Last week, Politico featured a piece by right-wing pundit Pat Buchanan suggesting that rather than talking about a second stimulus package, tax credits, or public works projects, lawmakers should be seriously considering an immigration moratorium during these hard economic times. A few days later, former Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) authored an op-ed calling for a moratorium on legal immigration until “Americans are back on their feet.” ThinkProgress sat down with Department of Labor (DOL) Secretary Hilda Solis yesterday to discuss what a ban on immigration, coupled with ramped up deportations, could mean for the U.S. as a whole:

I think we’d have a big shortage of workers out there and I think as we move through this decade, we’re going to see people retiring from different types of jobs…so who is going to help fill those positions?

You would probably see towns shutting down, communities shutting down. You’d see second and third industries being affected – restaurant industries, service sectors industries where immigrants tend to work and be found. It would also impact the current ability to put food on your table because if you don’t have a certain number of people out there doing jobs that others wouldn’t want to do, then how are we going to provide the sustenance we need for all our American families?

Watch it:

What Buchanan, Goode, and all the others advocating an immigration moratorium fail to note is that, because of the recession, both legal and undocumented immigration are at record lows. And while it’s true that many immigrants work side-by-side American workers, that doesn’t serve as credible evidence that there is a significant number of American workers who have pursued those jobs and lost a job opportunity to an immigrant. In fact, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), has found that “despite the controversy it generates, illegal immigration has no significant impact on the overall U.S. economy.” MPI has also pointed out that, as of November 2009, immigrants are facing higher unemployment rates than American-born workers due to the fact that they are more likely to work in sectors that rise and fall with the business cycle.

As Solis points out, immigration policies should also take into account the future needs of an aging population. University of Southern California professor Dowell Myers recently pointed out that “as baby boomers become seniors, immigrants can fill the roles vacated by boomers shifting modes within the economy.” If the U.S. cuts future immigration, it could be in for a rude awakening when the recession is finally over. In an event at the Center for American Progress yesterday, Solis and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said today that comprehensive immigration reform would do a better job of strengthening the U.S. economy by improving pay, benefits, and working condition for all workers, along with adding billions of new tax dollars to the nation’s coffers.

Unemployment probably isn’t Goode and Buchanan’s only concern. In 2006, Buchanan called for an immigration moratorium to preserve the dominance of the white race in America. “If we do not get control of our borders, by 2050 Americans of European descent will be a minority in the nation their ancestors created and built,” wrote Buchanan. That same year, Goode also warned that “we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States.”

Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.

Late last week, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis issued a warning letter to department employees after office posters celebrating Gay Pride Month were defaced or removed. ThinkProgress obtained the Solis e-mail sent to the department’s entire staff. Solis, who helped found the House’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Caucus, wrote she was “particularly pleased to have the opportunity to be the first Secretary in the department’s history to publicly recognize Pride Month”:

“It appears, however, that some members of the Labor Department team have a different view, as it has come to my attention that most of the posters have been continually defaced or removed. On several occasions, even the poster frames have been torn completely off the elevator walls. [...]

I do not believe these actions represent the majority of our employees, so I refuse to let this situation define us. But I do want to make myself absolutely clear: Respect for others is non-negotiable at the U.S. Department of Labor.“

Solis added the Gay Pride posters will be immediately replaced if they are damaged or removed. Full e-mail below: Read more

Today, the Senate voted 80-17 to confirm Hilda Solis as Labor Secretary. The vote is a defeat for anti-worker conservatives, who have been stalling her nomination since Obama nominated her on Dec. 19. Responses from the AFL-CIO, SEIU, and UNITE HERE.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee today voted to send Hilda Solis’s nomination for Labor Secretary to the full Senate for approval. Sens. Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) cast the two “no” votes. It took 61 days since her nomination for Solis to get a committee vote, compared to Bush’s Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, who was confirmed in just 18 days. The widely praised Solis was blocked by Senate Republicans for her progressive views supporting American workers.

Below is the statement from SEIU President Andy Stern: Read more

After weeks of Republicans “burying her in paperwork,” the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee was finally prepared to vote on Hilda Solis’s nomination for Labor Secretary today. However, Politico now reports that the scheduled vote has been postponed:

Rep. Hilda L. Solis’ nomination vote has been delayed by the Senate committee in charge of vetting her for the secretary of labor position in President Barack Obama’s Cabinet.

The delay was announced moments after USA Today reported that Solis’ husband had recently paid off $6,400 in tax liens on an auto shop he owns in Los Angeles.

Yesterday, Pat Garofalo predicted that Solis was the right wing’s newest target after Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services. Today’s Progress Report has more on Solis’s nomination here.

- Matt Finkelstein

Yesterday, President Obama’s nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary, Tom Daschle, withdrew after it was revealed he failed to pay over $100,000 in taxes. In the wake of Daschle’s departure, the right-wing is gunning for another Cabinet victim — Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA), the nominee for Labor Secretary. The Heritage Foundation writes, “Hilda Solis: The Next Tom Daschle?” Some more examples:

National Review: While everyone is looking at Tom Daschle’s tax problems…a new issue has arisen concerning another Obama cabinet nomination, that of Rep. Hilda Solis to be Secretary of Labor.

The Weekly Standard: A seemingly innocuous letter sent to the Clerk of the House of Representatives last Thursday by President Obama’s Secretary of Labor nominee Hilda Solis raises serious and troubling legal questions about her nomination and apparent violation of House ethics rules.

RedState: [I]f we are lucky we may just see the appointment of this hardcore union shill go down in flames.

According to The Hill, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) “has questioned whether Solis had done lobbying work while she was both a House member and an official at a pro-labor group, American Rights at Work” (ARW). Solis’ confirmation has been indefinitely delayed, and today Obama nominated Ed Hugler, deputy assistant secretary for operations at the Labor Department, to serve as acting secretary.

As The Wonk Room noted last week, even before these lobbying charges were raised against Solis, Senate Republicans were “burying her in paperwork.” Their real gripe appears to be her support for the Employee Free Choice Act; the New York Times called the delay in her confirmation “a way for Republican senators to score tough-guy points with business constituents who are driven to distraction by the thought of unions.”

And as for the “conflict of interest” that the right wing is highlighting? Solis wasn’t paid for her activities with ARW, and as the Washington Independent pointed out, her role was well-known and ceremonial:

What would be the charge? Either that she participated in lobbying by being a leader with ARW, or that she erred by originally not mentioning this job in her disclosure documents. Two reasons this might not work: Solis’ role in ARW was well-known and ceremonial (it’s on their Website), and no congressman has hinted that he/she would file a complaint that could make a splash but not be deemed frivolous and politically motivated.

Greg Sargent reported recently, “Some top operatives in the labor movement are frustrated with the Obama administration for not giving them the go-ahead to publicly target Republicans who appear to be stalling Solis’ confirmation.” “The anonymous hold on Solis is a clear proxy fight for Employee Free Choice,” said a top operative at a prominent union. “And from the Obama Adminisitration … crickets.”

The Washington Post’s Al Kamen notes that while President Obama has nominated his top appointees at a record pace, the Senate has been approving them at a slower rate than they did for his predecessors:

But less than two weeks into his presidency, just 17 of the 31 nominees officially announced by the White House have been confirmed by the Senate. [...] By comparison, 19 of Bill Clinton’s nominees were confirmed in his first 10 days in office. George W. Bush, who had a much abbreviated transition because of the Florida recount, had 13 nominees confirmed in the first 10 days, according to an analysis by the Presidential Transition Project at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service in cooperation with The Washington Post.

Among the key nominees awaiting confirmation are Eric Holder for attorney general and Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA) for Labor Secretary. For example, Senate Republicans have obstructed Holder’s confirmation for 63 days since Obama nominated him on Dec. 1.

- Matt Finkelstein