Reform of the nation’s immigration laws could help employers who are having a hard time filling jobs openings, resulting in wage inflation pressures, U.S. Rep. Sean Casten, D-Downers Grove, said at a town hall meeting in Orland Park.
“We have to have a path to citizenship,” Casten said at Thursday’s event, attended by some 150 people at the Orland Park Public Library.
He won a third term in November’s general election with 54.4% of the vote, defeating Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau.
Casten said through town halls and mailings he is trying to familiarize himself with the redrawn district. He said he has so far met with 40 mayors.
“Seventy-five percent of the 6th District is new to me,” he said, as the remap added constituents from portions of Chicago and suburbs previously outside his area.
It was the second in-person town hall Casten had held since the election, the other taking place in La Grange, according to his staff. Two telephone town hall meetings have also been held.
The redrawn district includes Chicago’s Beverly and Mount Greenwood communities as well as suburbs including Alsip, Hickory Hills, Oak Forest, Oak Lawn, Orland Park and Worth.
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Casten said the U.S. had, from 2000 through 2017, more available workers than jobs to fill, but that has since shifted.
“Since then we are generating way more jobs than workers,” he said.
Even accounting for massive job losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Casten said that imbalance of available jobs compared with people to fill them hasn’t changed.
“We put a lot of money into the economy, creating a ton of American jobs,” he said.
“An overwhelming majority of undocumented immigrants entered the country legally,” Casten asserted.
“You got stats for that?” one man in the audience challenged.
Casten said many of the immigrants are farmworkers who are “being paid off the books in exchange for us getting cheap food.”
“Where’s the cheap food at?” another man asked.
“We went from a buyer’s market for labor to a seller’s market,” Casten said, saying that’s why many employers are seeking job applicants despite boosting wages for positions, which has exerted upward pressure on wage inflation.
“The way we solve that problem is to fix our immigration system,” he said. “We are welcoming far fewer people to our country legally.”
Talking to reporters after the town hall event, Casten said that his meetings with mayors in areas that are now part of the 6th District has been eye-opening.
“It’s been fascinating to see the dynamics of how the mayors’ issues are different,” he said.
Casten said that, through the meetings, he wants to start relationships with officials in the new sections of the district, noting he’s heard about problems such as chronic flooding.