Robert Menendez: America’s Anti-American Senator

By Joe Guzzardi
October 29, 2010

Some in the U.S. Senate are determined to press ahead with a comprehensive immigration reform amnesty despite Americans overwhelming resistance to it.

Even the September Senate rejection of the DREAM Act doesn’t deter New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez. Only a week after the DREAM Act’s defeat, Menendez introduced a mass amnesty bill titled the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2010 (S. 3932).

Indicating how little current Congressional support there is for amnesty, Menendez’s bill has just one cosponsor, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT).

The text of Menendez’s 874-page proposed legislation, read and analyzed by Capitol Hill insiders, promotes all the facets earlier amnesties have included like the aforementioned DREAM Act and Ag Jobs, another lead balloon that Congress has unsuccessfully tried for five years to sneak past the public.

Besides providing an amnesty for most of the nation’s 20-30 million illegal aliens, Menendez’s bill would also expand chain migration visas for foreign workers and create a new temporary worker, non-immigrant visa class, the H-2C, which would allow workers to come to the United States to take jobs in any industry that claims to have a worker shortage. Then, after four years, the visa holder could transfer to another industry and apply for citizenship.

The H-2C provision would inflict lasting pain on American workers as the visa holder could enter the United States as, for example, a strawberry picker but then after a brief wait could move into construction, the services industry or any other job in the higher paying sector.

The H-2C is also a severe blow to Americans who yearn for stabilized population. Each visa holder may represent several more people who will eventually live in the United States. Not only does the original holder rarely go home, during his stay he can petition for his wife and children to immigrate. Any future American-born children are automatic citizens.

Against the backdrop of double digit unemployment, higher than 20 percent when seasonally adjusted to reflect long and short term “discouraged workers,” Menendez’s bill is beyond callous.

As more evidence of Menendez’s pro-immigration driven agenda in September, the month he introduced his poisonous S. 3932, the Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report found that the economy lost nearly 100,000 jobs, almost 40,000 more than the August loss and 12 times as many as the predicted 8,000.

But Menendez, despite being the American-born son of Cuban immigrants and holding a lofty position in the United States Senate, isn’t concerned about Americans. During his 17 years in Congress, 13 in the House and four in the Senate, Menendez has consistently voted for illegal alien amnesties, increases in worker visas, relaxed regulations on asylum and refugees but against tightening border security and ending anchor baby citizenship.

Although long an advocate of rewarding illegal aliens, Menendez’s latest bold amnesty ploy is likely related to the election cycle. Menendez, like his fellow Senate DREAM Act-loving colleague Richard Durbin (D-IL), does not face the voters until 2012.

One of the most telling indications of how New Jersey residents feel about amnesty and the DREAM Act is the drubbing at the polls that former New Jersey Senator and Governor Jon Corzine got in 2009.

Corzine, who appointed Menendez to the Senate in 2006 after he was elected governor, had been an outspoken DREAM Act proponent. During his term, he created a “Commission on New Americans” to promote benefits for illegal immigrants. But last year New Jersey voters overwhelmingly rejected Corzine and elected conservative Chris Christie to replace him.

Since not a single pro-amnesty candidate who ran for major office in 2009 or 2010 won, Menendez would be well advised to consider the strong voter messages those collective results send: Americans don’t want more rewards for illegal aliens.

Joe Guzzardi has written editorial columns—mostly about immigration and related social issues – since 1990. He is a senior writing fellow for Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) and his columns have frequently been syndicated in various U.S. newspapers and websites. He can be reached at [email protected].