Vulnerable Americans

There are many admirable standards proposed at the House Republican retreat today.  But too many are clearly against the interests of too many Americans.  And although the leaders declare that the purporse of immigration policy is to promote the national interests, much of the text seems to tie the national interest primarily to what the Republican leaders' corporate donors want rather than protecting the ability of unemployed Americans to gain jobs and of working Americans to obtain raises for their productivity.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) confirmed with MSNBC that he and the GOP House leadership are advancing an immigration plan that totally disregards the struggles of the 20 million Americans who want a full-time job but can't find one, including about 10 million who are less educated and compete the most directly with foreign workers.

On Sunday, January 5th, National Economic Council director Gene Sperling and CNBC's Mad Money host Jim Cramer briefly touched on immigration on Meet The Press with David Gregory. Cramer charged that the U.S. government cares more about finding jobs for new foreign workers than for unemployed Americans, and the government data backs him up.

While Speaker Boehner has made a lot of helpful promises through this year -- as he has been pounded with citizen opposition to the Senate's amnesty bill -- he had steadfastly resisted any pledge that he would never engage Senate leaders in a joint conference that included their S. 744 legislation.

On this Veterans Day I saw a report that the unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans hovers around ten percent. According to NBC, Iraq and Veterans of America (IAVA) founder Paul Riekhoff predicts a "tumultuous" decade for employment-seeking vets.

Earlier today, Pres. Obama brought several business executives to the White House to discuss ways to encourage the House to vote on the Schumer-Rubio amnesty bill, S.744, before the end of the year. The bill, which would result in 33 million new work permits being issued in the first 10 years by granting amnesty to 11-18 million illegal aliens and doubling annual legal immigration flows, is being sold by the White House as a way to boost the economy and create jobs.

The super rich -- such as Mark Zuckerberg, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg and Robert Murdoch -- have been sponsoring evangelical lobbyists to persuade Republican U.S. Representatives that the evangelical voters in their political base want "comprehensive immigration reform." But polling finds that giving the super rich what they want would alienate most evangelical Republicans.

We don't take any position on the partial-government-shutdown issues. But we saw sad examples from the reactions of both Parties to the shutdown that too many politicians make the hiring of foreign workers -- both legal and illegal -- their highest priority.

House Democratic leaders introduced their giant foreign-worker bill at noon today and repeatedly claimed that most Americans back their approach of giving lifetime work permits to 11 million illegal aliens and doubling work permits for new immigrants to 20 million over the next decade. But polling on the issue of work permits indicates otherwise.

Summer Recess is over and Congress is now gearing up for a busy fall schedule.  During the Congressional break, NumbersUSA activists attended over 400 town halls with nearly 150 lawmakers!  Even though we dampened the momentum for amnesty during August, we still have a lot of work ahead of us.

The moral arguments on immigration that Members of Congress are hearing from Catholic bishops this month are not the ones that most Catholic voters believe are the most important, according to polling of 4,967 Catholic likely voters in 26 politically competitive states.  If Catholic voters resist the political pressure from their bishops to support an amnesty, it won't be because the laity refuses to consider the moral issues of immigration but because most of the laity places a higher moral priority on protecting the most vulnerable members of their national community who are unemployed or who struggle because of low wages.  

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle frequently tout the “labor shortage” line when pushing for comprehensive immigration reform.  Some of these same lawmakers actually hold job fairs, knowing well that their state or district has unemployment problems.  While others may not hold their own job fairs, they continue to say that “jobs” is their number one priority in Congress.  Why then, are these politicians focused on making the unemployment and wage depression problems even worse in this county by passing amnesty and further increasing the flow of foreign workers into our labor market?  

We know from a flurry of news stories the last 24 hours that the Republican leaders of the House think that most illegal aliens under a certain age have a compelling case for being granted an amnesty.  What we don't know is whether either leader has given any thought to: (1)  Who is responsible for putting the "kids" into a predicament that makes their amnesty case compelling? (2) How do you keep another generation of illegal-alien parents from putting their children in the same predicament? (3) How do you minimize the harm to U.S. citizens if an amnesty is granted?

". .. thinking that some of the most patriotic people I know are Dreamers," an immigration reporter provocatively tweeted last night while watching Fourth of July fireworks.

She was referring to young-adult illegal aliens, many of whom were brought illegally to the country by their parents and who are urging U.S. citizenship for themselves AND also for their parents, the ones who knowingly and deliberately broke the law to live and work here. 

Republican supporters of the Gang of Eight's amnesty bill, S.744, have fought tirelessly to convince their GOP counterparts that the 11 million illegal aliens who receive amnesty under the bill won't be eligible for ObamaCare until they receive green cards 10 years down the road. But as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) pointed out yesterday, however, that's not the main "ObamaCare" concern with the bill. Instead, S.744 inadvertantly penalizes companies that hire American workers over amnestied illegal aliens beacuse of the "ObamaCare" tax.

Higher unemployment. Lower wages. Higher interest rates. Continued illegal immigration. That's what the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office analysis concludes regarding the Gang of Eight's amnesty bill, S.744. In two separate analyses released on Tuesday, the CBO found that S.744 might have some long-term benefits on the U.S. economy, but in the interim, it will be a disaster for working Americans.