Homeland Security chief Markwaye Mullin suggested Saturday the federal government could help employers by approving a greater inflow of visa-worker migrants.
“This narrative that [visa worker programs] steal American jobs is true in some industries,” Mullin told Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt at a meeting of the National Governors Association in Oklahoma City on Friday. But, he added:
It’s not true for all industries, and we need to pay attention and be sensitive to that as we move forward because [the top policy] is America First. We want to take care of Americans First. It’s our economy. It’s our homeland. But there’s a way to utilize labor where we’re not having the participation rate [by Americans] we need to [have], and we can plug those holes [with foreign workers].
“Thank you,” Stitt responded to Mullin, who also guggested that his agency might scale back the deportation of illegal migrants who have jobs.
Mullin’s concession came after Stitt and other governors urged Congress to grant them the ability to import a low-wage foreign workforce. Those cheap workers would help investors, CEOs and banks generate profits from low-value jobs, and would also cut the decent wages that would otherwise be earned by Americans in a prosperous, high-tech society.
Since the 1990s, many companies have been created in the expectation that the federal government would always preserve the inflow of low wage migrant labor. But many of those companies — for example, elder care companies, hotels, and restaurants — are now hiring lobbyists because Trump has sharply reduce the inflow of cheap legalized and illegal migrants.
“We give President Trump a lot of credit for securing the border, and then the next step is ‘Now what’?” Stitt told Mullin, adding:
How do we deal with the workforce needs for our agricultural community, for our dairy farms, for our chicken industry, for our fisheries? … Governors are thinking, “Hey, we’re closer to our economies, and so we should have a seat at the table to do maybe some workforce permits and help vet these [migrants] that are actually chasing the American dream, that have been here for 25 years … or that our companies need.
Stitt is a very pro-migration politician who owns a bank in Oklahoma. He has repeatedly called for federal laws that would allow CEOs to import foreign workers instead of letting Americans freely bargain with employers over wages and benefits in a fair, national labor market. Still has known Mullin for mny years because Mullins created a large plumbing business in Oklahoma.
Migrant inflows are good for banks, which earn profits as investors build new retail stores, rental apartments, and low-productivity workplaces for the migrants. But the inflows are bad for Americans, who will pay more for housing and earn less in low-tech workplaces.
President George W. Bush pushed for a similar “Any Willing Worker” plan in 2001, helping set the party on a collision course with New York investor Donald Trump.
Each year, roughly 3.5 million Americans graduate from K-12 schools to compete for jobs. Since 1990, the federal government delivered roughly 1 million legalized migrants each year who compete against young Americans for jobs. The federal government also imports more thn 500,000 seasonal laborers each yar, and sustains a population of more than 1.5 million white-collar workers with multi-year visas.
The result is that there are millions of sidelined citizens who can “plug …[claimed] holes” in the economy, especially if they are augmented by billions of investment dollars.
Stitt’s call for more cheap labor also contradicts President Donald Trump’s zig-zag push for more productivity, technology and prosperity. “We have to get efficient … we’ll probably add to [the existing workforce] through robotically—it’s going to be robotically,” Trump said in 2025. “Then, somebody is going to have to make the robots [so] the whole thing, it feeds on itself,” he added.
“Let me unpack that,” Mullin responded when Stitt asked for a “reform” that would allow governors to distribute work permits to favored employers.
“The problem is …It’s hard to get 60 [Senate votes for any reform] because no matter what you do, it’s not good enough” for GOP or Democratic factions in Congress, Mullin said, adding:
Can we work with the system we have? Yes. We have naturalization ceremonies [for new workers] every single day in the United States … In fact, over we’re real close to 900,000 individuals that have been naturalized in the last 12 months. There’s a legal system to go through.
There is no way around the legal immigration system, Mullin said, adding:
If you have a criminal background, we’re not making exceptions for you. There is no exceptions. There are zero exceptions … you’re going home — there’s no exceptions to that …
People want to talk about the workforce. I understand that, but a workforce that’s an illegal workforce only grows illegal activity. It doesn’t grow the economy in long term. It’s a short term solution, but it’s going to be long term problems. It is important that we understand that.
But Mullin then spotlighted the seasonal H-2A visa program, which he recently expanded in a fashion that helps year-round dairy farmers to import cheap workers and to minimize investment in labor-saving machinery:
When it comes to dairy farms … for some reason, we’ve looked at this as a as a as a seasonal work visa. It’s not seasonal … nothing seasonal about that. Still, stuff like that needs to be fixed … the huge greenhouses that we have now, they’re not seasonal anymore, and so we’re looking to change that.
However, any cheap labor provided by Mullins reduces the economic incentive for employers to invest in the technology that raises Americans’ productivity, wages, and global competitiveness:
In several other comments to Stitt and his audience of GOP and Democratic governors, Mullins suggested he wants to help employers release arrested illegal migrants back into the job market:
[if] you overstayed your visa, but you’re going through the [bureaucracy] system to change your status because you got married and have been married to a U.S. citizen for four years, and … you have no criminal history … and you been showing up for your court dates, you are going to be released.
Mullin also suggested that non-violent illegal migrants might not be deported:
I’m just saying, let’s work to get the worst of the worst off the streets, and then you won’t see me in your cities and states like you do as much because my presence won’t be as big. In fact, you probably won’t see us at all.
Many GOP politicians want Mullin to let illegal migrants work at low wages for many employers who do not want to train and hire the millions of Americans sidelined by the high-migration economy.
That economic strategy for employers — and donors — was embraced by President Joe Biden, who welcomed roughly 8 million “inadmissible” migrants across the southern border. So far, Trump’s deputies are on track to deport only 1.25 million of those migrants by late 2026.
But the widespread preference for migrants over Americans is deeply unpopular among the citizens who otherwise support GOP politicians. Late on Sunday, Mullin posted a tweet in response toangry comments from GOP-aligned activists and voters.
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