Democrats pose as ardent champions of the 3 million ‘dreamer’ illegals — but they are deliberately sacrificing the illegals’ interest in a quick and narrow amnesty to better protect the continued chain-migration inflow of Democratic-leaning voters.
The Party’s chain-before-dreamer choice was made when Democrats rejected President Donald Trump’s four-part Framework offer to amnesty 1.8 million illegals in exchange for a gradual wind-down of the chain migration program which annually brings roughly 350,000 migrants into the United States.
Trump’s requirement for ending chain migration is the major obstacle to a deal. Democrats have largely accepted Trump’s demand for a wall and many also support a partial end to the visa lottery, although many still oppose to the border-wall legal reforms sought by Trump.
“Democrats are in a bit of a box because they’ve gotta say ‘No’ to a pathway to citizenship to 1.8 million because they’re upset about chain migration and the diversity lottery,” pro-amnesty Sen. Lindsey Graham said frankly on February 8.
The second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, Sen. Dick Durbin, made the same chain-migration-first statement on February 7, while redefining chain-migration of an immigrant’s siblings, parents, and adult-children as a family “reuniting”:
The Washington Examiner reported February 7 that Sen. Brian Schatz also put chain migration above a dreamer amnesty:
“We’re not going to allow draconian permanent changes to the immigration law in exchange for something that they claim to already want,” he said, referring to protecting the Dreamers. “They clearly want to cut the number of legal immigrants in half. That was never contemplated until about three weeks ago, other than by people like [Rep.] Steve King, and we are not seriously contemplating any such compromise.”
The cold calculation to favor chain migration over a quick amnesty is shared by House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi. She delivered an emotional, eight-hour speech favoring illegals over Americans just as Capitol Hill leaders announced a cross-party budget deal which gave up the Democrats’ political leverage in amnesty politics.
The Democrats’ choice to put chain-immigration above an amnesty shows that the ‘dreamers’ are merely theatrical props for the Democrats’ self-serving immigration strategy, said Jessica Vaughan, policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies.
If the young illegals were organized to serve their interests, they could endorse an amnesty-for-reform deal with Trump and the GOP, she said. But they cannot make that deal because “they’ve lashed themselves to the progressives and they cannot untie the knot,” she said. Without the ability to make a deal for themselves, “they’re nothing but props for the Democrats.”
Chain migration is prioritized by Democrats because it brings in several hundred thousand Democratic-dependent voters each year, allowing them to slowly turn red states into blue strongholds, such as California. That motivation was recently acknowledged by the influential progressive writer, John Judis:
There is … [a] political dimension to the argument about immigration that is voiced by leading Democrats and Republicans. It is that continuing large-scale immigration of unskilled workers will help the Democrats politically and hurt the Republicans. That calculation lies at the bottom of Democratic hopes and Republican fears of immigration. It encourages Democrats to ignore the downside of mass and illegal immigration.
The Democratic legislators’ preference for a continued future inflow of Democratic-leaning voters is mirrored by progressive advocates, including Indivisible, the National Immigration Law Center and United We Dream, which jointly declared January 8 their support for the failed, 17-years-old, no-strings Dream Act amnesty instead of Trump’s amnesty offer:
We urgently need a narrowly-tailored solution that addresses the crisis Trump created, without putting families at risk or reducing people’s lives to a bargaining chip. We need the bipartisan Dream Act now.
Immigrant advocate Rep. Luis Gutierrez declared January 31 that “The White House agenda is to gut legal immigration in exchange for allowing some of the Dreamers to live here. For those of us who support legal immigration, and that’s most Democrats, it won’t fly.”
Business groups are also subordinating ‘dreamers’ interest to their business goal of importing more blue-collar workers and white-collar professionals.
CNBC reported on February 9 an interview with Dunkin’ Donuts CEO Nigel Travis about the company’s three-year plan:
Skilled labor remains a challenge for Dunkin’s franchisees, and Travis emphasized the need for immigration reform. “We need more people. Talking to Democrats and Republicans, there seems to be a fair amount of agreement that it needs to be split between the amount of security and letting all people come into the country and becoming citizens — all we’re asking is to increase the labor pool.”
Business advocates use economic “growth” as their euphemism for mass immigration, including chain migration. The phrase is used because business growth is aided by the annual inflow of 1 million of new immigrants, who double as cheap workers and taxpayer-aided consumers.
The semi-hidden sacrifice of the ‘dreamers’ by Democratic and business elites has been noticed by some of the 3.25 million young illegals, most of who work in low-status, low-wage blue-collar jobs — but who have no political group to champion their own interests. The San Francisco Chronicle reported January 26:
Marissa Montes, co-director of the Loyola Immigrant Justice Clinic in Los Angeles … has noticed in recent weeks that [DACA] recipients have sounded more and more likely to back a wall — and even, at times, cuts to family-based migration that Trump and other conservatives favor — in exchange for citizenship …
The Chronicle quoted one example:
Ana Rodriguez, a 26-year old who lives in Union City and works at a day care center … With time running short, Rodriguez said, “I’m sure a lot of us will say go ahead and build the wall if that’s what’s gonna let us continue living our lives.”
She added, “We just want to live in peace like everyone else.”
The young illegals have minimal political influence. ‘DACA’ approved illegals graduate college at one-quarter the rate of Americans, most work in blue-collar jobs, roughly one-quarter of ‘dreamer’ illegals are unable to speak English, and young ‘dreamer’-age illegals are arrested for crimes at twice the rate of Americans. Their economic clout is minimal — DACA illegals collectively pay only $2 billion in Social Security taxes — and they are most valued by business for their ability to depress blue-collar wages. This weak foundation leaves the illegals without any political group solely working to win a quick amnesty.
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients wait in line at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) office in Los Angeles on September 30, 2017.
For example, many college-graduate ‘dreamer’ illegals have been brought to Washington to lobby by FWD.us — but that group was formed by business interests to preserve the inflow of cheap-labor college graduates and the larger inflow of chain-migration immigrant consumers. Throughout 2017 and 2018, FWD.us has successfully used the Dreamers to distract U.S. media professionals from Trump’s proposals to reduce the inflow of cheap professional-grade guest workers.
Similarly, the United We Dream group is run by Lousie Weissman, a veteran left-wing political activist who has been a manager for the SEIU union and the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty law firm. The SEIU and the National Immigration Law Center jointly created UWD in 2008. At an emotional rally in November 2012, the picked leaders of the group persuaded the membership of young illegals to subordinated their interest in a narrow amnesty to demand a broader amnesty for most illegals in the United States, said a sympathetic 2012 report by the New York Times:
The leaders of the United We Dream network, the largest organization of youths here illegally, decided to push President Obama and Congress next year for legislation to open a path to citizenship for them and their families. The move will increase pressure on Mr. Obama and lawmakers to pass a comprehensive overhaul, rather than taking on the debate over immigration in smaller pieces to try to gain more support among Republicans.
The network’s platform calling for an “inclusive pathway to citizenship,” which the leaders adopted unanimously in a vote on Sunday morning, is likely to have a large influence on the debate Mr. Obama said he planned to kick off soon after his inauguration in January.
Unsurprisingly, that ambitious 2013 push for a national amnesty failed, leaving the younger illegals still without a deal.
DACA illegals do not have their political group to push only for their political interests via a narrow amnesty. They are left to serve as a sympathetic, colorful and media-friendly front for the Democratic and business groups who prioritize the very unpopular goal of mass immigration.
Trump’s 2016 immigration policies are very popular among the public, including among blue-collar African-Americans who are a core element of the Democrats’ current electoral base.
In contrast, business groups, Democrats, and the establishment media tout misleading, industry-funded “Nation of Immigrants” polls which pressure Americans to say they welcome migrants, including the roughly 3 million ‘dreamer’ illegals.
The alternative “priority or fairness” polls — plus the 2016 election — show that voters in the polling booth put a much higher priority on helping their families, neighbors, and fellow nationals get decent jobs in a high-tech, high-immigration, low-wage economy.
Four million Americans turn 18 each year and begin looking for good jobs in the free market.
But the federal government inflates the supply of new labor by annually accepting roughly 1.1 million new legal immigrants, by providing work-permits to roughly 3 million resident foreigners, and by doing little to block the employment of roughly 8 million illegal immigrants.
The Washington-imposed economic policy of economic growth via mass-immigration floods the market with foreign labor, spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.