#Tom Cotton speaks out against legal immigration amid mass US unemployment

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) says it “makes absolutely no sense” to maintain the current levels of legal immigration in the US when the country faces an unemployment crisis, he said in an interview Tuesday.

Speaking to Breitbart News, the Arkansas senator made the argument when sharing his view that lawmakers should prioritize American employment over immigrants’.

“It makes absolutely no sense, at this moment when we have millions of people still out of work, to be bringing in foreign workers to take their jobs. We need to focus on getting American citizens back into the workforce and back working again,” he told the outlet.

Cotton, one of the Senate’s most ardent immigration hawks, argued that even before the coronavirus pandemic caused mass unemployment, “there was plenty of evidence that still many millions of Americans who were not actively looking for work who could have gotten into the workforce … if we weren’t bringing in millions of guest workers and new visa holders every single year.”

“We need to focus on hiring American before we continue to bring in foreigners to take jobs that Americans can do,” he continued.

Cotton is also a hardline China hawk, and has been for years. Back in January, he began warning President Trump, his administration and the Health and Human Services Department about the virus, months before anyone realized a pandemic was approaching, according to Politico.

During that time, he told one investment banker of the work he was doing, “I’ve got a meeting at the White House. This virus deal in China, we’re behind the curve on this thing.”

Cotton had lobbied the commander-in-chief to ban flights from China during those first months of the year, according to the outlet, a move Trump now regularly cites when touting the highlights of his coronavirus response.

Since then, Cotton’s focus has been reviving the economy and holding China accountable for the global impacts of the pandemic.

While speaking to Breitbart, the Arkansas Republican continued his argument that maintaining current legal immigration levels would impact any economic recovery.

“So many Americans have lost their jobs through no fault of their own and through no fault of their businesses, they lost it because of this virus that China unleashed on the world. We should not be bringing in more foreign workers to take those jobs,” he said.