Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., told Newsmax on Tuesday that the United States must address the effect of employment-based immigration on American workers.

"Not a lot of people want to talk about it, but the time is now," Schmitt said on "Finnerty." "Working folks, the people I grew up with, they had this double whammy, this problem where their jobs were shipped overseas for cheap labor."

"And as they were looking for new and different jobs, the country was flooded with illegal immigration," Schmitt added.

"But also, you have a legal immigration problem," he continued. "Take the H-1B visa program ... where people who are well-qualified,  engineers even, are competing now with foreign workers that are brought in at a cheaper rate."

Schmitt said many qualified Americans lose out to Chinese students who are here on a visa.

"There's a tax break when they graduate for corporations to hire them [legal immigrants], as opposed to American students who are graduating," Schmitt said. "So we've got to get ahold of this. This is affecting wages. It's also affecting housing.

"Even the Fed has come out that rents are way up because you have 20 million people who are here illegally that were let in a four-year period of time, the most in U.S. history," Schmitt added, referencing the Federal Reserve.

The senator noted that Microsoft, which recently laid off 5,000 employees, is bringing in more than 2,000 workers on foreign visas.

"That's a classic example. These are American workers who are qualified to do these tech jobs," Schmitt said. "And the only reason a company like Microsoft is bringing people in to replace those workers is they can pay them a lower wage."

Schmitt said he wants changes to the H-1B visa program to ensure foreign students are not subsidized to come in and displace American students.

"You see it in the numbers," Schmitt said. "Some of the highest unemployment rates are for college grads coming out with engineering degrees, right?

"We tell people, go learn how to be an engineer," he added. "Well, that's not very fair if you're actually having them compete with cheaper foreign labor.

"It's not because we don't have people who do those jobs," Schmitt continued. "It's just they're bringing in foreign replacement workers who will do it cheaper.

"And the American worker then has the indignity of actually having to train their replacement ... plus maybe $200,000 in student loans in some cases that need to be paid off."

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