. If you build the trust within the American community in your company.

Linda J. Hansen: Agreed. So employers, I really encourage you to get up to speed on this issue, but make your decisions not just on money. Think more long term. What are the long term consequences of these decisions that are only based monetarily? 

When we look at decisions that employers make all the time, what are the consequences when we hire these foreign workers and displace the American worker? What happens in our culture? What happens in the families, in our communities? What happens to the tax base in our community? 

All of it changes and shifts. Employers, just like I want to encourage all employers to educate employees about the basic issues, our rights and the civic, on the basic economic issues that affect their jobs, I want employers to help employees to understand that the immigration issue is important to their job. 

It is really important to make sure we are encouraging and helping employers to be able to sustain jobs for American citizens. As we look at these students coming up, young people coming up, we want them to have a life of meaning and do jobs where they feel appreciated and they can use their gifts and abilities.

Doesn't mean we can never have an immigrant come in and do something, of course, but we need to serve American citizens first. So employers, I would say it does. It begins with you.

It begins with you as a citizen, but it begins with you when you hire and it begins with you when you train. Please make sure you're putting America first because, without America, we don't have the freedom around the world. We need to fill up our own cup first before we can serve others.

So we need to make sure we're taking care of America and the American citizens first. And that's really going to help us economically. It's going to help us in terms of national security, and it's going to help future generations.

So do you have any other closing comments before we give people your website address and how to contact you? 

Rosemary Jenks: I would just say that, we all need to remember that this issue impacts everything you care about. Whatever your interests are, this is an important issue. So get involved and speak up and let your members of Congress know where you stand. It's really important. 

Linda J. Hansen: It really is. And just a reminder, listeners, too, that when you contact your member of Congress, just your voice, they think a thousand people, this is kind of the rule of thumb, that at least a thousand people in their district have the same view as you.

Because most people don't take time to contact their elected officials. But if you contact your officials on this, then they think at least a thousand people think like you do. So, let your voice be heard. Tell them you care about this issue. And don't let the big business, that is really only concerned about money, profits, and not so much concerned about the future of America, don't let them be the only voices that our members of Congress hear. So hold Congress to accountability.

So as we talk about the Immigration Accountability Project, we could also say this is the Congress Accountability Project. So hold Congress accountable. And that's because we, the people, have the opportunity to do so.

And we need to do that and make sure we don't lose that right. So thank you, Rosemary. So again, please give people the website and how they may contact you if they'd like to contact you personally or follow you on social media.

Rosemary Jenks: Yeah, so our website is IAProject.org, IAProject.org. And one of the key features of our website, under the Accountability tab is a list of every single member of Congress and every single immigration vote they have taken in this Congress, the press releases they put out on immigration, all of their actions, so that you can actually see where your member of Congress stands on the issue before you call them. It also has all their contact information. So that is one thing.

We have a lot of fact sheets and other resources that explain various issues, including the H-1B issue on the website. And you can contact me through the email on the website. 

Linda J. Hansen: Well, that's perfect. I thank you so much for sharing that, reminding everyone that the resources are available and helping to see the vote tallies or the vote scorecard of your elected officials. It's important to know. And, you know, listeners, I know it's hard sometimes I've heard people say, oh, I let politics be for the politicians.

Well, that's why we're in the mess we're in, because America was never meant to be led by politicians. America was meant to be led by we, the people. So let your voice be heard and make sure you educate yourself and for employers at the very basic level. Educate your employees. It matters. 

So thank you, Rosemary. I look forward to having you back again. We'll follow up on this issue and hope we can make positive change. Thank you.

Rosemary Jenks: Thank you, Linda. 

Linda J. Hansen: Okay. And listeners, before we sign off, I just want to say thank you again to our prosperity partners, but also to our strategic partners that help us spread the freedom message.

So the U.S. Christian Chamber of Commerce, Red Balloon, you can go to redballoon.work where you can learn about jobs, be free to work and free to hire. And Mother Nature's Trading Company, Podcast Town, Pro-Life Payments. And we're just so thankful for our newest partner, VAUSA, where you can get a virtual assistant made in America.

Many of these virtual assistants are military spouses. So you're not only helping American job to be had, but you're really supporting the families that are protecting our freedom. So I've kind of run through that list pretty quick.

But you can go to our show notes and on our website. And I want to say a special thank you to every single strategic partner. These are American companies who support the values that made America great. So please show your support to them. And in doing so you help keep this podcast on the air.  

So thank you again, Rosemary. Thank you listeners, and we look forward to next time. 

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