Who Really Benefits from Open Borders?
Large multinational firms and their industry associations are the clearest winners when immigration enforcement loosens, because a larger labor pool holds down wages and discourages training for citizens. Working families in construction, meatpacking, and hospitality lose ground when employers can shop globally for cheaper help instead of investing in the people who already live here.
The corporate lobby has spent decades dressing up this arrangement in compassionate language. We are told that every visa is a rescue and every border crossing is a victim fleeing oppression. Some of that is true. But the bottom line on Capitol Hill is that agribusiness, big tech, hotel chains, and meatpackers want labor at prices Americans will not accept. The guest-worker programs that sound generous on paper function as a federal discount code for payroll.
Look at the H-2B visa, which brings temporary workers to landscaping, construction, and seafood processing. The statutory cap is set at 66,000 visas per year, yet Congress routinely stuffs appropriations bills with returning-worker exemptions that push the real number past 150,000. Those workers are not stealing elite jobs. They are undercutting wages in towns where a high-school graduate used to be able to support a family on a single income.
Illegal immigration compounds the pressure. Department of Homeland Security data show southwest border encounters exceeded 137,000 in March 2026, a level that keeps interior enforcement permanently behind the curve. Each amnesty rumor and each catch-and-release flight sends a signal to employers that labor will stay cheap and workers will stay quiet.
The Numbers Do Not Lie
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in April 2026 that unemployment among native-born men without a high-school diploma stood at 6.4 percent, while unemployment for foreign-born men in the same education bracket was just 3.9 percent. That gap is not an accident. It reflects a labor market that rewards employers who can replace citizens with workers who have fewer outside options.
Real wages for non-managerial workers in construction rose only 0.7 percent over the past year, according to the same BLS release. Inflation may be cooling at the aggregate level, but the cost of housing, auto insurance, and groceries is still up sharply since 2021. A worker who gets a fifty-cent raise while his rent jumps two hundred dollars is not experiencing prosperity.
The Congressional Budget Office projected earlier this year that recent immigration levels will expand the labor force by roughly 8.9 million people between 2025 and 2034. CBO also noted that the influx would modestly lower average wages in low-skill occupations during the first half of that window. Modest in a spreadsheet is brutal in a paycheck.
Hispanic Americans feel this squeeze in a particular way. Many of our families have been here for generations, and we have watched union carpentry, drywall, and landscaping jobs morph into low-bidder races dominated by subcontractors who hire almost exclusively in Spanish. The promise that hard work leads to a mortgage and a stable neighborhood erodes when wages are set in a global auction.
A Populist Immigration Agenda
The answer is not cruelty at the border, and it is not another blanket amnesty that rewards lawbreaking while leaving citizens underemployed. The answer is an immigration system that puts the American worker first, treats legal immigrants as future citizens rather than disposable inputs, and pairs border security with mandatory workplace verification. That starts with mandatory E-Verify nationwide, so employers who undercut wages face real consequences instead of apology letters.
Congress should also stop rubber-stamping guest-worker expansions hidden inside must-pass spending bills. The H-2B program should return to its 66,000 cap, and the H-1B visa should be reserved for genuine specialists earning true market wages, not replacement workers for entry-level coding desks. When Silicon Valley complains about a shortage, it usually means a shortage of people willing to work at the salary it wants to pay.
Legal immigration should be reduced and rebalanced toward nuclear family reunification and skilled applicants who can build businesses and pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits. The current mix is a gift to shareholders and a bill handed to taxpayers who fund schools, hospitals, and roads.
Border security matters, but it cannot be separated from interior enforcement and workplace verification. A wall without E-Verify is a photo opportunity. Real immigration reform means making the magnet disappear.
Why This Matters to Texas
Texas is ground zero for both the human tragedy at the border and the economic betrayal of working families who watch wages stagnate while public services strain. Houston, Dallas, and the Rio Grande Valley have absorbed enormous population flows, and local taxpayers are footing the bill for schools, hospitals, and roads that federal policy forced upon them.
Texas workers should not have to compete against a bottomless supply of labor subsidized by federal inaction. Our state has produced millions of good jobs in energy, manufacturing, and construction. Those jobs should go to Texans and to legal immigrants who played by the rules, not to smugglers' clients delivered to a warehouse parking lot.
The Alamo Post was founded this year to say what the Austin press corps often will not. Working people in this state deserve an immigration policy written for them, not for the Chamber of Commerce. May 28 is as good a day as any to make that demand.
