VDARE.com: 04/06/10 – Election 2010: No Moratorium Candidates Yet-But Don’t Lose Hope
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April 06, 2010
By Washington Watcher
As I reported in a recent column (Yeah,
Yeah, “Attrition
Through Enforcement”—But It’s No Substitute For An
Immigration Moratorium, March 1, 2010), not one
elected official in Washington D.C. has called for a
moratorium on legal immigration. Indeed, despite
record unemployment, not one has even made an issue of
just reducing legal immigration to protect American
jobs.
Former congressmen
Tom Tancredo and
Virgil Goode are very sorely missed in this respect.
With the current Congress hopeless,
patriotic immigration reform’s best bet is to get
some fresh faces who are willing to stand up for
American workers and make
cutting legal immigration a priority in their
election campaigns.
There has never been a better
political climate. Americans are fed up with the
Democrats. The Tea Party movement is fed up with the
conservative establishment. Immigration is a perfect
wedge issue to attract
“Hillary Democrats”—union members and other
working class Democrats who are seeing their jobs
disappear.
Unfortunately, however, no major
candidate to date has called for moratorium.
Even well-known immigration
patriots running for office, like
J.D.
Hayworth (AZ Senate) Senate and
Lou Barletta (PA-6), avoid the platitudes about
legal immigration, but their platforms only have an “illegal
immigration” section. (In fairness, I expect
Barletta to bring it up later.)
John Hostettler, who was a reliably lower
immigration vote in the House and is
running for the Senate in Indiana, is a little slow
in writing his platform but says that immigration is
forthcoming.
What about outside of these races?
I get lots of e-mails from conservative Republican
fundraisers, so I took a look at a few of the races with
fresh faces to get a random sampling aspiring
conservative Congressmen.
About half do not mention
immigration on their websites at all. The rest of the
responses are hopelessly predictable.
A few examples:
-
“We are a
nation of immigrants. The debate and problems we
have today are not about legal immigration, but illegal
immigration. The debate is also a matter of national
security. We must secure our borders. We are a
nation of laws; therefore, we first need to enforce
our existing immigration laws. I will oppose efforts to
provide amnesty for illegal aliens.” (John
Koster, WA-2) -
“No other state in
the nation has paid a higher price from the federal
government’s unwillingness to enforce our immigration
laws. I believe in
the American dream, I believe that we are a
beacon of hope for immigrants all across the world.
But it must be done legally and we cannot compromise
when it comes to fighting illegal immigration.”
(Pamela
Gorman, AZ-3) -
“As Americans we
welcome legal immigrants willing to
learn English,
assimilate into our communities, and become
productive citizens.” (David
Schweikert, AZ-5)
The only two of the only major
immigration groups to call for a moratorium on legal
immigration are Tancredo and Bay Buchanan’s
Team America
PAC and Numbers
USA. Fortunately, they are also the only two that
are actively involved in elections. (Fair’s USIRP Pac is
more or less defunct.) Team America can contribute
to and endorse candidates and Numbers USA sends out
questionnaires on immigration policy and judges
politicians voting records, and lets the voter draw
their own conclusions.
Still, Team America and Numbers USA
have yet to force the issue into the campaigns.
I took a look at the websites of
all of the candidates Team America supported. Not one
mentioned reducing legal immigration. A few even
repeated the platitudes about how great it is.
Numbers USA’s candidate survey
includes a number of questions on legal immigration
including ending chain migration and the visa lottery.
While not using the word
“moratorium”—unwisely
in my opinion—the survey lists two questions that
address total numbers:
-
“Until 1976,
U.S. immigration tradition was an average of around
250,000 a year; since new legislation in 1990, it
has averaged 1,000,000 a year. More than 38 million
foreign workers and dependents now live in the U.S.
At current rates, immigration will add more than 100
million additional people to the U.S. population by
2060. This government-forced rapid population
expansion will require huge increases in energy,
roads and other infrastructure and services. Do you
favor reducing overall immigration numbers toward
the traditional levels?”
-
“Should
Congress institute safeguards that will prevent
importation of foreign workers any time they would
threaten the jobs or depress the wages of American
workers?” [2010
Congressional Candidate Survey on Immigration,
Numbers USA (PDF)]
A number of candidates answered the
right way on these questions. But of the dozen websites
of those I scanned,
not one mentioned reducing legal immigration in their platform. Some
even contradict their answers.
For example, Terry Davis Newman,
who recently won the primary for Illinois’ 12th
Congressional District, answered the Survey that she
supported lowering legal immigration. But her platform
limits her opposition to illegal immigration only:
“This isn’t to be confused with legal immigration which I have no
problem supporting. It takes great courage to leave the
only life you’ve ever known, to come to a strange place,
for try for a better life by way of the American dream.”
[Terry
Davis Newman (IL-12)]
And Dave McIntyre (TX-17,) who also
told Numbers USA he supported reducing total immigration
and foreign workers, wrote in his immigration platform
that
“Securing the border does NOT mean closing it down. The legal flow of
people,
commerce, and
ideas
across our borders—north, south, east and west—by air,
land and sea is a good thing. We need foreign workers to
be able to come into the
[Dave
on Immigration, Mcintyre for Congress (pdf)]
As it happens, McIntyre lost the
primary and there is now a runoff between Rob Curnock,
who answered the right way on all of NumbersUSA’s legal
immigration questions, and
pro-amnesty Bill Flores. But Curnock’s website does
not mention immigration outside of one bullet point in
his National Security platform:
“Fighting to enforce existing immigration laws, increasing manpower, and
supporting innovative technology-driven methods to keep
our nation’s borders secure.” [Rob
Curnock, (TX-17)]
Whatever the case, if candidates
are not going to be vocal about patriotic immigration
reform when campaigning in the Republican primaries,
then they won’t say a word in Congress. This is a
winning issue with the electorate, but a losing issue
with the House leadership and lobbyists.
Nevertheless, I am optimistic that
reducing legal immigration can become a campaign issue
by November. With the public discourse totally focused
on the health care bill, which has now passed, and no
one pressing the candidates on the immigration issue,
most simply have not given any thought to the issue.
Regardless of whether or not Obama
stays true to his
latest pledge for
amnesty or backs
away from fear of the consequences,
there is going to be a serious push for amnesty
coming soon.
When it begins, every Republican
and every Democrat in a Republican district will
immediately start condemning the amnesty. As I
previously
noted, the amnesty bill as written has huge
increases in legal immigration. This will give a
perfect opportunity to put candidates on the spot and
demand they go on the offensive and lower the numbers.
Also, keep in mind that the empty
platitudes about legal immigration are still empty. None
of us are against legal immigration
per se; we
just want a lot less of it. This doesn’t change the
gestalt
of the “legal
immigration is
great”
platforms, but it means that when the pressure comes
down to support a moratorium, the candidates can follow
the tides without contradicting themselves.
But until that tide comes, it looks
like VDARE.COM will remain largely alone in forcefully
making the case on behalf the moratorium movement.
“Washington Watcher” [email
him] is an anonymous source Inside The
Beltway.