Senator Sessions Urges Republicans to Seize Immigration Limits as a Winning Issue

Jeff Sessions, a leader against the Senate’s destructive amnesty bill in recent months, has sent a memo to fellow Republicans, urging them to reject amnesty. Many in the party have bad ideas in their heads about how a vote for amnesty will put them in the good graces of the overestimated hispanic voter. But it makes no sense to pursue a minority voting bloc when the Republican base strongly rejects amnesty for millions of lawbreaking foreigners.

Sessions argues that Democrats believe they can get away with screwing their own people in the working class because Repubs would be too dim, too bought by big business to stand for American workers.

Actually, the Democrats abandoned working class citizens years ago, when the Ds decided to become the diversity party, excluding all other values.

The upshot is that very few elected officials in Washington give a passing thought to Americans struggling in a worsening economy that is supposed to be recovering from a recession. It’s an opportunity for Republicans, if they are wise enough to embrace it.

The same set of GOP strategists, lobbyists, and donors who have always favored a proposal like the Gang of Eight immigration bill argue that the great lesson of the 2012 election is that the GOP needs to push for immediate amnesty and a drastic surge in low-skill immigration.

This is nonsense.

The GOP lost the election—as exit polls clearly show—because it hemorrhaged support from middle- and low-income Americans of all backgrounds. In changing the terms of the immigration debate we will not only prevent the implementation of a disastrous policy, but begin a larger effort to broaden our appeal to working Americans of all backgrounds. Now is the time to speak directly to the real and legitimate concerns of millions of hurting Americans whose wages have declined and whose job prospects have grown only bleaker. This humble and honest populism—in contrast to the Administration’s cheap demagoguery—would open the ears of millions who have turned away from our party. Of course, such a clear and honest message would require saying “no” to certain business demands and powerful interests who shaped the immigration bill in the Senate.

In Senator Schumer’s failed drive to acquire 70 votes, he convinced every single Democrat in his conference to support a bill that adds four times more guest workers than the rejected 2007 immigration plan while dramatically boosting the number of low-skill workers admitted to the country each year on a permanent basis. All this at a time when wages are lower than in 1999, when only 58 percent of U.S. adults are working, and when 47 million residents are on food stamps. Even CBO confirms that the proposal will reduce wages and increase unemployment. Low-income Americans will be hardest hit.

Ordinarily, this would be an act of political suicide for Democrats. How can they possibly succeed with a plan that will so badly injure American workers? Perhaps Senator Schumer, the White House, and their congressional allies believe the GOP lacks the insight to seize this important issue, push away certain financial interests, and make an unapologetic defense of working Americans. They seem, in fact, to expect the GOP House to drag their bill across the finish line. Indeed, more than a few in our party will argue that immigration reform must “serve the needs of businesses.” What about the needs of workers? Since when did we did we accept the idea that the immigration policy for our entire nation—with all its lasting social, economic, and moral implications—should be tailored to suit the financial interests of a few CEOs?

Americans broadly oppose further increases to our current generous immigration levels by a 2-1 margin, but the opposition among those earning less than $30,000 is especially strong: they prefer a reduction to an increase by a 3-1 margin. And no wonder: according to Harvard’s Dr. George Borjas, it’s the working poor whose wages have declined the most as a result of high immigration levels.

The GOP has a choice: it can either deliver President Obama his ultimate legislative triumph—and with it, a crushing hammer blow to working Americans that they will not soon forgive—or it can begin the essential drive to regain the trust of struggling Americans who have turned away. As Rich Lowry and Bill Kristol wrote in a joint op-ed, “the Gang of Eight bill unleashes a flood of additional low-skilled immigration. The last thing low-skilled native and immigrant workers already here should have to deal with is wage-depressing competition from newly arriving workers… It’s most important that the party perform better among working-class and younger voters concerned about economic opportunity and upward mobility.”

Like Obamacare, this 1,200-page immigration bill is a legislative monstrosity inimical to the interests of our country and the American people. Polls show again and again that the American people want security accomplished first, that they do not support a large increase in net immigration levels, and that they do not trust the government to deliver on enforcement. The GOP should insist on an approach to immigration that both restores constitutional order and serves the interests of the American worker and taxpayer. But only by refusing any attempt at rescue or reprieve for the Senate bill is there a hope of accomplishing these goals.

Instead of aiding the President and Senator Schumer in salvaging a bill that would devastate working Americans, Republicans should refocus all of our efforts on a united push to defend these Americans from the Administration’s continued onslaught. His health care policies, tax policies, energy policies, and welfare policies all have one thing in common: they enrich the bureaucracy at the expense of the people. Our goal: higher wages, more and better jobs, smaller household bills, and a solemn determination to aid those struggling towards the goal of achieving financial independence.

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In New Interview, Blogger Mickey Kaus Laments Waning of Liberal Values in Immigration Debate

Political journalist and “neoliberal” blogger Mickey Kaus tells the Center for Immigration Studies how the Democrats’ immigration stance is at odds with the essential goal of promoting social equality among all Americans.

Amnesty and the huge immigration increases in the Senate bill, Kaus says in the interview, "will make it impossible for someone who does basic labor, at the bottom of the labor market ... to make a decent living and live a life of dignity, because you're going to be competing against all the world's poor."

View the interview of Mr. Kaus at:  http://cis.org/Videos/ImmigrationPolicyInterviews/Mickey-Kaus
View the CIS interview series at:  http://cis.org/Videos/ImmigrationPolicyInterviews

Mr. Kaus, a columnist for the Daily Caller, one of the first political bloggers, and a candidate in the 2010 Democratic Senate primary in California says, “It is crazy that there are no Democrats who wonder about the wisdom of uncontrolled illegal immigration. It has the effect of driving down wages of unskilled Americans especially, but also possibly in the case of importing high-tech people, driving down the wages of middle class people.“

Among the topics addressed by Mr. Kaus:

* Problems with preserving ethnic identity over civic identity
* Massive immigration drives down wages for American workers
* Massive immigration destroys social equality
* Caring for the foreign poor over the American poor
* Drive for amnesty is a drive for the Latino voter
* Black leadership co-opted by pro-amnesty forces
* Welfare debate parallels immigration debate

The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820,  Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076.  Email: center@cis.org. Contact: Marguerite Telford, 202-466-8185, mrt@cis.org.  The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United States.  The Center for Immigration Studies is not affiliated with any other organization