Warning: Typical Libtard Editorial

Thayne: Scapegoating illegal immigrants again

vcstar.com
By David Cruz Thayne
Posted November 5, 2011 at 2:01 p.m.


Re: Rep. Elton Gallegly's Oct. 30 commentary, "U.S. magnet: Illegal immigrants paid $4.2 billion":

Gallegly's "boogeyman" portrayal of illegal immigrants is nothing new and his recent commentary is just his newest deflection of responsibility for our nation's challenges. While he tried to spin his nativism in the context of our current economic crisis, Gallegly has been blaming illegal immigrants for practically every social ill in America for his full 26 years in Congress.

Indeed, in a recent congressional hearing, Gallegly tried to tie illegal immigration to high unemployment in the African-American community, a tragic unemployment statistic that black Americans have been fighting to change since well before the civil rights era.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, called Gallegly's tactic an "abhorrent and repulsive" attempt to "pit black against brown."

After the traumatic events of 9/11, Gallegly sought to blame illegal immigrants for the "substantial security risk" they posed to the country, despite the fact that the terrorists responsible — all of them from the Middle East — entered this country legally.

Back in 2006, he also saw illegal immigrants as the reason for failures in our schools when he presented the Gallegly amendment, which attempted to deny every illegal immigrant child any form of public education, no matter their age or how they got here.

Gallegly's fixation on illegal immigrants even has him out of step with his own party. As California conservatives began to attack public employee unions in response to the state's budget crisis, Gallegly again decided that illegal immigrants were the culprit.

Citing a study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform — a conservative think tank that advocates substantially curbing legal immigration as well as illegal — he argued that illegal immigrants were the cause for $22 billion of California's $25 billion budget gap. As always, illegal immigrants — never Gallegly's nor Congress' lack of leadership — are to blame.

Gallegly now tells his constituents that illegal immigrants — not the deregulation of Wall Street he helped enact a decade ago after receiving thousands of dollars from the financial lobby — are responsible for the country's high unemployment.

He talks about illegal immigrants "stealing" American jobs, but such a statement implies that "jobs" is a zero-sum affair. As an avowed free-marketer, Gallegly surely knows that in a capitalist economy there is not a cap on the number of jobs; if that were true, then we should never allow any immigrants into this country nor allow any family to have more than two children.

Legal or illegal, if any person comes to this country and earns wages — and 94 percent of working-age immigrant men do work — then he or she uses that money to buy goods or services which then creates more jobs.

Just as he has made illegal immigrants the scapegoat many times before, Gallegly is using his exhausted illegal immigration trick yet again. Instead of blaming illegal immigrants for shortcomings in national security, education or the deficit, now illegal immigrants are responsible for high unemployment.

But his proposed "E-Verify" system that he claims will save millions of jobs actually acts as a tax on businesses — small businesses most of all. In effect, it makes every small-business owner an immigration police officer with the threat of losing his or her business license if they hire an illegal immigrant with falsified papers.

Even former eBay CEO and billionaire Meg Whitman, remember, hired a housekeeper here illegally because she presented fraudulent documents. But now every corner shoe store is supposed to be the front line against illegal immigration?

While Gallegly claims this system to be "accurate and free," training, equipment and time are all required to satisfy the E-Verify conditions he claims will save jobs. As a result of the burden E-Verify places on companies, for-profit firms such as Hunter Employment in Arizona — where E-Verify is already mandatory — are popping up around the country charging businesses to ensure E-Verify compliance.

Gallegly's latest attack on immigration actually has nothing to do with jobs. It has everything to do with the fact that he has based his political career on bashing immigrants and blaming them for everything he thinks is wrong with America.

His approach is not productive and his simplistic solutions will not work. America needs comprehensive immigration reform, not politicians who see an illegal immigrant behind every tree and problem.

David Cruz Thayne of Westlake Village is a Democrat running in the newly drawn 26th Congressional District, which covers most of Ventura County.

Read more: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/nov/05/ ... z1csWAn5P1
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