Category Archives: immigration

Outcomes

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Tuesday’s mid-term elections have the potential to be a sea change in the governance of our country and in the direction we take as a nation. The elections have resulted in a sharp change of control of the Senate to the Republicans, giving them both houses of Congress for the last two years of President Barack Obama’s term; an expansion of House control by 13 seats; a net gain of three (so far) governorships; and an increase in Republican control, depending on how too-close-to-call local races come out, to between 67 and 69 out of 99 of State legislatures. The governorships are especially telling given some particular victories: Scott Walker in Wisconsin, John Kasich in Ohio, Rick Scott in Florida, Bruce Rauner in Illinois, and Larry Hogan in Maryland, among others.

Together, these outcomes represent a stark and clear repudiation by Americans all across our country, in Red States and Blue, of the policies of President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats. This is demonstrated not only by the broad swath of States involved in the Senate and Gubernatorial elections, but especially by the fact that every Representative in the House was up for election—Americans in every district of America had something to say on the matter—and by those state legislature results: Americans in every local district had something to say on the matter.   It’s also demonstrated by the fact that Obama put his policies on the ballot—every single one of them—and the voters said, “No.”

Now Republicans need to do things.

In short order, they need to organize and publish a coherent legislative agenda, as House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R, CA) said on the night of those elections that he wanted them to do. Then, just as quickly, they need to pass legislation with specific, simple, coherent requirements. A good set of bills with which to start would include tax reform, jobs (re-execute, for instance, the 40+ jobs bills the House passed and sent to the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) personally killed them); immigration reform; repeal of Obamacare; a series of bills to restore health insurance and to improve the operation of health insurance and health care systems; approval of the Keystone XL pipeline; and elimination of “green” subsidies (and subsidies for oil and gas companies).

It’s entirely likely that Obama will veto most, if not all, of those bills.

However, if the Republicans in Congress put forward a coherent plan and then act with specifics in the first days and weeks of the new Congressional Session, three things will occur: Republicans will demonstrate that they can govern better, with more coherence, and less intrusion into Americans’ lives than the Democrats have done; our economy finally will take off; and whatever Obama does—sign or veto—will enable the Republicans to shape the 2016 elections on terms favorable to them.

In the meantime, Congressional Republicans need to be alert to, and able to stop, Obama and Reid shenanigans during the Democrats’ lame duck next couple of months. The Senate Democrats, don’t forget, have judgeship confirmations to approve, and they have an Attorney General to confirm, and they have cover for Obama’s immigration travesties to provide, and they have….

Some Thoughts on Immigration

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Started 24 years ago, the EB-5 program allots 10,000 visas annually to foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in US development projects, from dairy farms and ski resorts to hotels and bridges. In return, the investor and family members become eligible for green cards, or permanent residency, typically within two years.

There are similar quotas, if not monetary requirements, on the other visas we issue.

But why? Immigrants are good for the United States: they bring with them ideas, problem solving techniques, entrepreneurship, a demonstrated view of the importance of family, and so on.

Beyond that, they are spring-loaded to take to heart the modern Conservative/18th Century Liberal view of their personal responsibility and liberty, and the proper role of limited government in their lives (in too many cases, they’re coming here explicitly to escape an intrusive, controlling government)—they already possess much of that view.

Why are modern Conservatives afraid? In any contest of ideas, the Conservative message will resonate with the majority. Immigrants are not at all “natural Democrats.” Far from it: they’re natural Conservatives.

e pluribus unum

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This post is adapted from a passage in Chapter 4 of my book A Conservative’s Manifesto.

What is the “many” in the title, the pluribus? When the phrase was first proposed for the Seal of the United States in 1776, it referred to the 13 States being joined into one nation. It has come to mean, in addition, the several peoples, religions, languages, heritages, and so on who come to the United States to join our great experiment in individual freedom and individual responsibility.

What is the one, the unum? That’s the point of this post.

We Americans take in and incorporate (note that verb) immigrants, and gladly so, for they bring fresh ideas as well as fresh approaches to old problems and a renewal of dedication to nation. However, we should not become our immigrants—they need to become Americans, or alternatively to recognize their resident alien status. Those who come to the United States do so for the opportunities here, and they’re welcome to share in these opportunities—immigrant and legal alien alike.   Immigrants come to America specifically for the economic opportunities, the political freedoms and opportunities, the sociological opportunities—in a word, for the American culture, which they know a priori to be different from their own—and which they understand to be the foundation of our American exceptionalism.

Immigrants need to adapt to, and assimilate into, our culture. Some will argue that this implies an imposition of a particular majority culture on minorities, but it is not an imposition. It is a recognition and an acceptance that to benefit from what America has to offer, to benefit from American opportunities, and to preserve these for Americans already present and for future Americans, native born and immigrant, it is necessary to preserve and to adapt to that which is America. Immigrants holding themselves apart denies to them the very reason they came—our opportunities and escape from the restraints of their old countries.

What immigrants must do is accept the current political structures, which they knew from the start, and take part in their new community. These new citizens, like the “original” citizens, must speak a common national language and share the commitment to maintaining and defending the nation. And so, having committed to the nation—to America—they will have their impact by engaging as citizens in our common discourse. However, this is not a demand for sublimation. On the contrary, once immigrants have become citizens, rather than having chosen to remain resident aliens, they can, they should, actively participate in that common discourse and make their influence concerning the nation’s goals and future through free discussion.

Parenthetically, the need to preserve these American attributes, these fundaments of American exceptionalism, emphasizes, also, the importance of providing civics courses that teach the American social contract and American citizenship in our schools, so as to reach all American citizens.

A Border Crisis Stop-Gap Immigration Bill

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Late Friday, the House passed this—along party lines, because the Democrats in the House wanted no part of it. The bill provides roughly $700 million, less than a quarter of President Barack Obama’s original $3.7 billion do deal with the situation. What it does is this:

  • increases funding, to $70 million, for the relevant States’ National Guards, with the funding to go directly to those States, bypassing the Federal government. This alone is anathema to Democrats
  • provides $400 million for border security
  • provides $200 million for housing and “humanitarian assistance”
  • adds more immigration judges and detention spaces
  • alters a 2008 anti-trafficking law to permit Central American kids to be sent back home without deportation hearings

Yet the Democrat-controlled Senate has gone on vacation, refusing even to consider the bill. Apparently their time off is more important than their duty. But then, this Reid satrapy has been on vacation since 2010, with some 350 House-passed bills, including more than 40 directly related to putting out-of-work Americans back to work and others related to immigration reform, simply moldering on the Democrats’ collective desks—as they refuse even to allow debate on the bills, much less actually vote on them.

Further, Obama has vowed to veto the lately passed House bill were it to make it to his desk. No surprise there; it’s a largely Republican bill, and that alone makes it unacceptable to him.

The Border Children Crisis

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“The president of the United States is the world’s sugar daddy and that has to stop. That’s the incentive for those kids to come here” protested Congressman Mo Brooks (R, AL) one of the most-conservative voices in the House. “To spend billions of dollars on foreign children that we don’t have is financial insanity.”

As someone noted earlier, the House should appropriate the funds, or most of them, with suitable spending reduction offsets, and with the vast bulk of the funds block granted to the border states for their use in dealing with the crisis and with border control, and the remainder allocated to the Federal government for the mandated purpose of transporting the present children back to their countries of origin.