Will newly-created jobs go to citizens or to non-citizens?

Congress is considering major spending for infrastructure maintenance that has been neglected for years in the U.S.   Also on the agenda are actions on immigration policy, aimed at creating jobs for citizens, in line with Pres. Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American” position.

BUT, as Dan Cadman of the Center for Immigration Studies points out, it’s necessary to coordinate these two projects because otherwise, infrastructure spending could simply subsidize more illegal alien employment and not help job-seeking citizens at all.

How Upcoming Legislative Priorities Can Strengthen, or Sink, the 'Hire American' Agenda

By Dan Cadman, January 2, 2018

Excerpt:

To go back … to the infrastructure bill:

·       It should contain provisions that require every state or local government, and every pass-through contractor or subcontractor, to use E-Verify (although ideally, this would be covered as a nationwide requirement in any immigration bill enacted, as discussed above).

·       It should also specifically reserve technical jobs for citizens, resident aliens, and other aliens residing lawfully in the United States on a long-term basis, such as refugees and asylees.

·       The language should specifically prohibit the outsourcing of jobs.

·       The penalty for state and local governments unwilling to abide by these provisions should be exclusion from participation or receipt of grant monies, and failure to comply should result in clawbacks of funding provided.

·       And, finally, the penalty for contractors and subcontractors who do not comply or are found in violation should be debarment from participation in any federal or federally-funded projects, in addition to any civil fines or criminal penalties for hiring of unlawful workers.

...  Policy wonks, from the White House level on down, ought to be strategizing right now on the ways in which the infrastructure and immigration bills can — and should — complement one another, rather than being in conflict with one another. But are they?

Failure to do so means that the jobs won't go to the people they should, and a grand opportunity to put the president's Hire American agenda into practice will be lost.

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Read the entire article here.