The good news: a group of pro-sovereignty GOPers signed a letter to the President condemning immigration policies that would admit millions more foreign workers when unacceptable levels of American unemployment persist.

The bad news: only 16 members signed the letter: Mo Brooks (R-AL), Lou Barletta (R-PA), Kerry Bentivolio (R-MO), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Walter Jones (R-NC), Phil Gingrey (R-GA), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), John Fleming (R-LA), Steve King (R-IA), Ted Yoho (R-FL), Joe Wilson (R-SC), Steve Stockman (R-TX), Lamar Smith (R-TX), Steven Palazzo (R-MS), Mike Rogers (R-AL), and Jeff Duncan (R-SC). These individuals are excellent representatives of voter concerns, but one might wish there were more signers.

The January 8 letter was sent before the terrible job numbers for December came out: only 74,000 jobs were added to the economy, the lowest number since January 2011. The total for the year was just 2.2 million, similar to 2012.

Below, jobs added to the economy by month in 2013.

The dismal report is a strong indication that a jobless recovery is indeed the new normal, and structural changes caused by industry outsourcing and increasing automation/robotics show that the bleats of billionaires that they need more foreign workers are based on simple greed.

Rep. Mo Brooks appeared on the Cavuto business show on Friday and made a clear case for protecting the American worker from open-borders globalists. Brooks quoted Sen. Harry Reid who mentioned that there are three competitors for every available job (arguing emergency unemployment insurance should be extended) — yes, Brooks agreed, jobs are scarce, so why import more foreigners to compete against citizens? He estimated that the Senate bill would create 40 million additional workers over a decade, an unsustainable increase given the level of anemic job creation.

Mo Brooks (who has a fine record in this field) also voiced his fear that Speaker Boehner would “cave” to the amnesty side.

You can see a pdf of the letter to the President here.

Here is the text:

Letter Warns: Immigration Bill Will Collapse Middle Class and Increase Unemployment, Poverty, Weekly Standard, January 9, 2014

[. . .] January 8, 2014

Dear Mr. President:

We write to you today on behalf of the 21 million Americans who can’t find a full-time job. We write to you on behalf of the 6 million young Americans who are neither working nor in school. We write on behalf of the countless American workers whose wages today are lower than they were more than a decade ago. We write on behalf of the 90 million Americans over 16 – including early retirees, college grads living at home, and those living on welfare – who are not part of our nation’s workforce.

That is why we reject your call for the House to get an immigration bill to your desk that would permanently displace American workers. The Senate immigration bill, which the White House helped craft and which you personally endorse, would double the number of guest workers brought into this country at a time of crippling joblessness and falling incomes. On top of that, the Senate immigration bill would also add millions more permanent immigrant workers through green cards – handing out permanent residency to more than 30 million immigrants over the next decade. This represents a tripling of the normal green card rate. 

CBO confirms that these immigrants will be mostly lower-skilled, and that wages for American citizens would fall while American unemployment would rise. Per-capita GNP would sink as well.

According to research from Harvard Professor Dr. George Borjas, low-skilled immigration has, between the years 1980 and 2000, resulted in nearly an 8% wage reduction for US-born workers without a high school degree. Rapidly expanding unskilled immigration – at time when factory work and blue collar jobs are disappearing – would represent the final economic blow for millions of workers who have been struggling to gain an economic foothold.

Yet, despite this jobs crisis for American workers, the White House continues to advocate that CEOs and business executives seek lower cost labor. The White House has entertained a parade of high-powered business executives to discuss immigration policy, all while shutting out the concerns of everyday wage-earners who overwhelmingly oppose these measures. You even released an economic report saying that the “hospitality and leisure industry” needs “legislation that would legalize workers in the U.S. and facilitate the lawful employment of future foreign-born workers.”

Is it the position of the White House that the hotel industry cannot be asked to find employees from among the legions of unemployed residing here today?

As Byron York notes in the Washington Examiner, many of the CEOs asking for new workers have been laying off thousands of their own workers.

So-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform may be a good deal for big businesses who want to reduce labor costs, and it may be a good deal for progressive labor unions seeking new workers from abroad, but it’s an awful deal for US workers – including African-American and Hispanic communities enduring chronically high unemployment.

Job number one for Congress should be to reduce the unemployment rolls, get families and communities out of poverty and government dependency, rebuild our deteriorating communities and collapsing middle class, and increase wages for American citizens. Your immigration proposals do the exact opposite on every count.

Sincerely, [. . .]