{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://web.archive.org/web/20140222050719/http://www.sessions.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ID=bf6769a5-d606-3704-2fcd-ae1a3787888b", "Sessions: Presidents Rhetoric On Wages Undermined By Immigration Plan That Will Hammer American Workers", "2013-12-04", "2013", "2013-12", "Republican", "House", "AL", "Jeff Sessions", "S001141", "web.archive.org", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON\u2014U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today regarding President Obama\u2019s speech on the decline in economic conditions for U.S. workers:\n\u00a0\n\u201cIt is shocking for the President to give a speech about income disparity and falling wages while pushing an immigration plan that will hammer American workers and widen the disparity. The Congressional Budget Office confirms the White House-backed plan would reduce wages, reduce per capita GNP, and increase unemployment. The President says people are worried \u2018the system is rigged\u2019 and yet it is the President who has teamed up with a small cadre of CEOs to double the flow of immigrant workers when these exact same companies are laying off American workers in droves.\n\u00a0\nWages for American workers are lower today than they were more than a decade ago\u2014and take-home pay has fallen each year since the President came into office. A recent study demonstrated that all net job growth since 2000 has gone to immigrant workers while the number of U.S.-born Americans working has declined by 1.3 million.\n\u00a0\nThe President\u2019s policies also threaten college students who are about to enter a difficult economy. His plan would more than double the number of temporary foreign workers for wealthy tech companies. As Professor Ron Hira, a leading expert on H-1B visas, has noted, the visas are being used for \u2018facilitating offshoring and providing employers with cheap, temporary labor\u2014while reducing job opportunities for American high-tech workers in the process.\u2019\n\u00a0\nHarvard professor Dr. George Borjas found that high levels of immigration between 1980 and 2000 caused the wages of lower-skilled American workers to drop nearly 8 percent. He also found current immigration levels have resulted in a $402 billion annual wage loss for workers but a $437 billion increase in profits for business owners.\n\u00a0\nIt is time to have an open and honest conversation about our shrinking middle class and the consequences of our immigration policies on American workers and their wages. Unfortunately, that is not what we got from the President today.\n\u00a0\nThe truth is that the policy formula favored by President Obama\u2014more regulation, hostility to American energy, anti-growth taxation, surging debt, bigger government, more federal interference, government-run healthcare, and mindless immigration policies\u2014are the cause, not the cure, for growing middle class distress.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://web.archive.org/web/20140222050719/http://www.sessions.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ID=bf6769a5-d606-3704-2fcd-ae1a3787888b"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 4.424933111295104, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}