As the nation turns its eyes to Nevada ahead of tomorrow’s caucus, it may shine a spotlight upon the extraordinary impact large-scale immigration — both legal and illegal –has had upon the Silver State.
At 7.6 percent, Nevada has the largest share of illegal immigrants of any state, according to a 2014 study from Pew Research Center.
“In Nevada, almost one-in-five students (18%) have at least one unauthorized [illegal] immigrant parent, the largest share in the nation,” Pew reports. This high percentage places Nevada well beyond California and Texas, where the figure is 13 percent.
While Nevada has the one of the highest unemployment rates in the entire country, it also has the highest percentage of illegal workforce in the entire country — 10.2% of the state’s workforce is illegal.
While a typical talking point of open borders advocates is that illegal workers are supposedly needed to fill “unwanted” agriculture jobs, the data reveals that foreign workers fill all kinds of routine blue collar jobs eagerly desired by Americans. According to Pew, 47% of Nevada’s illegal workforce is in the service industry, which “include[s] maids, cooks or groundskeepers.”
GOP frontrunner Donald Trump has pledged to crack down on immigration. Trump has pledged to deport those residing in the country illegally and has said he would implement a temporary pause on Muslim migration. Trump is the only candidate to have responded to Jeff Sessions’ candidate questionnaire.
Sen. Marco Rubio, however, represents the donor class view in favor of permanent transformative immigration. Sen. Rubio has introduced and championed two pieces of legislation to dramatically increase immigration numbers and has voted against legislation that would curb Muslim migration. Rubio’s campaign donors include some of the wealthiest advocates of open-borders immigration policies.
Yet despite extraordinary support from Party donors and the Party’s establishment, Sen Rubio has barely been able to break above 16 percent in national polls, according to the Real Clear Politics average, only eight points ahead of Kasich.
As Breitbart News has previously reported, large-scale immigration has had — and will continue to have — a substantial financial, cultural and electoral impact upon the nation.
Scholars on both sides of the political aisle have documented how mass immigration will disenfranchise Republican voters, as the vast majority of new immigrants voluntarily imported into the country prefer big government policies. Under America’s electoral system, an immigrant from Somalia or El Salvador brought in by Rubio’s mass immigration policy would have the same exact vote as a Rubio-supporter whose ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War.
For instance, Nevada’s political landscape has been completely transformed by mass immigration. As a result of our federal policy of rampantly dispensing green cards, resettling refugees, handing out birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants and other legally sponsored importation programs, one fifth of Nevada’s population is foreign-born and one in five of Nevada voters is either an immigrant or the child of an immigrant.
As the Immigration Policy Center documents, the “foreign born share of Nevada’s population rose from 8.7% in 1990, 15.8% in 2000, to 19% in 2013. Of all registered voters in Nevada, 20.8% are ‘New Americans’– naturalized citizens and U.S. children of immigrants who were raised during the current era of large-scale immigration from Latin America and Asia which began in 1965.”
The large legal and illegal immigrant population has turned the state of Nevada to a shade of bright purple, and has enabled Harry Reid’s repeated election to the United States Senate.
In his 2010 Senate election, Harry Reid just barely got above fifty percent of the vote in order to defeat his flawed Republican challenger. Scholars have explained that if Nevada had the same demographics as it did in the 1990s before millions of foreign workers who favor big-government policies were imported into the state, it’s unlikely Reid would have been in a position to serve as Senate Majority Leader. If not but for a federal policy that importing foreign nationals from Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America to cast ballots for Mr. Reid, he would not have been in the position to usher through Obamacare, the stimulus package, or to confirm Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
The modern Democratic Party’s emphasis on expanding immigration through whatever means available — green cards, refugees, asylum-seekers, etc.—reflects a marked change in the Party’s philosophy. The Party shifted from appealing to its working class base, who oppose mass immigration, to recognizing that new foreign voters would be more likely to support the big government policies that put Democrats in power.
Harry Reid during the 1990s, for instance, aligned himself with his working-class constituents, who were concerned about the transformation a mass influx of foreign nationals would have on their schools, communities, and labor markets. Reid sponsored legislation to reduce green cards while inveighing against birthright citizenship. However, after seeming to recognize the electoral boon he and his party stood to gain from mass immigration, Reid became one of the leading cheerleaders for importing these low-income ‘new Americans’ who would be more likely to support the Democrat’s platform than were the Americans the foreign voters were brought in to replace.
Even though these immigrants are disenfranchising Republican voters, the left’s effort has not met any resistance from Ryan-Rubio Republicans. For instance, Nevada Republican politicians, such as Dean Heller, have encouraged the voter importation project— believing that if they raise enough money for their corporate donors, they may be able to stay in office. The history of California, however, suggests that the importation effort will ultimately push Republican politicians out of office and will force them to make their livings as lobbyists.
Earlier this week, Dean Heller threw his political weight behind Sen. Rubio and endorsed the Senator for President. It remains to be seen whether Heller’s endorsement will be able to boost Rubio’s candidacy in Nevada. In South Carolina, for instance, despite having the support of the Governor, a sitting Senate, and a sitting Congressman, Sen. Rubio narrowly edged Sen. Ted Cruz out for 2nd place. This follows Rubio’s dismal performance in New Hampshire– where he finished 5th– and Iowa– where he came in 3rd.