Immigration Is Not About Left or Right But Right or Wrong

For years journalists and others have claimed that only extreme conservatives want our nation's borders secured and our immigration laws enforced.

This false claim is also used by open border advocates to attempt to marginalize and intimidate anyone who is concerned about the myriad failures of our nation to effectively address what is a full blown immigration crisis.

In point of fact, the massive influx of illegal aliens and foreign workers who are admitted into the United States on “temporary” work visas are displacing American workers and driving down the wages for all workers.  This is not rocket science it is an example of the classic economic principle of “Supply and Demand.”

Under this principle if the quantity of a particular commodity increases and the demand remains the same, the value and the price of that commodity decreases.  Flooding the labor market with foreign workers causes wages to decline and provides unscrupulous employers with extra leverage- any worker who balks at taking pay cuts or complains about unfair or even dangerously substandard working conditions is just fired and easily replaced by a worker from a huge and growing labor pool.

U.S. News and World Report issued a disturbing report on September 13, 2011 that was entitled, “More Americans in Poverty than Ever Before.”

This concept of supply and demand is the reason that companies that mine diamonds for jewelry maintain tight control over how many gem quality diamonds are released onto the market.  The executives of these companies understand that if a large quantity of diamonds were suddenly dumped made available for sale, the value of all diamonds would plummet.

Liberals are generally associated with concerns about wages and working conditions of America's blue collar workers and America's working poor.  Yet somehow the truth about the impact of the massive influx of foreign workers on wages and working conditions eludes so many liberals and centrists.

What makes illegal aliens so attractive to unscrupulous employers is the fact that illegal aliens are easy to exploit.  Is the concern about exploitation a traditionally “Conservative” issue or is it traditionally a “Liberal” issue?

Furthermore, America's minority workers are suffering more from the current economic crisis than non-minority members.

Members of the immigrant communities of all ethnicities are also at much greater risk of the violence perpetrated by transnational ethnic criminal gangs.  This is not just about immigrants from Latin America but from all over this planet!

The open borders advocates make all sorts of scandalous accusations claiming that anyone who wants our borders to be secured and our immigration laws enforced are xenophobic and are against Latinos.  In point of fact our nation's immigration laws are absolutely neutral where race, religion and ethnicity are concerned.

The claims that it is unfair to not permit foreign workers to enter the United States and take jobs “Americans aren't doing” is yet another bit of propaganda that evaporates when held up to the light of truth!  There have been many articles recently put “out there” that make it clear that Americans would certainly do those jobs if they were paid reasonable wages so that they can actually support themselves and their families when they get their paychecks at the end of the week.  The “American Dream” cannot be attained by working on a job that pays $8.00 per hour!

Every politician claims to have created jobs.  Yet by encouraging and inducing foreign workers to enter the United States and join the labor pool, American workers find that they are competing with more workers for the already scarce jobs- jobs for which the wages are in a continual state of decline!

In effect, any politician who is an advocate for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, increased numbers of visas such as the H-1B nonimmigrant visas for high-tech workers and the creation of a “pathway to citizenship” for unknown millions of illegal aliens is really making it far less likely that unemployed and underemployed Americans will benefit from any jobs that may be created!

Is this a “Conservative” concern or a “Liberal” concern?

One of the problems with aliens who evade the inspections process is that they leave no record of their entry into our country and their true identities (including even their nationalities) are unknown and unknowable.  Consequently there is no way of knowing if these individuals are criminals, fugitives from justice in other countries, affiliated with criminal or terrorist organizations.  When an employer hires an illegal alien there is no way of knowing if that employee is a violent criminal or in some other way poses a threat to the people he works with or interacts with when he (she) is at work.

Consider how serious problem workplace violence is.  This is not conjecture on my part, when I was an INS Special Agent I arrested a number of illegal aliens who were convicted felons who were working at various jobs.  In one particularly unusual case, an illegal alien who spoke flawless English claimed to have been a naturalized citizen.  When I was unable to verify the information he provided I decided to take him into custody as a suspected illegal alien.  As it turned out, he had been previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter, had served years in a state prison for that crime and was deported from the United States.  Shortly after he unlawfully reentered the United States, he was apprehended and prosecuted for that felony under the Immigration and Nationality Act.  While serving his prison sentence he escaped from a federal correctional facility and managed to get the job where I found him!

Would only a “Conservative” be opposed to working with a convicted felon who had been convicted of committing a crime of violence and had escaped from jail?

Recently Texas Governor Rick Perry said that anyone who would not provide illegal alien students with instate tuition was “heartless.”

Is it not heartless to ignore the plight of American kids who want to go to college but for the economic plight of their families may not be able to afford to go to college?  Consider how depriving an American student the opportunities a college education may provide can harm that student for the rest of his (her) life!   So many American students of every race, religion and ethnicity are now unable to attend college and build their futures and unable to maximize their contributions to our nation.

Is it also not heartless to seek to have more foreign high-tech workers enter the United States to compete with American high-tech workers?

Our immigration laws are unique in that they are the laws that were promulgated to protect our nation and our citizens from aliens whose presence in our country would be problematic and potentially harmful.  Commonsense should make it clear that these laws are among the most important that the government should enforce yet it is these very laws that a disturbingly large proportion of our politicians eschew and seek to ignore at every opportunity- and these politicians can be found on both sides of the political aisle!

These politicians come from the Left and they come from the Right and they are wrong!