Last week it was CNBC complaining about immigration enforcement cutting into apparel and footwear retailers’ profits. Apparently, Bloomberg publications has now decided to throw its hat in the ring for dumbest article in the history of American journalism. According to Bloomberg Politics “Trump’s Immigration crackdown Is Making New Homes More Expensive.” So, once again a mainstream media outlet is claiming that the safety, security, and economic welfare of the majority of Americans should be sacrificed for the benefit of illegal aliens, and the profits of unscrupulous employers who want labor at sub-par wages.
Bloomberg claims that, “…President Trump’s immigration policies have dried up the already stretched supply of Hispanic-dominated framing labor. That has driven up home prices by slowing the supply of new houses as well as raising the cost of building them.” Of course, what Bloomberg and other mainstream news publications don’t want to discuss is the fact that the prices for new homes have been kept comparatively lower because housing contractors have been all too willing to engage in unlawful hiring practices.
The net result of these shady hiring practices is a decrease in the wages of all construction workers. Construction in Los Angeles, for example, was a heavily unionized industry that was made up mostly of U.S. citizen workers. It produced good jobs that catapulted experienced tradesmen firmly into the American middle class. But then contractors started hiring illegal aliens to drive down costs. Paying lower wages and eliminating the expenses associated with healthcare, paid vacations, and other benefits significantly increased profit margins. Now, Programs and Results, Inc., a business consultancy for home builders, estimates that 14-25 percent of construction workers are illegal aliens. Its assessment is backed up by studies conducted by groups such as the Pew Research Center and the Urban Institute. And overall wages in the construction industry have fallen. Construction, extraction, and other industrial workers now make less, in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars, than they did 40-50 years ago.
If Bloomberg actually cared about Americans, it wouldn’t be whining about President Trump’s immigration policies. It would be denouncing the unscrupulous contractors who favor illegal aliens over American workers, and then exploit those foreign workers by paying them below-market wages. It’s not the Trump administration’s immigration policies that are hitting average citizens in the wallet. It’s the open borders mentality that has prevailed in both the White House and Congress for decades.
The best way to protect American pocketbooks is to secure our borders and deport immigration law-breakers. But in the bizarre world of politically correct identity politics favored by most media outlets, it’s illegal aliens, and people shopping for 3,000 square foot homes, not the blue-collar American, who are the victims. Hopefully, President Trump will ignore bad advice from the mainstream media and keep his immigration campaign promises.