"It’s Immigration Stupid!"


Hi Gang:

My commentary today is based on an article I recently wrote for the CAPS (Californians for Population Stabilization) website in which I focused on the nexus between immigration law enforcement including the creation of integrity to the immigration bureaucracy and visa process and the horrible unemployment and under-employment crisis that is hammering American workers and our nation’s failing economy. 

The immigration issue, as I have often pointed out, is not a single issue but a singular issue because it impacts just about every challenge and threat our nation now confronts.  Failures to secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws impact everything from national security, criminal justice and community safety, the economy, unemployment, healthcare and public health, education and the environment.

It is preposterous that politicians and members of the news media hang on every statistic concerning unemployment rates and the numbers of jobs that are lost or created but that just about no one is able or willing to connect the dots and acknowledge that the quickest way of the getting the greatest number of out of work American workers back to work is to have the government enforce the immigration laws that at their foundation were enacted to protect American lives and protect American jobs!  Just this morning the major television news programs made the unemployment crisis and the economic crisis in Europe the lead stories yet not a single word was uttered about how many foreign workers are employed in the United States.  Not a single word was uttered about the other ways that large numbers of foreign workers whose understandable goal is to send as much money back to their families in their home countries drains money out of our economy further exacerbating the economic crisis we now face!

The leadership of the Republican Party has been quick to refer to the increase in the unemployment rate as being disastrous yet not one of those leaders of the Republican Party was willing to step up to the forest of microphones and talk about the need to enforce immigration laws to free up jobs now being held by foreign workers.

Unemployment statistics are also not truly revealing.  The unemployment rate as noted in the media ignores American workers who have stopped looking for work and have exhausted their unemployment benefits.  The unemployment rate does not take into account those who are employed but earning paychecks that are significant lower than the paychecks that they earned just a few years ago.  These underemployed Americans are not reflected in those unemployment statistics.  

What must be remembered is that for decades leaders of both the Democratic and Republican political parties have worked to enable millions of illegal aliens to enter the United States to further their own agendas.  While they may have different goals, both parties have found that opening the flood gates to millions of foreign workers ultimately serves their supposedly divergent purposes.  Meanwhile American workers have suffered grievously through a loss of jobs, a significant reduction in wages and a loss of benefits.  

Incredibly, most journalists who are quick to jump up and down and talk about the high rates of unemployment when they cover our nation’s economic plight are the same journalists who proclaim that the only way for politicians to get elected, especially on the federal level is to curry favor with the “Latino voters” is to support “pathways to United States citizenship” for unknown millions of illegal aliens!

Stop and really think about this lack of true reasoning and critical thinking in that proclamation.  Providing illegal aliens with employment authorization and pathways to citizenship for millions of foreign workers would simply dump millions of additional workers into the labor pool that is finding it increasingly difficult to find gainful employment!  Not long ago I wrote a commentary for the CAPS website which I simply entitled, “Musical Chairs.”  Here is a link to that article:  http://www.caps-blog.org/articles/2010/11/23/musical-chairs/

In that article I compared the American workforce with children playing a game of “Musical Chairs.”  You likely remember that in that game a number of children circle a row of chairs while music plays.  When the music stops every child has to scramble to find a chair to sit in.  The challenge is that there is one more child than the number of chairs.  The child who is unable to find a seat is out of the game and takes a chair with him (her.)  The music resumes and the game continues until finally only once child remains in a seat.  In that article I asked to compare that childhood game with the challenges that American workers face today.  Then I asked that by not creating enough new jobs and by providing more foreign workers with the ability to work in the United States, either by not securing our borders against the entry of illegal aliens or especially by providing foreign workers with the lawful authority to work in the United States would be the equivalent of having lots more kids enter the room where the game of Musical Chairs was being played but while not adding any more chairs (which represent jobs).  Think of how much the kids would wail about the game being unfair!  Now think of how unfair it is for the federal government, often aided and abetted by local and state governments that declare themselves to be “Sanctuaries” for illegal aliens are making it ever more difficult for American workers of every race, religion and ethnicity to be gainfully employed so that they can support themselves and their families!

Many claim that the politicians who favor these various programs to enable more foreign workers to enter the United States and find jobs are pandering to the immigrants, and to members of the Latino community.  In reality these politicians are pandering to a group people but those most benefitted by this massive betrayal to American worker are the special interest groups who literally and figuratively make out like the proverbial “bandits!”

The current edition of The Social Contract contains a lengthy article which I wrote that was entitled, “Immigration: The Modern Day Gold Rush.”  Here is a link to this article:  

http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc_22_3/tsc_22_3_cutler.shtml


I urge you to take the time and read this article- you may be surprised at how many people are making so much money- literally and figuratively at the expense of American workers!

These advocates for open borders knew that they could not win the debate about immigration by relying on the laws, the facts, commonsense or morality- all of these opposed the agenda of the open borders advocates whom I have come to refer to as the “Immigration Anarchists.”  So they took to the tactic of claiming that those who insist that our nation’s borders need to be secured were racists and, incredibly, many people bought this bizarre argument!  


These open borders advocates also often spew the utter nonsense that illegal aliens will do the work that American won’t do!  What they fail to do is finish that sentence- Illegal aliens, because they are vulnerable to exploitation, will do the work Americans cannot afford to do for the wages the unscrupulous employers would pay them!

Homer
Hickam
, the author of the book, “The Rocket Boys” that became the basis for the excellent film, “October Sky” was the son of a coal miner in Coalwood,
West Virginia

That book and the film that followed chronicled his life as a boy in that town back in the 1950’s when the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union inspired him and three of his closest friends to become involved with rocketry.  By the end of this incredibly inspirational story you find out that he became an engineer for NASA and worked on the Space Shuttle while his three buddies also achieved success in other areas of endeavor.  Because Hickam was the son of a coal miner from West Virginia, he was called upon to deliver the eulogy at the memorial service for the miners who perished several years ago in the mine collapse at the Sago Mine.  During the course of delivering his eulogy he stated, “There is no water holier than the sweat off a man’s brow!”

Think of the tremendous reverence for hard working Americans that this eloquent statement reflected!  Now contrast that reverence with the contempt of those who derisively claim that Americans apparently won’t do hard work!  This contempt for the American workers is apparent in nearly every statement that those who seek open borders and amnesty programs for millions of illegal aliens.  

Advocates for open borders and massive amnesty programs ignore the fact that what they demand would not only provide outrageous competition for beleaguered American workers and their families but would also create a national security nightmare for the United States by providing official identity documents for millions of aliens who cannot provide reliable evidence as to their true names, nationalities, backgrounds, affiliations or intentions!

The time has long since come for a true reality check!

At the foundation of our nation’s immigration laws are two simple and vital goals- to protect American lives and protect American jobs.  No candidate for any political office should win election to an elected position who refuses to accept the need to effectively enforce our immigration laws! 

If our government’s failures to secure our nation’s borders and effectively enforce our immigration laws concerns you or especially if it angers you, I ask you to call your Senators and Congressional “Representative. This is not only your right- it is your obligation! 

All I ask is that you make it clear to our politicians that we are not as dumb as they hope we are!

We live in a perilous world and in a perilous era. The survival of our nation and the lives of our citizens hang in the balance.

This is neither a Conservative issue, nor is it a Liberal issue- simply stated, this is most certainly an AMERICAN issue!

You are either part of the solution or you are a part of the problem!

Democracy is not a spectator sport!

Lead, follow or get out of the way!


-michael cutler- 


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It’s Immigration, Stupid!

When
Bill Clinton ran for the Presidency the first time, it was reported
that a sign with a four word slogan was hung on the walls of his
campaign office.  That sign simply said, “It’s The Economy, Stupid!”

The point was that those who were running the campaign understood
that voters would be most interested in who would do the most to improve
the American economy.  Back in school most of us found the study of
economics to be a boring but essential class and so we dutifully did our
homework assignments, read the required textbooks and studied for the
exams in the hope that we would get decent grades in a mundane subject.

When we graduated from school and entered the adult world of jobs and
mortgage payments it became crystal clear that while it may well be
true that “Money is the root of all evil” money was vital for us to live
the sort of lives that we dreamt of when we were growing up.  Suddenly
economics did not seem to be as unimportant as it was when we were back
in school!

The apparent wisdom of that phrase, “It’s The Economy Stupid” was
borne out when the votes were cast and Bill Clinton won his first term
as President of the United States.

Today the economy is once again seen as a major issue.  The economy
has tanked and millions of American workers are unemployed or
underemployed.  More Americans than ever before are living below the
“poverty line.”  Record numbers of American homes have been lost to
foreclosure leaving abandoned homes in neighborhoods that already have a
glut of vacant homes and homes that are for sale at prices that are,
all too often greatly reduced prices.  Many homeowners who are still
making mortgage payments now owe more on those mortgages than their
houses are worth.  Euphemistically, such houses are described as being
“under water.”  All of these factors continue to exert downward pressure
on the value of many houses across the country creating a vicious
cycle.

What is almost never discussed on the various news programs is the
fundamental fact that while each week reports are issued about how many
new jobs have been created or about what the latest unemployment
statistics are, there are currently millions of jobs being held by
foreign nationals (aliens) who are taking jobs Americans desperately
need in order to survive!

Illegal aliens tend to take the bottom rung jobs where they work for
substandard wages, often under conditions that are so substandard as to
be patently illegal.  Day laborers often supplant American tradesman on
construction sites.  My own dad was a construction worker- he was a
plumber.  When asked what he did for a living he would proudly proclaim,
“I am a plumber by trade!”  This meant that he had spent years serving
in an apprenticeship program and after years of learning his trade,
finally qualified to be a tradesman.  The same could be said for other
hard working American construction workers who toil on construction jobs
doing dangerous, physically demanding and filthy work as carpenters,
bricklayers, electricians, steel workers, roofers and other such
tradesmen.

In order to maximize profits there are home improvement contractors
and other employers who have laid-off American tradesmen and now hire
illegal aliens to maximize profits.  The quality of the work that is
done by the day laborers does not come close to the quality of the work
that honest to God tradesmen do, but the profit margins for those
unscrupulous employers increased and enabled them to underbid those
ethical employers who hired American tradesman.  Eventually the only way
for most employers to remain competitive (and survive) was to emulate
the practices of their competitors and hire illegal alien day laborers.

American professionals such as computer programmers and engineers are
not fairing much better.  Today corporations that may refer to
themselves as being “American companies” are actually multinational
corporations that only say a pledge of allegiance to the bottom line! 
They outsource manufacturing jobs overseas and whenever possible seek to
hire foreign workers to take jobs in the United States by gaming the
H-1B Visa Program and other such programs that enable high tech foreign
workers to replace American workers.

Incredibly, on April 30, 2009 Alan Greenspan, the former head of the
Federal Reserve Bank testified before a hearing that was conducted by
the Senate Immigration Subcommittee that was chaired by New York Senator
Schumer.  Here is, in part what Greenspan had to say in his prepared testimony for that hearing:

First, skilled workers and their families form new
households. They will, of necessity, move into vacant housing unit; the
current glut of which is depressing prices of American homes. And, of
course, house price declines are a major factor in mortgage foreclosures
and the plunge in value of the vast quantity of U.S. mortgage-backed
securities that has contributed substantially to the disabling of our
banking system. The second bonus would address the increasing
concentration of income in this country.  Greatly expanding our quotas
for the highly skilled would lower wage premiums of skilled over lesser
skilled. Skill shortages in America exist because we are shielding our
skilled labor force from world competition. Quotas have been substituted
for the wage pricing mechanism. In the process, we have created
privileged elite whose incomes are being supported at noncompetitively
high levels by immigration quotas on skilled professionals. Eliminating
such restrictions would reduce at least some of our income inequality.

It is astounding that he had the chutzpah to call for making American
workers compete with foreign workers to drive down wages of American
workers!  It is astounding that he referred to American workers as the
“Privileged Elite!”  What is even more astounding is that these remarks
were made at an open hearing and that a video of Greenspan making these
outrageous remarks can be seen by going online and reviewing the Senate announcement of that hearing
Yet there was no news coverage of the hearing or of Greenspan’s
remarks.  There were no protests by any Americans.  In fact, the sound
of silence was nothing short of deafening.

Prior to the Second World War, the enforcement and administration of
the immigration laws was the responsibility of the Labor Department.  It
was understood that the key to success for America and Americans was to
provide good jobs at decent wages for Americans who were willing to
acquire the education and skills to earn more money.  This gave rise to
the Middle Class that was synonymous with the “American Dream.”

Clearly the time has come for our immigration laws to be effectively
enforced to get Americans of every race, religion and ethnicity, back to
work on jobs that will enable them to pay their mortgages, send their
kids to college so that they will qualify for jobs that won’t be done by
imported foreign workers who game the visa process.

The effective enforcement of our immigration laws would provide the
quickest fix to our nation’s faltering economy.  The time has come for
our politicians across our nation to hang a new plaque on their walls
that reads, “It’s Immigration, Stupid!”