With Senator Sessions being this absolutely wrong about the future of immigration, what then is his message? Best I can tell it is racism.
Ahead of August Recess, Sessions Encourages Lawmakers To ‘Shut Out The Special Interests’ On Immigration(click here)
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) delivered a speech on
the Senate floor last night on the importance of doing the right thing
on immigration:
Sessions remarks, as prepared, follow:
“This week Congress received two letters: one from GOP donors and the other from CEOs, urging Congress to act on immigration. The Washington Times
reports: ‘Nearly a hundred top Republican donors and Bush
administration officials sent a letter to the House GOP on Tuesday
urging lawmakers to pass a bill that legalizes illegal immigrants… The
donor letter came the same day that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and 400
other businesses and umbrella groups fired off a letter to House
leaders of both parties, urging them to pass something.’
One word not mentioned in either letter: wages.
Mr. Rove and these groups would have us believe this is just about
providing amnesty to illegal immigrants. That’s certainly a large part
of it: businesses know that legalizing illegal workers will expand the
available labor pool for many industries with effect to push down wages
in areas where illegal workers might not have previously had access. But
there is a phrase in the letter which has gotten too little attention,
and which explains what this really all about. Rove and the donors says
that legislation must ‘provide a legal way for U.S.-based companies to
hire the workers they need.’
That cannot be the goal of immigration policy.
Of course, there already is a legal way for U.S.-based companies to
hire workers they need: they can hire the people living here today who
are unemployed. Or they can hire some of the million-plus immigrants we
lawfully admit each year or the hundreds of thousands of temporary guest
workers we admit each year, who come just to work. No one is saying
these programs shouldn’t exist or be improved, but what these businesses
want is as much low-cost labor as possible. That’s what this is all
about. They believe the immigration policy for our entire nation should
create an abundance of low-wage workers. They, in their bubble, think
that lower wages are good for America. Maybe some politicians do too.
They’re not concerned with how the plan impacts workers, the immigrants
themselves, public resources, the education system, or taxpayer
dollars. They’re not focused on the broader economic or social concerns.
The focus is reducing the cost of labor. But America has larger and
more pressing concerns, such as unemployment and falling labor
participation rates....
