No offense to the burger joint- great food, but after having been forwarded an op-ed in support of the current immigration scheme, how could I resist?
Steve Duprey, John Stabile, Wayne Semprint, Fergus Cullen and Wayne MacDonald (the gang of 5), wrote a letter, published in the Laconia Daily Sun (and in the la Raza newsletter, I suspect) in which they promote the notion that Republicans should support the current gang of 8 immigration bill in the US Senate. Now I wasn’t really planning to write about this, but after reading what the NHGOP gang of five just passed off, I can’t help but respond.
Here is their letter, as provided to me, with my comments…
Many of our fellow Republicans aren’t sure what to think of the Gang of Eight immigration reform bill being debated in the U.S. Senate. As former chairs of the New Hampshire Republican Party, we support the modernization effort led by conservative leaders, including U.S. Sens. John McCain and Marco Rubio, and think the plan deserves backing from other Republicans, too.
Problem number one: John McCain is not a conservative, and I would question if he ever was. The only thing Maverick about Wacko-bird McCain is that he went left into the big-government washroom with Ted Kennedy years ago and never came back out. Rubio appears to be showing us what happened to McCain. There is still hope for him but I’m not holding my breath. I only bring it up because it frames the context of the authors. Are they delusional or deceptive?
The Gang of Eight bill increases the number of legal, skilled immigrants, helping high-tech employers such as Merrimack’s GT Advanced Technologies hire the engineers they need to grow our economy and create jobs for other Americans. It re-establishes a guest worker program that will benefit New Hampshire apple growers and ski areas that depend on seasonal laborers. And it provides provisional legal status — but not necessarily citizenship — to 11 million undocumented people, thousands of whom live among us as neighbors.
Even a former NH-GOP Chairman should get out of the establishment bubble often enough to know that real unemployment stinks. Even the unions will agree with me on that. The labor force shrinkage is historically embarrassing, And New Hampshire is stuck in a holding pattern. So why, given the state of the state and the nation, would we make an argument to add millions of immigrants of any skill level to the workforce, for whom there are no jobs anyway, not at GT, not skilled, not unskilled, not for the people already out of work or who have given up looking but would look if there were jobs to be had?
And by the way…Great example. GT Solar just closed a plant in Missouri as part of a “restructuring,” laid off 35 employees and is currently only seeking four positions that might qualify as high-tech in Merrimack. To suggest there is an urgent need to pass immigration reform at all, let alone this latest iteration, for high tech workers who are already coming here anyway, is daft. And they are coming here–see below.
We know Americans want improved border security, and this bill includes that. But the most effective way to curb illegal immigration is to make it easier for people to immigrate legally. Give people a choice between a legal path and an illegal path, and they will choose the legal one. Visa reform and a guest worker program will channel legal immigrants, letting us know who and where they are, while freeing security efforts to focus on violent criminals, drug traffickers, potential terrorists and visitors who overstay their visas.
…And the easiest way to end burglaries is to make stealing people’s stuff legal. Or we could end murder by not criminalizing it. Speeding is only illegal if the cop cares and you get caught. Heck, let’s just call everyone an American, sign them up for Welfare (cuz there be no jobs matey)–unless GT Solar has enough positions available after they’ve restructured downward to hire everyone–crank the national debt up a few trillion more…really, what’s a few trillion more, and so what if debt service will swallow up those welfare checks and leave everyone stranded without a job or a dime as we spiral into bankruptcy. Screw it. Roll the dice. I’m sure this economy can absorb them all. You only get to be an illegal immigrant once, right?
We’ve heard some say that immigrants take jobs away from Americans. We suppose one could argue that David Ortiz, who is from the Dominican Republic, does take a job away from an American who would gladly DH for the Red Sox. When professional sports teams search the world for the best players, get them visas, and put their skills to work in America, we consider that the free market at work. The same principle should apply for the world’s best engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs.
We already provide visas to almost anyone who even appears like they might one day be skilled who wants to come here, including folks who might skip school and detonate bombs at the Boston marathon. (Wait for it; Republicans claim that I inferred that all immigrants are terrorists. Probably in NH Journal. Just wait and see.) And the world’s brightest have always been inclined to come here, without the gang of 8 immigration bill, to learn and work. So how does that apply to legalizing 11 million other illegal immigrants without first doing something to ensure that 11 million more don’t wander in for the next free ride before we do something about border security? Border security has to come first. Then we can give out more visas to worthy future contributors because…we’ll have better control all around.
If you believe immigrants take jobs away from others, then you’d also have to believe that women took jobs away from other Americans when they joined the workforce in large numbers. Of course, that’s not what happened. The addition of tens of millions of women to our workforce grew our economy and raised the standard of living for all Americans.
What Jobs? WHAT JOBS! We don’t have jobs for the people we have now. Wait. Context. OK. Here’s an idea gang of 5, let’s add a few hundred Free Staters to every county committee and the total number of voting Delegates in the NHGOP and hold an election for new officers. I bet we’d have six former NHGOP-Chairman to write a letter to the Laconia Sun, and a whole new E board,…things would be different. Maybe better. Let’s try that first, see how it goes, then get back to you on the immigration bill?
Immigrants have the same effect on our economy. They are consumers, giving our businesses more customers and making your home more valuable. They are disproportionately entrepreneurs who start companies. An example is India native Marian Noronha, recently named New Hampshire Entrepreneur of the Year by the state High Tech Council for his work growing Barrington’s Turbocam into one of the Seacoast’s biggest employers.We’ve heard others complain that immigrants come to the U.S. to go on welfare. This is simply not true. Undocumented people are not eligible for federal welfare programs, food stamps, or Social Security or Medicare either. If you think too many people are eligible for government support, then take Milton Friedman’s suggestion: Build a wall around the welfare system, not the country.,
I like immigrants. My grandparents were immigrants. I’ve had friends and co-workers all through my life who immigrated here or were the children of legal immigrants. No one doubts their value. They are people, like us, entitled to fail or succeed like us. It’s the illegal immigrants we need to address, and more specifically the continued flow of them, during and after this bill lives or dies in congress. Frankly, there are tons of immigrants, very many illegal, doing great works across our fruited plain, spending money here, raising families, and that’s not a bad thing, but no one is building a wall around welfare or anywhere else, so until we do both, given the current employment dynamics and the fact that there is no fire to hire Americans, all we’d be doing is “hiring” welfare recipients. Until we have an economy that is creating enough jobs for all (and some REAL control over who comes and goes), does it make sense to invite people to a “dinner” that isn’t feeding those who are already at the table?
Those are policy reasons why we support the bipartisan Gang of Eight proposal. Now let us mention why we think supporting immigration reform is in the political interests of the Republican Party and the conservative movement.
Mitt Romney lost Hispanic voters by 3:1 last fall, and Hispanics are a rapidly growing demographic. That’s true in New Hampshire, too. If our party can’t earn support from Hispanics and other non-white voters, not only will Republicans not win future elections, we won’t deserve too, either.We have faith in the ability of future Republican candidates to connect our party’s limited government, pro-freedom philosophy to improving the lives of all Americans. If conservatives doubt the breadth of that message’s appeal, then we’ve already lost the next election.
And we finally get to the truth. This is all about pandering for votes. These Republicans believe that if they can out-Democrat Democrats if the Republicans lead on any legislation that provides a path to citizenship, that they can win elections and get back to being in charge of the runaway train. Well, let me tell you something. I support a path to citizenship. Law-abiding, employed, hard-working people, deserve an opportunity to become Americans, but they have to become Americans, learn English, pay taxes, and embrace our culture alongside theirs–not try to replace it; the Legislation that does that has to ensure that the Americans who are here now are not saddled with millions of new unemployed welfare recipients who will, arguably, be fighting with many of them for welfare benefits, except that they may be pressing two for Spanish.
This is not the bill. This is not the time. Besides, haven’t you noticed how badly Democrats want this? (That’s a hint that you’re doing it wrong.)
Ronald Reagan noticed that kids growing up in Dixon, Ill., or Danville, N.H., don’t dream of a better life overseas. He understood that immigration is proof of American exceptionalism, that which makes America different from and better than so many other countries.
Supporting immigration reform is good policy. For Republicans, it’s also good politics.
Reform would be good if it was good reform. This reform fails that test. The timing is purely political. The Republican establishment support is based on a guess that they might reap electoral gains–one I happen to believe is not just false but exactly backward. Sure, this bill came close, and it may be better than those that have preceded it, but then it wandered off to wherever John McCain went when he stopped being a Conservative–if ever he really was one. It’s a David Ortiz hit that tails right just foul of the Pesky pole.
It is obvious to me, an actual Conservative, that this letter of support is purely political in nature, lacking in any relevance to the current employment dilemma and the increased burden that the current amnesty bill would place on an already struggling economy and the job market. It uses progressive talking points, as flawed coming from so-called Republicans as from Democrats, and ignores the realities on the ground in New Hampshire, and the rest of the nation.
If we had a booming economy and jobs aplenty, then the story might be different. But our ship is leaky and listing. We have neither the jobs nor the means to care for more ‘Americans’ as it is. Making a flawed political statement in these economic conditions, without any real border protections first—and the abandonment of that critical point proves this is purely electoral pandering and political theater–will be disastrous…for the legal immigrants, Americans, and illegal immigrants, as well.
The GOP has bailed on real border security reform to push through a bill that they hope makes Lation’s love them again, but it more than likely will just make more Federal dependents who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. No wonder Democrats want to pass it so badly.
Steve Duprey, John Stabile, Wayne Semprini, Fergus Cullen, and Wayne MacDonald are all former chairmen on the New Hampshire Republican Party. Duprey currently represents New Hampshire on the Republican National Committee.
