Immigration – A Populist Issue In Republican Laps

• The right thing to do for legal immigrants and their future is maintaining a strong U.S. national identity.
• The right thing to do for American citizens is sustainable immigration, not open borders.
• The pathway to Senate victory in Iowa for Republicans is doing the right thing which is also the populist thing.
• Where are the predominant strongly worded stop illegal immigration campaign spots with Joni Ernst’s name on them?
• Is her campaign dithering because of Chamber of Commerce support?

Senator Jeff Sessions addressed the Senate Wednesday evening. Excerpts from his remarks are set forth below, basically the opening and closing paragraphs. The entire speech is compelling and is available here. He calls out the Democrat led Senate for failing to do do anything to prevent Obama’s promised “executive action”and assert the prerogatives of Congress.  Harry Reid is not the only problem however as far as stopping open borders and confusing issues.  The Republican consultancy and dithering candidates are also to blame.  Joni Ernst needs to decide what she is going to do, be an aggressive campaigner championing correct populist sentiment or the plutocracy’s place holder. Braley’s support would collapse if Ernst would find her tongue to champion Iowa and the nation and point her finger at Braley.

Excepts from Senator Sessions’ Senate speech:

Just yesterday Majority Leader Reid wrote in a tweet something that was shocking. He said: “Since House Republicans have failed to act on immigration, I know the President will. When he does, I hope he goes Real Big.”
Let this sink in for a moment. The majority leader of the Senate is bragging that he knows the president will circumvent Congress to issue executive amnesty to millions, and he is encouraging the president to ensure this amnesty includes as many people as possible. And the White House has acknowledged that 5 to 6 million is the number they are looking at.

Has one Senate Democrat stepped forward to reject Mr. Reid’s statement? Has one Senate Democrat stepped forward to say: I support the legislation passed by the House of Representatives that would secure the border and block this executive amnesty? Have they ever said they support that? Have they ever said: I will do everything in my power to see that the House legislation gets a vote in the Senate so the American people can know what is going on?

This body is not run by one man. We don’t have a dictator in the great Senate. Every member has a vote. And the only way Senator Reid can succeed in blocking this Senate from voting to stop the president’s executive actions is for members to stop supporting him.

Every senator needs to stand up and represent their constituents — not big business, not the ACLU, not activist groups, not political interests, but the American interests, the workers’ interests. That is what we need to expect from them, and we don’t have but a few weeks, it looks like, to get it done.

In effect, the entire Senate Democratic conference has surrendered the jobs, wages, and livelihoods of their constituents to a group of special interests meeting in secret at the White House. They are surrendering them to executive actions that will foist on the nation what Congress has refused to pass and the American people have rejected. They are plotting at the White House to move forward with executive action no matter what the people think and no matter what Congress — through the people’s House — has decided.

Politico reports that “White House officials conducted more than 20 meetings in July and August with legal experts, immigration advocates and business leaders to gather ideas on what should be included in the order.”

So who are these so-called expert advocates and business leaders? They are not the law-enforcement officers; they are not our ICE officers; they are not our Border Patrol officers; they are not the American working man and woman; they are not unemployed Americans. They weren’t in the room. You can be sure of that. Their opinions weren’t sought.

No, White House officials are meeting with the world’s most powerful corporate and immigration lobbyists and activists who think border controls are for the little people. The administration is meeting with the elite, the cosmopolitan set, who scorn and mock the concerns of everyday Americans who are concerned about their schools, jobs, wages, communities, and hospitals. These great and powerful citizens of the world don’t care much about old-fashioned things like national boundaries, national sovereignty, and immigration control — let alone the constitutional separation of powers.       . . .

Harvard professor Dr. George Borjas — who is probably the leading academic in this entire area and has been for many years — estimates that our current immigration rate results in an annual loss of more than $400 billion in wages for Americans competing with immigrant labor. Between 2000 and today the government issued nearly 30 million visas to temporary foreign workers and permanent immigrants, largely lower-skilled and lower-wage.
A recent Reuters poll showed that Americans wish to see the record rate of immigrant admissions reduced, not increased (as the Gang of Eight bill would have done), by a huge 3-to-1 margin.

Another poll from pollster Kellyanne Conway recently showed that 80 percent of Americans think companies should hire from among the existing unemployed rather than bringing in new workers from abroad to fill these jobs. Yet Senate Democrats have unanimously supported legislation to double the annual supply of labor brought into the United States. These workers would be brought in to take jobs in every field, occupation, and industry in America.

So what about the good, decent, and patriotic citizens of our country who fight our wars, who obey our laws, who follow our rules, and want a better future for their children? Should their needs not come first?

As National Review explained, we are “a nation with an economy, not an economy with a nation.” We cannot put the parochial demands of a few powerful CEOs ahead of an entire nation’s hopes, dreams, and aspirations.

The basic social contract is that citizens agree to follow the law, pay their taxes, and devote their love and loyalty to their country, and in exchange the nation commits to preserve and protect and serve their interests, safeguard their freedom, and return to them in kind their first allegiance and loyalty.

The job of elected officials is to answer to the people who sent them to Washington — not to scorn them, not to demean them, not to mock them, and not to sell their jobs and dreams to the highest bidder.

I yield the floor.

0

0