Ivanka Trump calls on American companies to invest in our workers

For decades, American workers were neglected and forgotten as Washington stood by idly. While corporate America pushed for cheap labor abroad, our leaders let communities in the heartland crumble instead of fighting for blue-collar employees.

President Donald J. Trump pledged a new kind of economic agenda to change all of that. In just over two years in office, his Buy American and Hire American policies have poured investment back into the United States. More manufacturing jobs were created in 2018 than any single year in the last 20, for example.

America now has the hottest economy on earth. The next step is making sure that soaring growth pays off for every working American family.

Today, Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump hosted some of the country’s top CEOs—including Apple’s Tim Cook and Walmart’s Doug McMillon—for the first meeting of the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board at the White House. The group, which will advise President Trump’s National Council for the American Worker, is made up of 25 leaders from across industries and communities.

Its mission: Help more American workers get the skills training they need to fill one of the 7.3 million available jobs in our country today.

“Employers were coming to us and they were saying, ‘We’re optimistic about America, we want to invest here and a constraint for growth is the lack of a skilled workforce,’” Ms. Trump told The Wall Street Journal this week. “We don’t have people to fill the jobs.”

The Pledge to America’s Workers, which President Trump announced last summer and Ms. Trump leads, is part of a major push by the Trump Administration to fix that. Since the launch last July, 205 companies and organizations have pledged more than 6.5 million new career opportunities and apprenticeships for American workers and students.

“The right skills matter more than degrees,” Ms. Trump said.

6.5 million and counting: The Pledge to America’s Workers gains steam

Watch: Ivanka Trump kicks off the first meeting of the advisory board

Quote of the day: Record numbers of illegal migrants

“Bottom line is that if this continues, it’s like adding a congressional district of illegal immigrants every year,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said of America’s border crisis.

He’s right. The average congressional district is home to about 600,000 people. According to numbers released yesterday by the Department of Homeland Security, officials have apprehended nearly 268,000 people at the southwest border since October 1—on target to reach more than 640,000 for the fiscal year.

“This has to stop,” Sen. Graham says.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen delivered that same message to Congress today. “We face a crisis—a real, serious, and sustained crisis at our borders,” she said. “I hope there can be a consensus that the current system isn’t working and that this is an emergency.”

Among the horrible stories of victims suffering under the current, lawless system, one told by Secretary Nielsen today should move every member of Congress to act. Young women traveling north to the U.S. border are sexually abused with such regularity, she said, that U.S. immigration officials must give every girl over age 10 a pregnancy test after arriving.

“This is not a safe journey,” she added. No one should defend this awful status quo.

Press Secretary Sarah Sanders: Even former President Obama called this a crisis

By the numbers: Our border crisis grows worse by the day

Photo of the Day

Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian

President Donald J. Trump, joined by Vice President Mike Pence and Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump, attends the first American Workforce Policy Advisory Board Meeting | March 6, 2019