DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin appeared on Fox News’s “Ingraham Angle” this week and denied he’d been told to “lighten up” on removals. But immediately after — with his next breath — the secretary stated that “we’ve changed our priorities from doing ... job site raids to doing warrant raids”. Why does the head of the nation’s sole immigration enforcement department hate “worksite enforcement”, the best tool Congress has given the executive branch to control illegal immigration?
'Key to Effective Deterrence Is a Reduction in the Job Magnet'
As I explained in March, controlling the flow of immigrant labor to the United States and deterring unauthorized employment have been key to immigration enforcement for nearly as long as there have been immigration enforcement agencies.
It’s not for nothing that the federal government in 1903 shifted authority for enforcing the then-nascent immigration laws from the Department of the Treasury to what was then the Department of Commerce and Labor, and when the Labor was spun off as its own department (DOL) in 1913, the immigration remit went with it.
And when Congress consolidated the various alien-control statutes in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1952, it specifically (with exceptions) barred the admission of aliens “seeking to enter the United States for the purpose of performing skilled or unskilled labor” if DOL had certified that there were:
sufficient workers in the United States who are able, willing, and qualified are available at the time (of application for a visa and for admission to the United States) and place (to which the alien is destined) to perform such skilled or unskilled labor or ... the employment of such aliens will adversely affect the wages and working conditions of the workers in the United States similarly employed.
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