Democrats promised aid and love for illegal migrants — but did not mention border protections or the concerns of ordinary Americans — during a raucous Monday visit to the Clint Border Patrol Station, just two miles from the Mexican border in Texas.
“This is about the preservation of our humanity, and this is about seeing every single person there as a member of your own family,” Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley told protesters and the assembled media on Monday. “We love you and that we will never stop fighting for your dignity, for your humanity, and for the preservation of your family,” she said towards the legally detained migrants.
“We need to be spending money on helping individuals with healthcare needs, with housing, with food, not with all these enforcement efforts that we are seeing today, that are separating families,” said Texas Rep. Marc Veasey.
“The oversight visit was intended to “ensure we protect these young people … We will absolutely not shrink from that,” said Texas Rep. Pete Aguilar.
Democrats displayed emotional empathy for the Central American illegal aliens who were allegedly held in cramped cells and were provided with limited showers. But the Democrats did not mention the many Americans who are seeing the many migrants come through Congress’s loopholes to hold down blue-collar salaries, drive up rents in modest neighborhoods, and add more chaotic diversity to their kids’ schools.
“I will never forget the image of being in a cell and seeing 15 women, tears coming down their faces, as they talked about being separated from their children, about having running water,” said California Rep. Judy Chu. “I really came here for the kids … [who] are not being treated the best way they can be. ”
Women “wept openly in our arms … because of the trauma they are experiencing, and they don’t know where their children are,” said Pressley.
Massachusetts Rep. Lori Trahan said she was “brought to my knees in tears” by seeing young girls with flu being quarantined in a separate room. The girls were fed cheeseburgers and juice, she said. “We want high-quality care for children in our custody,” she said.
“What we saw today was unconscionable,” said New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “No child should ever be separated from their parent … No women should ever be locked up in a pen when they have done no harm to another human being.”
The display of sympathy for migrants spotlights progressives’ easy empathy for distant foreigners. That “telescopic charity” contrasts with conservatives’ nuanced expectation that people show most concern for the circles of people closest to themselves — families, then neighbors, then fellow citizens, for example — while also offering some sympathy and aid to strangers.
Those two contrasting visions were spotlighted by the Democrats’ first two TV debates when nearly all Democrat candidates promised to either decriminalize migration by strangers or to provide taxpayer-funded health care to an apparently endless flow of illegal migrants. Democrats did not discuss the impact of those policies on Americans, including traditional Democrat voters.
In between their Monday speeches promising empathy for foreign migrants, the Democratic Representatives repeatedly profiled a vocal group of pro-border Americans as uncaring and hateful.
“One of the things we see in action, whether it is a Facebook page or the chants you’re hearing today, is a dehumanization of people that is very dangerous to our country,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar to the loud group of pro-border demonstrators. “The minute we lose our own humanity, we’ve got into a very dark place, and unfortunately our country has gone into a very dark place,” she said.
“I will outwork your hate, I will outlove your hate, I will always put my country first, unlike what you all do,” Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib told the American protesters. While pointing to Rep. Escobar, Tlaib shouted that “you all can say whatever you want, but this woman cares about those children.”
Rep. Veasey also tried to blame President Donald Trump for the migrants’ detention even though the migrants choose to cross the U.S. border. The detention is “shameful, and it has been exacerbated by the policies of this President of the United States, Steven Miller, and the other people around here that have used people as pawns in a game instead of working with Congress to try to pass real Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” he said.
Pressley ended her passionate speech about her love for migrants with an apparent threat to the American protesters:
Keep yelling … vile rhetoric for vile actions, hateful rhetoric for hateful behavior, racist words and venom for racist policies … I am tired of the health and the safety, the humanity and the full freedom of black and brown children, being negotiated and compromised and moderated. We need a system that works, that is humane and that is compassionate and that keeps families together. I learned a long time ago that when change happens, it is either because people see the light or they feel the fire. Today we are lifting up these stories in the hope that you will see the light. And if you don’t, we will bring the fire.
Pro-migration supporters cheered Pressley’s suggested threat.
Immigration by the Numbers:
Each year, roughly four million young Americans join the workforce after graduating from high school or university.
But the federal government then imports about 1.1 million legal immigrants and refreshes a resident population of roughly 1.5 million white-collar visa workers — including approximately one million H-1B workers — and approximately 500,000 blue-collar visa workers.
The government also prints out more than one million work permits for foreigners, tolerates about eight million illegal workers, and does not punish companies for employing the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants who sneak across the border or overstay their legal visas each year, despite the rising loss of jobs to automation.
This policy of inflating the labor supply boosts economic growth for investors because it ensures that employers do not have to compete for American workers by offering higher wages and better working conditions.
Flooding the market with cheap, foreign, white-collar graduates and blue-collar labor also shifts enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors, even as it also widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, and hurts children’s schools and college educations. It also pushes Americans away from high-tech careers and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions. The labor policy also moves business investment and wealth from the Heartland to the coastal cities, explodes rents and housing costs, shrivels real estate values in the Midwest, and rewards investors for creating low-tech, labor-intensive workplaces.
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