01/14/2014
The Republican Congressional leadership is already signaling that the fix is in to pass a nation-breaking amnesty/immigration surge. So as Lenin asked, the only question left is “What is To Be Done?”
It was gratifying to hear from so many immigration patriots when I called for new ideas for real immigration reform to counter the phony “comprehensive” plans being offered by the Open Borders lobby of both Right and Left.
Dan Stein’s November 27 column at Townhall, "Obama’s "Parole in Place" is a Place to Bury the Law," was a useful place to begin in defining what patriotic immigration reform looks like:
Give Americans jobs and end the magnet for illegal immigration: Reversing the flow of illegal immigration requires that we minimize the possibility of illegal aliens finding jobs in this country. Illegal immigration can be deterred. When jobs become scarce, fewer illegal aliens come and more decide to return home on their own. We have waited too long for expansion of the current E-Verify system. We must end the widespread importation of foreign labor to take millions of American jobs.
Rein in parole: Congress must reassert its right to have its laws executed as written. This administration has expanded the use of the parole power in ways unrecognizable to those familiar with the statutory framework. Congress must step in (again) to limit the use of parole powers by the executive.
The Senate bill contains astounding delegations of power to the Department of Homeland Security, essentially giving the executive effective control over who may enter and live in the United States.
Make immigration affordable by making it limited and merit-based: Legal immigration should be based on an objective assessment of the likelihood of the immigrant succeeding. Within clearly defined numerical limits, factors such as educational attainment and jobs skills should determine who is admitted as an immigrant.
Make immigration manageable by ending nepotistic chain migration: Family-based legal immigration should be limited to spouses and unmarried minor children. Our current policy promises immigration entitlements to a wide range of extended family members, creating demands for ever-higher levels of admission and effectively encouraging illegal immigration, while ceding the selection process to recently arrived immigrants.
Enhance border security: More infrastructure and manpower is necessary to secure our borders (for reasons other than illegal immigration). We must also deter millions of visa overstayers by implementing an effective entry/exit tracking system that Congress has already mandated.
These principles for effective immigration reform were laid out by a bipartisan commission, chaired by the late Barbara Jordan. Congress must revisit these balanced suggestions for immigration reform that truly serves the national interest, and reject the narrow special interest-driven agenda that would further undermine American workers and taxpayers."[Links added.]
It can never be said enough that these kinds of common sense policies were not coming from the “Far Right,” but from one of the most important progressives in American history, the first African-American woman speaker at the Democratic National Convention.
Nonetheless, today, the Democratic President Barack Obama is one of the leading forces pushing to dispossess American workers. But one reader has a great idea on how congressional Republicans can limit his effectiveness. He says:
"Demand that the House investigate why Obama’s DHS has not yet released any of its long-overdue annual reports on immigration enforcement. I doubt that it is coincidental that the only late 2012 immigration reports are all related to enforcement and that this is occurring in the first year that Obama has made amnesty his highest priority while claiming that he has secured the border and is continuing to deport record numbers. Maybe there should be a daily update of the number of days he has held this information hostage, similar to what was done during the Iran hostage crisis. As I recall, that daily drumbeat was a significant factor in Carter’s defeat."
At the same time, immigration patriots need to keep the focus on American workers, truly the people who lose the most from the two-party Open Borders conspiracy.
Recently, I met with a retired senior engineer from the multinational industrial powerhouse, Siemens. He expressed great pride in his firm’s policy of hiring and training local young people for every possible foreign and domestic operation. The company develops a faithful and motivated work force already culturally integrated with the local market and invested in a long term future.[Recasting high school, German firms transplant apprentice model to U.S., by Howard Schneider, Washington Post, November 28, 2013]
The low turnover means lower costs and more long term profits. Win-win!
Another common sense idea immigration patriots could exploit is to demand reciprocity from countries that send us migrants. As one respondent put it:
‘Americans understand that. Understand fairness. Understand the basic idea that before we treat Country X’s people in some certain way, well, Country X must agree to treat us at least in the same way.
It’s only fair, and powerfully, instinctively politically appealing, and essentially unanswerable. Those who refuse are left utterly open to the most ripping criticisms. And each and every proponent can be hounded with the blunt question whether they support a reciprocity demand of those foreign countries.
And to perhaps their best answer — that it would be unfair to the alien wanting to come to the U.S. — the easy devastating riposte is that it’s even more unfair to us."
Though the Democratic and Republican leadership seem utterly unable to discuss immigration seriously, we still have a voice. As one person said,
"Remember the Internet is the New Mainstream!!!!!! Be encouraged to know that the WORD is spreading at the grass roots! Maybe not all my ideas are solid but many are. I am mostly powerless but someone like you can spark the masses."
Well, we will certainly continue to listen carefully. And keep screaming to our deaf pols, as one writer said:
"Start beating the drum that amnesty is the current political third rail. Touch it and you die! Cite Marco (Senator Rubio (R-Fla) whose fortunes have declined since joining and now leaving the Gang of Eight which pushed S.744 through the US Senate) and anyone else you can think of. Just pound that thought at every opportunity."
Immigration patriot writer Frosty Wooldridge keeps up his daily drumbeat of “What America Will Look Like In 2050” and gives us the means to do it too — from Part 13: What America Will Look Like In 2050 — we could, but we can’t and we won’t, [December 9, 2013]
Call your own U.S. Senators and Congress members and leave the same message.
Do the same for all the email addresses below to start a national conversation:
George Noory:
Charlie Rose:
Today Show:
Matt Lauer:
O’Reilly:
Brian Williams:
Greta van Susteren:
Editor:
Editor:
Editor:
Editor:
Editor:
Editor:
The blogger Glaivester wrote in as well, with the following suggestion for fighting amnesty using social networking already posted in VDARE.com’s letter column:
I list a way to use Twitter to fight amnesty on my blog: Using Twitter to Fight Amnesty [December 0, 2013.]
Short version: Get a list of links to anti-amnesty arguments for as many situations as possible, and use them to respond to pro-amnesty claims. This can be done on Twitter, or on blog/article comments. [More]
Of course, while we are all doing what we can, every reader must understand that the most important thing you can do is personally contact the man or woman in office from your district. As I was once told by an insider, even 100 personal letters from constituents can cow a Congressman into backing down.
We have the arguments and we have the public. We have to make sure those in power hear us. Otherwise — we only have ourselves to blame.
Donald A. Collins, is a freelance writer living in Washington DC and a former long time member of the board of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. His views are his own.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.