I often focus on the nexus between failures of the immigration system and the way that these failures undermine national security and public safety.  Today, however, we will consider a more prosaic issue, but one that impacts millions of American and lawful immigrant workers and their families and hurt the U.S. economy.  The fact that millions of illegal aliens have taken jobs that should be done by Americans and lawful immigrants.

For years we have heard the lament spewed by globalist immigration anarchists that there are “jobs Americans won’t do.”

That statement is one of many employed in committing the crime of what I have come to refer to as Theft By Deception: The Immigration Con Game.

There are no jobs Americans won’t do, provided that they are paid fair wages under lawful working conditions.  The very concept of “jobs Americans won’t do” is insulting to tens of millions of hard-working and conscientious Americans who trudge off to work each and every day to do dangerous, back-breaking and filthy jobs so that they can support themselves and their families.

Homer Hickam, is the author of the book, “Rocket Boys,” an autobiographical account of his early years in the 1950s as the son of a coal miner in Coalwood, West Virginia.  Back then, the launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik motivated him to become involved with rocketry.  He ultimately went on to become a NASA engineer.  His book became the basis for the must-see film October Sky.

Because of his background and eloquence as a writer, he was called upon to address the memorial service for the miners who perished at the Sago Mine disaster in 2006. In the eulogy, Hickam said, “There is no water holier than the sweat off a man’s brow.”

Contrast Hickam’s reverence for hardworking Americans that his eloquent statement reflected with the contempt of those who derisively claim that Americans apparently won’t do hard work.

Employers who intentionally hire illegal aliens generally are putting their bottom lines first and not acting out of compassion.  There is nothing compassionate about firing hard-working Americans to replace them with foreign workers who are vulnerable to exploitation.

In point of fact, such actions are illegal and anti-American in the truest sense of that term. President Trump is the first president, in all too many decades, who understands the issues and is determined to address this betrayal of American workers by ramping up immigration law enforcement against unscrupulous employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens and the illegal aliens themselves.

This two-pronged approach is effective if enough resources are brought to bear to not only punish the law violators but to punish enough of them that meaningful deterrence is created to dissuade employers from hiring illegal aliens and also to deter aspiring illegal aliens from coming to the United States in the first place.

This is comparable to having police arrest prostitutes and their clients.  In both situations it literally “takes two to tango.”

On November 28, 2017 the Chicago Tribune published a report on a recent field operation by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) “Chicago immigration raid leaves bakery scrambling to rehire after 800 workers lost.”

That report began with this sentence:

A Swiss maker of hamburger buns for McDonald’s Corp. said it’s struggling to run a Chicago bakery after it lost a third of its workers in a clampdown on 800 immigrants without sufficient documentation.

That sentence could have been written by George Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth.”

The “immigrants” did not lack “sufficient documentation.” They lacked the lawful right to work in the United States and, in fact, were likely illegal aliens, meaning that they not only did not have the right to work in the United States, they did not have the right to be present in the United States at all.

The distinction is that aliens who run our borders and enter the United States without inspection are immediately subject to arrest and deportation.  However, non-immigrant aliens who are admitted as tourists, for example, are not permitted to work unless they are granted specific authorization.  An alien who works illegally becomes immediately subject to removal (deportation) even if he/she has not overstayed his authorized period of admission.

That article went on to note:

The raid on workers at Cloverhill is one of the biggest U.S. employment headaches reported by a European company so far as President Donald Trump has made curbing undocumented immigration a centerpiece of his presidency. Aryzta said it faces challenges in retaining staff in the U.S. and pressure to raise wages.

One of President Trump’s primary campaign promises was to put American workers first by enforcing our nation’s immigration laws. Clearly this strategy works.  Eight hundred American and lawful immigrant workers will be the beneficiaries of that field operation in Chicago.

Furthermore, foreign workers, whether they are legally or illegally working in the United States send as much of their earnings as possible back to their families in their home countries.  This certainly makes sense for them, but is not in the best interests of the United States.

Every year tens of billions of dollars in wages earned by illegal aliens is wired or otherwise transferred out of the United States.  This money is permanently lost to the U.S. economy and increases America’s national debt.

While almost all candidates for political office promise to create jobs, effective immigration law enforcement can liberate jobs, freeing up already existing jobs for American and lawful immigrant workers. Creating new jobs can be difficult and time-consuming, often requiring that funding be arranged to start a new business or expand an existing business.  Liberating jobs can be done literally overnight as was reported in the Chicago Tribune story, without the expenditure of time or money.

At the beginning of my career with the former INS I participated in worksite investigations and happily witnessed, up close and in person, lines of new employees standing at the doors of factories I had helped to raid the day before.  Those new workers were of every race, religion and ethnicity.  What united them was that they were all either Americans or aliens who were authorized to work in the United States.

While immigration law enforcement is a function of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) because of the national security and public safety concerns that relate the potential for criminals, spies and terrorists entering the United States, prior to the Second World War, the Labor Department had primary responsibility for the enforcement and administration of our immigration laws.

Our leaders of the Greatest Generation understood that for America to do well, Americans had to do well.  Their goal was to make certain that American workers would not have to compete with foreign workers for a job.  This was of particular concern during the Great Depression which saw millions of desperate unemployed Americans standing on line at soup kitchens. Shielding American workers from foreign competition gave rise to the middle class which, in turn, created the “American Dream.”

Immigration law enforcement authority was moved into the Justice Department during the beginning of the Second World War when concerns arose that enemy combatants, including spies and saboteurs, might seek to enter the United States.

Today tens of millions of hard-working Americans are unemployed or under-employed.  President Trump’s immigration policies are beginning to have the desired effect of liberating jobs and raising wages.

However, politicians from both parties seek to undermine the President’s goals.  What is particularly infuriating is that Democrats in Congress, who claim to be “pro-labor,” continue to block the administration’s efforts to secure our borders, not only against narcotics and other contraband as well as criminals, terrorists and fugitives but against the entry of foreign workers who undercut the jobs and wages of Americans.

The Democrats support massive chain migration and demand the legalization of hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who were granted temporary authorization under Obama’s DACA (Deferred Action- Childhood Arrival) program, threatening to shut down the government if they don’t get their way.

If those DACA aliens, who had claimed to have entered the United States prior to their 16 birthdays are legalized, once they acquire U.S. citizenship they will have the right, under current law, to file to have all of their brothers and sisters and their spouses and minor children admitted into the United States as lawful immigrants.  Under such a scenario, one newly minted U.S. citizen could bring in dozens of extended family members.

The Democratic Party used to be the party of blue collar America- supporting laws and policies that benefitted that segment of the U.S. population.  Their leaders may still claim to be advocates for America’s working families, however their duplicitous actions that betray American workers and their families, while undermining national security and public safety, provide clear and incontrovertible evidence of their lies.

Americans must demand that all of our political leaders finally accept the wisdom, morality and true leadership of the Greatest Generation and support President Trump’s immigration policies and the underlying principle that for America to do well, Americans must do well.

RELATED ARTICLE: GAO says climate of “fear” in chicken plants where refugee workers are part of the workforce

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in FrontPage Magazine.