The illegal migrants brought to the United States by their illegal migrant parents “are true and legitimate heirs … of our founders,” House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said in a Thursday speech on the House floor.
Pelosi made her claims as Democrats prepared to vote through an amnesty for at least three million migrants who are now labeled under several categories. They include the many illegals who were brought to the United States as children by their parents. Democrats refer to the child-arrivals as “dreamers,” even though Americans are also dreamers.
Pelosi said:
This legislation is protecting “dreamers,” and TPS [Temporary Protected Status] and DED [Deferred Enforced Departure] recipients, honors the truth that immigrants are the constant reinvigoration of our country.
When they come here with their hopes and dreams and aspirations, these parents bringing their children, their hopes and dreams and aspirations for a better future for their children, that courage, that determination, those aspirations, are American traits, and they all make America more American, with all of that.
Indeed they are true and legitimate heirs, these dreamers are, of our founders. E Pluribus Unum, from many one, we talk about that all the time.
Pelosi continued to praise illegal migrants while ignoring the dreams and aspirations of Americans, as well as the needs of the 17 million unemployed Americans:
They’re our teachers, they’re our professionals. They’re our CEOs. They’re entrepreneurs, they contribute to our community in every way …
Millions of Americans have come together to organize and mobilize for dreamers: Labor leaders, business community, faith organizations, national security officials, law enforcement, more and more. …
The true VIPs of the moment, are the dreamers and immigrants who have spoken out with great dignity and eloquence, refusing to be forced back into the shadow.
The praise for illegals echoes the progressive view that America is not a homeland for American citizens, but is instead only an idea, or only a “Nation of Immigrants” that is open to any foreigner, regardless of what ordinary Americans prefer. The view is increasingly pushed by wealthy Americans, in part, because it boosts their stock market wealth with additional cheap workers, consumers, and renters.
Pelosi’s pitch matches the recommendations of business-funded pro-amnesty pollsters. On March 10, Breitbart News reported the pollsters’ advice to Democrats who are worried about voting for the amnesties amid public opposition:
It is better to focus on all of the aforementioned sympathetic details of those affected [by an amnesty] than to make economic arguments, including arguments about wages or demand for labor. As we have seen in the past, talking about immigrants doing jobs Americans won’t do is not a helpful frame, and other economic arguments are less effective than what is recommended above.
Pelosi continued:
Again, dreamers, TPS, DED recipients are American in every way. They have lived and worked in our country for decades, if not their entire lives, and they are integral threads in the fabric of our nation … Dreamers power our businesses, our economy, our CEOs, and taxpayers — all of them do. They advance innovation in America’s technological edge as entrepreneurs and researchers. They protect our national security and military might and service members and civilian experts.
So many of the frontline of the pandemic [are illegals] — first responders transportation sanitation, food workers, our teachers, our teachers, our teachers. There’s so much of our country.
These [illegal] immigrant communities strengthen, enrich, and ennoble our nation, and they must be allowed to stay.
Pelosi quoted the 1987 exit speech by President Ronald Reagan, who later revealed that he learned to regret his support for the 1986 amnesty:
I always love to quote President Reagan in his last speech as President of the United States. His last speech — this is his last message as President to the American people. He said, “Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation for every young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world into the next frontier. This quality is vital to the future, our future as a nation. If we ever close the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.”
With that, I urge a bipartisan vote and yield back the balance of my time.
For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad American opposition to legal migration, labor migration, and to the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.
The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.
The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from the central states to the coastal states.