IMMIGRATION
I was disappointed and a little embarrassed by Cathy’s “Miss Congeniality” reply to President Obama’s State of The Union Address. When politicians speak I often have the reaction “ How stupid does he think we are?” Cathy’s statement below, about pursuing an immigration bill in the summer of 2014 brought that reaction, and my campaign to unseat her is the result.
NOTE: After the primary defeat of Eric Cantor in June of 2014 the Republican leadership dropped all plans for “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” for 2014. A factor in that election was Cantor’s support for “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” and his opponent (an economics professor ) pointing out that high immigration rates have held down wages.
Quoting a Spokesman Review article regarding an interview with Cathy McMorris Rodgers on April 25, 2014 on immigration reform. Link 1 below:
“A bipartisan plan was passed in the Senate last spring (2013) but made no headway in the Republican-controlled House. McMorris Rodgers echoed the concern brought up by many in the chamber, saying she wants to see stronger border security. But she said she’d support a bill that grants legal status to those undocumented immigrants working toward citizenship, allowing them to remain in the country to work and go to school while they wait their turn in the current system. “We’re going to have to push that this is a legal status, not amnesty,” she said.
If they get to stay in this country it is amnesty. How stupid do they think we are? The normal politician’s reply is: “Oh, but they are going to have to pay a fine, and back taxes, and learn English. “ They won’t be paying the fines, nor learning English. They will be allowed to duck both requirements in years to come, claiming discrimination, we all know that. And they will be voting. They are already voting in places with lax registration requirements and counties with highly partisan election officials, California. Talk to a couple of your friends that immigrated from California. Ask them if illegals are voting down there. Chances are they will tell you stories of illegals being bussed to polling places. I have heard these anecdotes for years and I am certain that there is some truth to them.
There is no point in making further immigration laws when our existing laws are not being enforced. Since we gave Amnesty to 3.5 Million with the Simpson Mazzoli immigration act of 1986 our immigration laws have seldom been enforced. Now we have somewhere between 11 and 20 Million illegal immigrants in this country and the Senate has passed a bill similar to Simpson Mazzoli. The result of the amnesty given by Simpson Mazzoli and non enforcement of employer sanctions after a short time was acceleration of illegal immigration. An example of this non enforcement would be the recent reports of the Obama administration in 2013 releasing 36,000 illegal immigrant felons who had completed their prison sentences. They were being held pending deportation, they were deportable by law, and they were just released. Link 2 below.
Looks to me like the Republican Leadership, including Cathy McMorris Rodgers wants a repeat of the 1986 Simpson Mazzoli immigration bill ( Link 3 ) and they will again cave on requiring border enforcement and employer sanctions as a price for “legalization” ( amnesty in truth ). Even if they got border enforcement and employer sanctions up front there is no indication that these portions of the law will be enforced. Illegal immigration will just continue as it is, or increase.
The massive illegal immigration problem we have and our high rate of legal immigration has many negative aspects for our country and also is detrimental to the home countries.
Detrimental effects on USA
- Holds down wages. The law of supply and demand is in effect. An endless supply of low skilled labor keeps wages low, at the low end and also dampens wage increases up the line.
- Decreases opportunity for unskilled people. They must compete with an endless pool of unskilled illegal aliens.
- Decreases opportunity for skilled people. Increasing H1B visa quotas, to please the Hi Tech industry keeps wages down and decreases opportunity for our own citizens.
- Nearly 25% of our Medical Doctors are foreign born and foreign trained. The availability of these foreign doctors allows us to neglect to build sufficient medical schools to provide the opportunity to be doctors to our own citizens. We still have a doctor shortage and we are not addressing it by increasing medical school enrollments.
- Increases crime. The first act of an illegal immigrant is to break the law. After leaving the border area they are not pursued and in most places local law enforcement has no interest in picking up illegal aliens. Most often when they are picked up for minor infractions they are not deported. Learning to flout the law affects the subsequent behavior of many of them. Out of proportion to their number they get into criminality, predominantly the drug trade. Out of proportion to their number they are involved in serious traffic infractions DWI and Hit and Run. When they are picked up, they get bail, they change their name and since they are undocumented they are home free. Many of them think nothing of defrauding the government by making false claims for benefits they are not entitled to since they are not citizens. In areas with heavy illegal alien populations, California, there is a well developed false document industry.
- Increase legal system and incarceration costs. Approximately 30% of Federal, State and Local prisoners are illegal aliens.
- Makes health care more expensive. Most illegals have no insurance, and no means to pay for health care since their wages are so low. They must be treated in emergency rooms and when they don’t pay, the hospitals must pass the costs to paying customers through higher charges to stay in business.
- Increases social welfare costs. Even though they are not citizens, illegal immigrants in most large “sanctuary cities” can avail themselves of the full suite of social service programs. Food Stamps, housing support, free health clinics.
- Increased education costs. These illegal aliens have children that we must educate. Since many of the parents are illiterate in their own language and have no tradition of education, and speak their native language at home, educating these children is more expensive.
Negative Effects on the Home Countries and World Development
- People come to this country illegally because they are desperate. Their home countries, now predominantly Mexico, do not provide the opportunity for a decent life. The reason for this boils down to poor governance due to a failed or corrupt political culture. Allowing high rates of illegal immigration from these dysfunctional countries removes the people who would provide the pressure to change these failed or corrupt political cultures and consequently delays needed changes or makes them unlikely to ever happen.
- Societies that are going to progress finally come to realize that they must invest in their people. When they turn the corner, like India, and start producing Medical Doctors, Nurses, scientists and engineers, if we scoop up a large portion of these trained people, we are again delaying the development and improvement of these countries.
The best and brightest fled Iran in the last years of the Shah and the first years after the Revolution. Noting this fact, I heard some talk show host remark “ Where is Iran’s Lech Walesa?” He concluded that Iran’s Lech Walesa was in Irvine California, an American, born to some of Iran’s best and brightest who settled there around 1980. Well, there is a guy that is called Iran’s Lech Walesa. His name is Mansour Osanloo, the head of the Tehran bus driver union. He has caused the regime a lot of trouble, but was too well known to kill so after years of repeatedly imprisoning and torturing him they have finally driven him into exile, lately in Turkey. If Iran’s best and brightest had not been able to flee, their children would have been around to help Osanloo, or replace him, and Iran would be much further along to becoming a decent country. The world would be better for that.
BOTH REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRAT ELITES WANT OPEN BORDERS – WHY?
Bear with me here for what looks like a divergence – but it is pertinent.
From an April 25, 2014 Spokesman Review article: “Google, Apple, Intel and Adobe Systems have settled a class-action lawsuit alleging they conspired to prevent their engineers and other highly sought technology workers from getting better job offers from one another.” The net effect of this conspiring, as far as the employee is concerned is that his wages are held down. Link 4.
TO HOLD DOWN WAGES
Google, Apple, Intel, Adobe — the people that changed the world and have more money than God, yet they would conspire with one another to reduce employee mobility, for many reasons, but among them to hold down wages. Why? To hold down costs, like any business. The only law you can always count on is the law of supply and demand. When labor is plentiful, or when you collude to not poach employees, wages are held down. These same companies want ever increasing H1B visas so they can keep downward pressure on wages. There is no shortage of high tech workers, and if there were, higher wages would be the solution. High tech wages have been stagnant since the Clinton administration – concurrent with a huge influx of foreign born high tech workers on H1B visas. Here is a link to a PBS program about this problem. Link 5 below.
President Bush, among others, often said “These people are taking jobs that Americans won’t do.” This is half of a true statement. The full true statement should be “ These people are taking jobs that Americans won’t do for the pay and working conditions offered.”
TO INCREASE DEMOCRAT VOTES.
Republicans elites benefiting from cheap illegal labor delude themselves that these are “conservative hard working family values people” that will become Republicans. This is idiocy, These folks become as lazy, immoral and fat as the rest of us after a short time, and are replaced by new skinny illegals who will work hard and cheap. In the long term the Democrats are the party that will prosper when these illegals become voters. The illegals from Mexico come from a political culture that spouts socialist rhetoric, but is too corrupt to make a decent county. They understand and resent that they are exploited while in illegal status here. To think that they will not respond favorably to the socialist rhetoric of the Democrats is to be blinded by short term self interest in holding down wages.
My Position: No one has a right to immigrate here without our permission. Illegal immigration must be stopped. It has many negative effects on our country and indeed has a long term negative effect on the countries of origin. Enforce the borders. Require universal use of the E-Verify system by employers, on new hires and on existing employees. Heavily fine employers hiring illegal immigrants. These measures will slow illegal immigration, but to stop it we must deport large numbers over a fairly short time period to drive home the message that America is no longer a haven for illegal aliens. We have done this before. In the 50’s, in response to large numbers of WW2 veterans being unable to find work, during President Eisenhower’s administration between 1 and 2 million were deported or otherwise convinced to leave, in two years. We are not going to deport all these folks, it is going to be a humanitarian nightmare, but I would start by setting criteria that would result in quickly deporting all felons, anyone convicted of a misdemeanor and all those who don’t speak, read and write English at a 6th grade level. If they don’t speak English they haven’t been here long enough to set deep roots, or have intentionally not mixed with the main population that made this a country worth fleeing to. We can do without them. After we have deported all these folks we could take a look at where we are and how much further we want to go. In order to get this done we must eliminate all “sanctuary cities” by tying federal funds to assistance with this project. The deportation process must also be streamlined. Those illegals we finally allow to stay in this country should never be allowed to vote. The only exception to that rule would be for youngsters who go through our school systems, graduate from High School, and serve a hitch in the military.
7/10/14 During a discussion with a woman at the Ponderosa Republican Women’s Club this morning I told her that I had mentioned the Bracero program on this page. Turns out I have mentioned it in discussions but not on this page. This was a migrant labor program negotiated between the US and Mexico that lasted from 1942 to 1964. On paper it was a win win for everyone. Mexican migrant laborers signed up to counter the WW2 labor shortage on the Rail Roads and in Agriculture. They were supposed to get good working conditions and fair wages and have an easy path back and forth across the border. Generally results were good on the Rail Roads. In Agriculture results were mixed, with often poor working conditions and theft of wages by labor contractors and Mexican banks. The program was ended in 1964 mostly due to the opposition of organized labor, notably including Caesar Chavez soon to be head of the United Farm Workers Union. The claim of the Unions was that these Braceros were taking jobs that Americans would do, given higher wages and better conditions.
I am willing to pay more for food, including apples, chicken, pork and lettuce so that the farmer can pay better wages to attract US Citizens to work in the fields and processing plants, or to further mechanize. Then I could pay less in taxes to support the illegal immigrants who must, and do, take advantage of our social services to make up the difference in their wages and what it takes to live in this country year round as they do now.
If we must have migrant workers to harvest some crops, and it looks to me like we do, I would be willing to support a well run Guest Worker program that would make it easy for seasonal agricultural workers to come here, do seasonal agricultural work and return to their country of origin, every year. It would have to be tightly structured to protect the rights of the worker and assure decent living and working conditions. The idea of the Bracero program could be a good model we can learn from. We could do a better job executing the program and preventing exploitation of these migrant workers.
LINKS
1. Spokesman Review 4/25/2014 — “We’re going to have to push that this is a legal status, not amnesty,”
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2014/apr/25/mcmorris-rodgers-says-aca-likely-to-stay/
3. Article describing 1986 Simpson Mazzoli immigration bill and current proposals.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/articles/amnesty-next-time_722057.html?page=2
4. High Tech Suit settled — no poaching agreement holds down wages. I know there are other cost savings, training costs, project continuity and protects intellectual property, but holding down wages was a factor.
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2014/apr/25/high-tech-giants-settle-suit-alleging-no-poaching/
5. PBS program regarding stagnation of High Tech worker wages coinciding with an increase in importation of High Tech labor with H1B visas.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/the-bogus-high-tech-worker-sho/
6. Illegal Aliens and Crime. Very disturbing article about illegals and crime in California.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_1_the_illegal_alien.html