USC Goes All Out in Support of Amnesty, Part I

As I listened recently to three hours of cheerleading at the University of Southern California for the Gang of Eight’s amnesty plan I thought of the many families sending their kids to USC.

They hand over $62k a year per student (four years = $250k, most likely, debt). USC then produces a graduate inculcated into an ideology (if what I listened to is illustrative) that undermines the U.S. jobs market for Americans, promotes unsustainable growth, scoffs at sovereignty and places substantial burdens on public services.

Price School of Public Policy Dean Jack Knott opened the session, noting USC has more international students than any other university in the country, so perhaps educating Americans for work and leadership roles in America isn’t a USC priority.

Rather, there’s a demand to turn international students into U.S. citizens. The idea of educating foreign students to return to home countries and put all that fancy U.S. education to work to improve their countries must be a novelty now.

But then again, this was a stage for only pro-amnesty happy talk. No debate. No tough questions.

That’s my takeaway after listening to the immigration reform event hosted by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who Knott praised as our “most famous immigrant.”

Indeed Arnold, buoyant and optimistic, is the reliable poster child for “Making it in America.” He talked of America being the best country in the world (say it enough times, and it must be true, right?) and the land of freedom to “dream big.”

“The life I’ve lived,” Schwarzenegger said, “the successes I’ve had, it was only possible because I immigrated to the only place it could happen.”

While I appreciate Schwarzenegger’s enthusiasm and can-do spirit, it does clash with reality. Immigration reform could reduce the deficit by $2.5 trillion, he said. This is in stark contrast to the Heritage Foundation’s conclusion: the cost over their lifetime of those amnestied, $6.3 trillion to taxpayers.

Two Gang of Eight members, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Michael Bennet (D-CO), then spoke. Bennet lauded the proposed bill for what would be a dramatic expansion in high-tech visas, a plus in his view because these students wouldn’t be “going abroad and competing with us.” McCain noted that more than half of the students earning advanced degrees in technology and science are not from the U.S. Yet no one asks why American students aren’t earning these degrees.

The event would have been complete with the appearance of former failed Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina to remind us, “There is no job that is America’s God-given right anymore.”

McCain also referred to the oft-repeated (and meaningless) mantra, “We shouldn’t have 11 million in the shadows.” But he neglected to mention that if our federal government, of which he is a part, had been doing its job for the last 20+ years, this wouldn’t have grown into an out-of-control problem. He followed this up with the other popular canard: “We will not be able to compete for the Hispanic vote until this is done.”

So our elected leadership works to ensure our immigration laws aren’t enforced for years, allowing for illegal aliens to arrive from around the world – but predominantly from Mexico – and now the American citizen is supposed to just welcome a new voting block created through sheer incompetence. That’s the best solution these guys can conjure!

Bennet added, “We live in a time where there’s a lot of skepticism if government can get anything done.”

Pushing an immigration package that doesn’t benefit the country is one thing we don’t want to see get done!

Listen to all the event speakers at http://priceschool.usc.edu/immigration-forum.