President Joe Biden’s easy-migration border policy is very unpopular among the mushy middle — yet those voters are not committed to voting for the GOP in 2022, according to a survey by a GOP-tied firm, Echelon Insights.
Thirty-six percent of “pure independents” strongly prefer a policy of “increasing border security and enforcement,” while just 14 percent strongly prefer easier immigration rules, says the survey.
Moreover, another 29 percent of the pure independents “somewhat” prefer tighter border security, while only nine percent “somewhat” favor easier migration.
That lopsided 65 percent to 23 percent demand for tighter border rules among the independents is offset by the survey’s revelation that only 20 percent of those pure independents now have a favorable view of the GOP — even though 67 percent also disfavor Biden’s economic policies.
These “pure independents” comprise roughly 6 percent of registered voters, according to Echelon. So the gap between their strong opposition to Biden’s migration and economic policies — and their weak support for the GOP is an opportunity for the GOP to run up the election-night score in November 2022 if they also offer an economics-and-pocketbook pitch on migration.
“I’m waiting patiently for the [immigration policy] task force reports that I was promised — we’re now essentially August first of an election year and people will start voting here about 30 days,” said Mike McKenna, a political consultant in Virginia. He added:
The Republicans have yet to make a case why they’d make any difference [on immigration]. I don’t think [congressional Republicans and Democrats] are all the same, but if they’re going to vote the same, and if they’re going to talk the same, then yeah, normal people are going to conclude they’re the same and ask “What’s the point of voting?”
“The only way [for GOP candidates] to break out is to be different,” he said, adding that the party leaders are cautiously sitting on their apparent polling lead:
That’s not in the [GOP’s] current DNA right now.They’re just like, “You know what? We’re happy just hanging, around hoping for the best.” It’s crazy. It’s crazy, but that’s where we are.
So far, GOP leaders — including Rep. Kevin McCarthy (D-Calif) and Rep. Jim Jordan (D-OH) — do not even offer a clear set of immigration promises to tens of millions of mushy-middle voters.
The GOP leadership’s silence continues despite the delivery of a consensus plan developed in May by pro-American immigration reformers, and despite the advocacy of GOP modernizers, such as Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) and Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA).
On July 21, RollCall.com reported that GOP leaders are developing a campaign plan on border security: “This month, the House Republican Conference is poised to unveil plans for a future majority, developed by its American Security Task Force. Border security is expected to be a key component of that plan.” But prior evidence says the promised plan will be toothless.
Some GOP legislators want clear commitments for action.
“We ought to do something about it — and I’m not just talking about Democrats, [I’m] talking about Republicans,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said at a July 26 event organized by the American First Policy Institute. Roy, who has been excluded from a leadership position by the GOP’s House leaders, continued:
It is not enough to sit and complain about it and talk about it. We need to do something about it. Don’t fund the DHS [Department of Homeland Security] that is not securing our border, don’t pass an NDA [National Defense Authorization Act] and say that Americans defended when we haven’t done crap to defend our border when we’re under assault every single day. And that’s what we need to do.
Yet the GOP leaders have not pushed a detailed plan for 2023, such as a promise to block open-border spending by Biden’s officials. And the GOP leaders have also avoided any pitch about the huge and growing pocketbook damage of migration into Americans’ jobs and housing.
Instead, the legislators focus GOP voters’ attention on the border drama — such as drugs, chaos, and possible terrorist migrants — without offering any firm commitments on the border, let alone any promise to reverse the pocketbook damage caused by migration.
“How many terrorists have come across our border? How many rapists? How many folks that mean to do us harm?,” asked Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-GA), a deputy whip in the GOP, said at the July 25 press event at the border. “We stand committed to create change,” he added.
Many GOP candidates even say they want to fix the border so employers can legally import workers for jobs that would otherwise go to Americans or to American-built machinery.
“The thing I am most concerned with is a terrorist possibility of folks coming over, ” Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) said at the July 25 press event. “I’ve met with my farmers and ranchers two days ago, and they’re going ‘Tony, there’s thousands of [illegal migrant] people coming through our sector, but yet I can’t find [immigrant] workers to help in the fields.'”
The border chaos is making it difficult for Congress to expand the flow of legal migrants to employers, complained Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI). “I know the farmers in Michigan that need workers, whether it is in the dairy industry or in the fields, would love to have a quicker process to get [immigrant] people,” he said at the event.
The same border-focused, don’t-mention-the pocketbook-damage theme is pushed by GOP Senators:
“This is a national security issue, this is a public health issue, this is a humanitarian issue,” said Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL), said at a July 26 event organized by the swamp-adjacent group, the American First Policy Institute (AFPI).
Cammack is a member of the House’s homeland security committee. The committee’s membership is approved by GOP leaders, and it includes many business-backed, pro-migration legislators. They include Rep. John Katko (R-NY), Peter Meijer (R-MI), Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), Rep. Marienette Miller-Meeks, and Michael McCaul, (R-TX).
This bloc of pro-migration Republicans sits on the homeland security panel because GOP donors and investors strongly favor the continued extraction of foreign workers, consumers, and renters for use in the U.S. economy.
The House GOP’s main fund-raising group is the Congressional Leadership Fund. A recent report by Factcheck.org reported:
Major donors for the 2022 campaign cycle include Kenneth C. Griffin, Citadel founder and CEO, who has donated a little more than $18.5 million, and Patrick G. Ryan, founder, chairman and CEO of the Ryan Specialty Group, who has donated just over $10 million. American Action Network, CLF’s sister 501(c)(4), has contributed nearly $20 million.
The matching group for the GOP Senators is the Senate Leadership Fund.
In contrast to the vague proposals touted by GOP legislators at the donor-backed AFPI event, former President Donald Trump used the AFPI event to tout a list of detailed immigration policy promises. He urged, according to a Breitbart News report, that:
when the GOP takes a majority, they ensure no more funds are used to “implement Joe Biden’s Open Borders Agenda, and to force him to deport the illegal aliens that he is now refusing to deport.”
Moreover, he called on Republicans to immediately begin laying “the groundwork” to implement legitimate border security in September’s spending bill [for 2023].
… the next GOP president must reimplement “Remain in Mexico, our Safe Third agreements, asylum restrictions, enhanced rapid deportation initiatives, our surge of military resources, and much more,” adding that these should be “permanently installed.”
Moreover, he called for funding to bring about “the largest-ever increase in the number of new ICE officers” … [and said] historic personnel increases must be implemented to remove those who overstay their visas. Additionally, he outlined the need for a financial penalty and bond system so that individuals who overstay their visas suffer “significant financial consequences.”
“The core of Trumpism, the core of populism, is the sense that the rich people don’t care about this country [and] they specifically don’t care about about the middle class,” McKenna noted.
Republicans should reach out to swing voters — and to their base voters — by talking about the pocketbook impact of migration, McKenna said, continuing:
The beneficiaries of illegal immigration are not the illegal immigrants. The beneficiaries are the business owners and Senior Vice Presidents in companies who employ illegal immigrants, because the illegal immigrants depress wages, and everybody knows it, which is why every [emplpyer] hires them despite the legal risks … If the business owners in this country decided they didn’t want to tolerate illegal immigration, it would stop in a matter of days because they just wouldn’t hire the [migrants].
The populist pocketbook pitches should be “weaved right through the [campaign] message [because if] you scratch anybody who works for a living, they know this, they see it, they understand it completely,” he added.
Echelon’s poll hinted at the untapped public support for a pro-American pocketbook pitch on immigration.
The poll asked 1.030 registered voters to choose between two options: “The government should deal with illegal immigration by making it easier to immigrate to the US legally [or] … The government should deal with illegal immigration by increasing border security and enforcement.”
Biden’s easy-migration policy is backed by the Democrats’ most committed voters. For example, it is strongly backed by 16 percent of all voters — but 70 percent of the one-in-ten people who are strong progressives.
The GOP’s border pitch also appeals to a concentrated group of reliable GOP voters. Forty-three percent of voters opposed the policy, including 92 percent of the three-in-twenty people who are strong conservatives oppose Biden’s policy.
Similarly, the GOP-leaning bloc of white non-college voters split 12 percent for Biden’s policy, and 50 percent against it.
More importantly, Biden’s policy is very unpopular among the mushy middle that can have not yet committed to voting for the GOP.
Self-described “moderates” split 12 percent strongly for Biden’s “easier to immigrate” policy — but 36 percent strongly for “border security and enforcement.” A category described as “Pure independents,” split 14 percent for to 36 percent against.
The Democrats are increasingly reliant on college-graduate voters, But white college graduates split 19 percent strong support for Biden’s policy, with 44 percent strongly against it.
Suburbanites split 15 percent to 45 percent. Suburban women split 15 percent to 46 percent.
The Echelon survey also shows that Biden’s policy is opposed by non-white groups that were until recently expected to vote in l0ckstep with Democrats. Hispanics split 23 percent strongly for Biden’s policy, and 28 percent for enforcement. Black voters split, 22 percent with strong support of Biden’s policy and 35 percent with strong opposition.
The survey shows little correlation between income and attitudes towards migration.
But the survey does not provide enough details to reveal any economic pressures, such as the widespread use of foreign H-1B contract workers to replace technically-skilled white-collar workers.
And many surveys by Rasmussen Reports show that Americans favor — by two or three to one — a migration policy that helps Americans get higher wages rather than a policy that provides employers with more imported workers.
Poll shows that the GOP has not won the trust of a majority of voters on immigration.
A June 18 press release by the Republican National Committee shows that the congressional GOP has failed to win majority trust on immigration. The release included a link to a June 24-26 poll of 2004 voters by Morning Consult and Politico, which showed that just 46 percent of voters trust the congressional GOP to handle immigration, despite the chaos and crime caused by Democratic policies.
The same failure to persuade was displayed in a July poll of 1,200 likely voters in 56 competitive districts, conducted by Fabrizio Ward & Impact for the AARP. Just 46 percent of younger voters, and 47 percent of older voters, believe a GOP Congress would be better on immigration than a Democratic Congress. Twenty-five percent of voters said “equal” or “neither.”
An April 2022 survey by Echelon showed that 47 percent of voters believe immigration hurts the United States more than it helps, which was backed by 37 percent.
Only 4 percent of “pure independents” want immigration to be increased, the survey revealed.
Extraction Migration
Since at least 1990, the D.C. establishment has extracted tens of millions of legal and illegal migrants —plus temporary visa workers — from poor countries to serve as workers, managers, consumers, and renters for various U.S. investors and CEOs.
This federal economic policy of Extraction Migration has skewed the free market in the United States by inflating the labor supply for the benefit of employers.
The inflationary policy makes it difficult for ordinary Americans to get married, advance in their careers, raise families, or buy homes.
Extraction migration has also slowed innovation and shrunk Americans’ productivity, partly because it allows employers to boost stock prices by using cheap stoop labor instead of productivity-boosting technology.
Migration undermines employees’ workplace rights, and it widens the regional wealth gaps between the Democrats’ big coastal states and the Republicans’ heartland and southern states. The flood of cheap labor tilts the economy towards low-productivity jobs and has shoved at least ten million American men out of the labor force.
An economy built on extraction migration also drains Americans’ political clout over elites, alienates young people, and radicalizes Americans’ democratic civic culture because it allows wealthy elites to ignore despairing Americans at the bottom of society.
The economic policy is backed by progressives who wish to transform the U.S. from a society governed by European-origin civic culture into a progressive-directed empire of competitive, resentful identity groups. “We’re trying to become the first multiracial, multi-ethnic superpower in the world,” Rep. Rohit Khanna (D-CA) told the New York Times in March 2022. “It will be an extraordinary achievement … we will ultimately triumph,” he boasted.
Business-backed migration advocates hide this extraction migration economic policy behind a wide variety of noble-sounding explanations and theatrical border security programs. For example, progressives claim that the U.S. is a “Nation of Immigrants,” that migration is good for migrants, and that the state must renew itself by replacing populations.
The polls show the public wants to welcome some immigration — but they also show deep and broad public opposition to labor migration and the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.
The opposition is growing, anti-establishment, multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, bipartisan, rational, persistent, and recognizes the solidarity that American citizens owe to one another.
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