Lamar Smith Terrifies the Editorial Writers & Bush Establishment by Standing for U.S. Workers First
The increasing editorial page assaults on Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) for pursuing an enforcement strategy as the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee rely on their solid belief that the only reason 7 million illegal aliens hold jobs is because unemployed Americans refused to take them.
The Washington Post's ivory tower residents are shocked that Chairman Smith would try to push the illegal aliens out of their jobs.
Mr. Smith's strategy . . . is to whittle away at the problem through enforcement, not only at the border but in the workplace as well.
. . . no number of boots on the ground, and no amount of fence-building, will choke off the flow of illegal immigrants entirely as long as employers demand their services in the United States. Of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country, an estimated 7 million hold jobs, despite the spike in unemployment of the past few years.
-- Washington Post, "Twisting truth on the border," 15MAY2011
Got it? "As long as employers demand their services." Do the august editorial writers understand that "demanding" is not the same as "needing." Just because a greedy, outlaw business owner wants illegal labor, doesn't mean he needs it.
Rep. Lamar Smith
The point of Chairman Smith's focus on the workplace that so offends the Post is stop the "demand" for illegal labor. Mr. Smith knows that every time a company is forced to fire its illegal workers, long lines of Americans form to replace them.
Editorial writers across the country see an illegal worker in a job and automatically assume that the employer would never have hired an illegal if an American had been available. Thus, every illegal worker is proof that Americans were too lazy or picky to take the job, according to these high-level thinkers.
. . . the economic reality is that American-born workers, increasingly well educated, are unwilling to take the low-skill jobs that many immigrants fill . . .
-- Washington Post
Don't you readers understand that the problem is that we don't have enough poorly educated Americans!
In fact, one out of every four young American adults (18-29) without a college education who wants a full-time job can't find one. America is in no danger of running out of less-educated U.S.-born workers any decade soon. And they stand ready to take all the jobs illegal aliens now hold, except for the small percentage jobs held by illegal aliens who work in stoop field agriculture.
Contrary to the vilification of Mr. Smith in editorial pages, young American adults across the country ought to be wearing "Thanks, Lamar" t-shirts in celebration of the man who is doing more than any other politician to give them a chance to get a job.
But in the authoritative Capitol Hill publication, The Hill, Lamar Smith is castigated as an Enemy of the People by a former Bush Administration official:
Lamar, where did you go wrong? You were such a sensitive fellow when we worked together 30 years ago.
You’ve always been an anti-immigration advocate but as you gain power in congress, you seem to be getting crankier and more self-righteous, not (as you say) more American.
Whatever your motivation, your position strikes me, and many other loyal Latino Republicans like me, as needlessly harsh and insensitive.
-- Lionel Sosa, media advisor to Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, The Hill, 13MAY2011
I'll say the same thing about Latino Republicans and all Latino Americans that I said about young American adults. Latino Americans ought to be wearing "Thanks, Lamar" t-shirts for all the work he is doing to tackle the extraordinary high unemployment rate among Latino Americans by opening up jobs held by citizens of countries all over the world who broke the law to take them.
What you’re doing is defending a bad law that punishes good people. . . . A stable American economy requires that we add at least 3 million new immigrant workers a year.
-- Lionel Sosa
The federal government has been punishing American unemployed workers by giving out one million new permanent work permits to immigrants EVERY YEAR.
But Sosa wants THREE million new immigrant workers a year!!!
I would not be surprised if Mr. Smith DID find himself getting crankier around fellow establishment Republicans like Mr. Sosa.
But Mr. Smith's solid stand against increasing the rate of new foreign workers and his stand for opening up illegal aliens' jobs for unemployed Americans is not a sign of "self-righeousness," as Mr. Sosa suggests, but a sign of a truly RIGHTEOUS CONGRESSMAN.
ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA