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This year, we’re getting closer to a legislative solution for real immigration reform, but we are still fighting like crazy to make sure it is introduced and passed. One indicator that we’re getting there is the stepped-up activity from our anti-immigrant opponents.
I’ve been working on immigration reform for over a decade, so I’ve seen my share of stupid ideas from the anti-reform, status-quo camp. H.Res. 1026, the so-called “BRIDGE Resolution” is the latest. I call it the "BRIDGE to Nowhere" because it offers no actual solutions to our immigration crisis (just bigger, badder immigration enforcement with no fix for the broken system). It’s not even a bill. It’s a non-binding, but ugly, political ploy.
The “Bridge to Nowhere” is supported by the usual cast of anti-immigrant zealots in the House. The lead sponsor is Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and he’s joined by the likes of Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and the ever-reliable Heath Shuler (D-NC). And, of course, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, is touting the proposal.
There was one name on the list of sponsors, however, that I frankly didn’t expect to see: Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-PA).
If a rising star in the Democratic Party wants to side with hate groups and Steve King on immigration, that’s obviously his choice. But, more and more, there are going to be consequences. In years past, the immigration reform side played very nice. We offered real solutions and tried to ignore the opposition’s tactics. Perhaps we even gave Members of Congress like Patrick Murphy a pass when we figured they didn’t know what they were signing onto. Not anymore.
Today, America’s Voice is launching an online ad campaign targeting Murphy and his support of this anti-immigration reform gimmick. Murphy’s fans should expect more from him.
There have already been many calls for Murphy to remove his name from the “BRIDGE to Nowhere. The Irish Immigration Center in Philadelphia took the lead and has been vocally targeting Murphy:
The Irish Immigration center says they are "disappointed that Rep. Murphy is taking such a regressive stance on immigration reform. Immigration reform that does not provide a solution for the undocumented is impractical and inhumane."
The Irish Center has been directing calls in to Murphy’s offices in PA.
At DailyKos, Markos wrote that Murphy’s involvement was a “cheap anti-immigrant shot”:
Murphy thinks he can sign on to symbolic resolutions like this one as an easy way to score political points, yet the time to use immigrants as a punching bag is closing. Not only is it cruel, but it’s also bad policy and bad politics.
Not to mention this kind of demagoguery would waste $4 trillion, when our economy is already quite fragile.
Patrick Murphy has a choice: He can side with a wide coalition of labor, business, religious, progressive, and community leaders who support immigration reform and want to solve the problem. And the majority of the American people. Or, he can cast his lot with anti-immigrant the Steve Kings in the House and the hate group, FAIR, by supporting a “regressive” and “cruel” proposal that enshrines the status quo, insures our immigration system stays broken, and seeks to expel the 12 million undocumented immigrants currently living and working in our country.
So, far, Murphy has sided with King and FAIR, but we’re not giving up. We don’t think Murphy really wants to stay on this “BRIDGE to nowhere” with the immigrant bashers. And, if he does, he can’t say he wasn’t warned.
42 Comments
This is so much bullshit. When are Democrats going to learn that appeasment amnesty programs are both a) wrong and b) a political loser? The majority of Americans are not going to embrace a phony “reform” that does not involve manifestly greater prevention of future illegal immigration. That means fencing and patrolling the entire southern border, stepping up workplace enforcement/deportation/prosecution, and so forth. We cannot solve the problems of the rest of the world by letting the rest of the world settle here just because they want to. This isn’t “immigrant” bashing, it’s “illegal immigrant” bashing. What part of illegal don’t people understand?
My question is when will Democrats and Republicans understand that voters want them to solve tough problems, not hide behind symbolic “get tough” resolutions like this. In 20 out of 22 competitive races last cycle, the hard-line anti-immigrant candidate lost.
And pardon me, but differentiating between “immigrant bashing” (bad) and “illegal immigrant bashing” (good) seems a little, ahem, twisted. On a number of issues, Rep. Murphy is a stand up guy who has courageously done the right thing on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and others. But signing on to a resolution being pushed by Rep. Steve (electrify the fence like we do with cattle) King belies that reputation.
Yes, but why did those hardline anti-immigrant candidates lose? Was it because of their stance on that issue, or was it because they were Republicans swept away in an anti-incumbent, anti-Republican, pro-Obama tidal wave?
Don’t get me wrong; I’m a lifelong Dem. But the Dem pro-illegal immigration/pro-amnesty position is nothing more than a crass, calculated attempt to enlarge the party’s voter base among Latinos. There is only one pro-massive immigration argument that stands up to the test of logic, and that’s the humanitarian argument (i.e. these poor people are just trying to fell horrid conditions in their native countries and have a better life.) But that argument would validate immigration from about 80% of the world’s countries. The US currently has about 330 million residents; can we accommodate oh, say, another 3-4-5 billion?
Conditions in countries such as Mexico will only improve when Mexico can no longer export its problems to the U.S. Only then will internal pressure from the Mexican people change their oligarchical society and government. The same goes for Central America, SE Asia, most of Africa, and large parts of the former Soviet Eastern Bloc.
I always marvel at the cognitive dissonance of pro-immigration reformers who want to grant amnesty (aka “a path to legal residency” or “a path to citizenship”) yet who are cry out for the government to solve the unemployment problem (and, often, to also address ballooning deficits). You can’t solve unemployment by continuing to offshore jobs, gut what’s left of the manufacturing sector and, at the same time, allow an unchecked flow of more job-seekers.
One simple way of looking at anti-immigration policies. They are supported by pro-business, free market ideologues who want to make sure that when all the good jobs left in the US disappear for foreign places there will be enough work here in the “homeland” to provide a meager existence for the neo-serfs, the former working and middle class Americans who are now so pro anti-immigrant so that there won’t be a shitload of pissed off people who wake up to realize they voted for people who sent their jobs overseas while raiding their Social Security and 401K plans at the same time they made sure there would be no health care for workers or their families.
It’s actually quite Malthusian, Club of Rome-like when you look at it.
Watch his vote on the upcoming Afgahnistan supplemental war funding. Talk is cheep but the Democrats take total possession of the wars with that vote. Don’t trust Pat.
Not interested in any “immigrant bashing.” The idea that immigrants of any kind are somehow taking terrible advantage of poor corporations is ludicrous.
Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) Don’t the Mormons think Mexico is their Holy Land? I wonder what he would say if Mexicans stop letting his fruit loop voters visit?
All it would take is one hate crime by a Mormon against a Mexican caught on tape its only a matter of time.
Thanks, Adam.
As you say, the majority of the American people understand that immigrants don’t create the “jobs” problem — there are underlying economic factors that make it profitable to exploit undocumented workers. And they don’t get fixed BECAUSE of that.
Solutions that offer xenophobic “punishment” to people making less than minimum wage are just engaging in lizard brain demagoguery. It’s such an inadequate analysis of the influence of power in the situation it’s hard to believe anyone could think about it for very long and still buy it.
The only way to stop immigration is to stop big business from hiring I suggest every illegal worker we catch at McDonalds or anywhere else gets sent back with all their stuff at their employers expense.
With 6 months of pay I bet we don’t see to many repeat offenders.
Are you with me?
Cool
Responding to BigJess:
While I respect your outrage that the immigration system remains broken, it is Washington’s responsibility to fix it, not to demagogue it. The tea partiers favorite term, Amnesty is a far cry from Comprehensive Immigration Reform. With comprehensive reform, Washington has a chance to truly fix the dysfunctional immigration system (via smart enforcement, earned citizenship for unauthorized immigrants, and providing legal immigration mechanisms for needed workers that are responsive to our economy) and at the same time add $66 billion to the tax base.
The opponents of reform want to deport 12 million people living and working here, raising U.S.-citizen children, etc — not only is that impractical and wrong, it would cost on the order of $230 billion to carry out. New reports estimate that it would mean a loss of $2.6 trillion to our economy, vs. a $1.5 trillion gain through legalizing the undocumented…
What is truly crass are the resolutions like BRIDGE that do nothing to solve our immigration crisis or to help our economy, while claiming to do both.
thank you Frank Sharry and America’s Voice.
recall how dismayed so many of us were when first learning of this – he had only recently been propelled in to office by progressives. some kind of quid pro quo with Shuler, for support on Murphy’s DADT ? doesn’t matter, good to see him called out.
Jane – doesn’t this go back to Rahm – and his oh so successful crap on immigration and the Co Chair of the Hispanic Caucus telling him what’s up ?
Murphy is aware America still has lots of illegal Irish immigrants? And given the destruction to the Irish economy caused by right wing economic policies I’m guessing more immigrants would be coming here if we had work.
I suspect Murphy is doing some Horse trading here. He was on TV pushing his DADT bill talking about how he is going after every Rep in congress to support it. “I sponser your bill if you sponsor mine” is possibly at the heart of this position.
Why Jane? Doncha know that those evul immigrants hold gunz to the heads of the corporations and FORCE them to do things that hurt US workers all to help the immigrants. /s
I would like to see a list of all the immigrants who have come into the country and taken the jobs that pay $30,000 and up. Would have to be a very short list. The jobs I see them doing is mowing lawns, washing dishes and babysitting. All those high paid CEOs had better look out because their jobs are in danger. s/
Someone in our government believes “enforcement” is the answer to everything for people like voters. The same someone does not believe in the concept for themselves.
Who does the drug war benefit? Illegal drug dealers, Legal drug dealers and police. They contribute to your local tics, they vote for more money for police to enforce laws against citizens, but typically have a much less aggressive policy toward the more organized criminal. How can they? It is their source of income.
If we watch immigration “enforcement”, it will show us who is getting the money. Joe Arpaio is getting a lot. He creates a lot of fear.
If we extrapolate, mindless fear provides guns and toys and the erosion of every law and right that we once accepted and fought for. Now we fight only for that which the definition is a war crime.
Someone in our government enjoys this aspect of the insanity that prevails in the wake of fear. Our battle for our freedoms is over. We lost. The question is, what can we do to get them back?
Ah Memories…of why I first hated Rahm. I’m sure Rahm would oppose more Jewish immigration during WW 2.
And considering the School for the America trained death Squads in many South American countries, Rahm in a sense already has.
Excellent solution and cost effective, too!
Which rep will submit this bill?
thanks, ThingsComeUndone.
karen
We have written a lot about Sheriff Joe in Arizona- it’s amazing that he continues to hold a badge.
Maybe we should get the Dems to make this a bill forcing the GOP to vote against what even the Tea Baggers would see is a very effective immigration bill is the kind of thing real Dem leaders (not Rahm ) would do.
The DOJ could scoop him up this minute with plenty of charges and yet, he continues on. Despicable man.
Not quite with you on the McDonalds project, but you are right that it is important for Dems to take up immigration reform with confidence and explain it to the public as a way to solve the immigration crisis. That is a very different debate than playing defense. If they lean into the economic arguments, and call this what it is: a revenue-raiser, a pragmatic, fair solution to a pressing national issue; then we’re talking.
The last President to sign an amnesty into law was Reagan. The next President to try for another amnesty was GW Bush. It’s nice to see FDL has learned its Tricklemonics from these 2 worthies. There’s a reasons why both the U.S. Chamber of Congress and the Wall Street Journal wants a de facto open border policy (= serial amnesties). Maybe FDL should figure out what they are.
Well, I’d guess that most FDL readers know this. We’d generally (I think) want to have the corporations be forced to treat ALL employees with respect. Since I saw a study a week or so ago (I can try to find it if required) that stated it is the minimum wage worker most likely to be ripped off by employers.
And the corporations often seem to like to hire undocumented immigrants because they can screw them even more than the standard minimum wage worker.
Yeah, we do tend to know who to blame and I’m thinking it’s not the undocumented workers who still come here thinking life in the US can help them.
Immigration was low, and kept low, during the New Deal era because Democrats understood that workers have a lot more bargaining power when labor is relatively scarce. But yeah, I know, that was in the bad old days when Democrats actually cared about working people rather than whoring for Goldman Sachs et.al.
Fact of the matter is that both the AFL-CIO and Change to Win are united in wanting comprehensive immigration reform too. See their framework here, which lays out very clearly the pro-labor reasons why we need to do this.
There are serious differences that need to be worked out by labor and business on the future flow of workers, but that is the sort of constructive discussion we need to be having on immigration. No one at the table is talking about open borders.
The BRIDGE resolution basically huffs and puffs about getting tough, while not proposing anything new that will get us out of the jam we’re in.
i have got to see obama- tell the 17% of unemployed Americans that he is going to allow the 20million illegals an equal shot at rare jobs.
Faux progressives have fits when fat cats move factories abroad to exploit cheap labor, but cheer when fat cats push for amnesty to …er… exploit cheap labor. That makes amnesty the con game of choice for Wall Street. It allows their DC whores to spin screwing workers as a high-minded devotion to “diversity” and “compassion,” stuff Wall Street doesn’t give a crap about beyond its ability to turn faux progressives into useful idiots.
Well, I might be an idiot, but it sure seems if we were all on a level playing field (including doing away with things like the H1B programs), it just might be possible to lower that rate of un/under-employment IF the companies were forced to treat ALL employees with respect, paying living wages and such.
But since the current laws allow them to hide, hire undocumented folks for slave wages and such, it makes a bad problem that much worse.
Again, it might help to direct the ire against the companies that are allowed to screw US workers and undocumented immigrants both by their actions.
Because if the employers had to pay the wage levels to all across the board, there wouldn’t be the “cheap labor” you are mentioning.
They pay sub minimum wage now because they don’t get punished for it.
Yeah, now I remember. All those wonderful things happened after Reagan (ever the friend of the working class) signed an amnesty into law.
their legality would not make their effect less deleterious- it is the numbers that preclude a constraint in the labor pool, that is the market force that helps employees- a flow of illegals precludes that market effect from helping workers- loved your lanny davis smack down, your the best
… and speaking of getting played, check this out: the Members of Congress with the absolute worst records on labor issues are the ones claiming that we’ve got to stop comprehensive immigration reform for the workers. hmmm…
profoundly clear- supporting the status is unpatriotic, you sound like you support ideas not parties–necessary for real change—you may well be a patriot as defined by the founding fathers
simply not true they are paying an above minimum wage but below what was normal example 1986 carpenters phx $21.14— carpenters2003 12.40 NO BENEFITS
Well, since Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II all failed to enforce the very limited punishment of employers at all, yeah, it has continued unabated since Reagan’s “amnesty”.
But of course, punishing those who still think coming to the US is the way to get ahead is fine and dandy.
Punish the employers as they are the ones who push things, benefit the most, and usually skate free.
Pretty much the entire reason employers want undocumented immigrants to work is because they don’t have to pay taxes and because the undocumented workers are not going to go to the NLRB.
Hell, when the employers are screwing legal workers as much as they can and not getting punished, why shouldn’t they think it’s fine to hire undocumenteds?
And how does your comment refute my point? Companies have been allowed to press wages down, gutting benefits, and using all sorts of scams to lower those wages from $21.14 with benefits to $12.40 with no benefits?
Those $21 per hour wages were probably in an area with a (then) possibly strong union and prevailing wage laws that worked.
Yeah, that explains why the Wall Street Journal and the US Chamber of Commerce supports amnesty. Because, you know, there’s absolutely nothing they care about more than the welfare of the working class.
Here’s a little history for you. Immigration levels (legal & illegal) were at their lowest when unions were the strongest – during the New Deal Era. But that’s when we had a Democratic party that didn’t whore for the plutocracy.
Oldtree, this is best comment I’ve read all week.
There are two different forces at work here and one hasn’t been mentioned. Jess you missed a piece of the puzzle.
Why are South Americans and Mexicans coming up here?
Most of them are farmers who have been hurt by our farm subsidies and NAFTA, WTO and WB loans and the privatization process. Everyone’s Government has it’s price it seems and it’s not the plebs fault.
We subsidize huge corn growers (not your family farmers), and they sell the corn for lower prices that Mexican/South Americans can even grow it for, let alone make a profit. That puts them out of work.
The other problem is the exporting the jobs because there are no import tariffs on foreign products.
Both Immigration and the loss of skilled jobs is the natural result of harmful policies.
SA’s are looking for Honest work. they could stay and try to make a go of it in the exploding drug business. Patrick Murphy and the rest of them should get on board with repealing NAFTA and enact a Fair Trade Deal instead. These people would prefer to be in their own countries.
Jane –
Can’t figure out how you think my post accused immigrants of abusing corporations. Corporations abuse illegal immigrants all the time. However, illegal immigrants also displace citizen workers and legal immigrants workers. The muth that all illegals work as gardeners and busboys for peon wages is just that, a myth. Over the past fifteen years in many parts of the country, much of the construction industry, esp. drywall installation, roofing, framing, and plumbing — both union and non-union — have seen citizens and legal resident workers displaced by illegal immigrants. This is one reason that certain elements of the union movement are so keen to have “comprehensive” immigration reform.
To Frank Sharry — You wrote
Lets take those one at a time:
“via smart enforcement” — Does that mean arresting and deporting illegals caught in workplace raids and/or checks of phony work ID (like stolen or counterfeit Soc Sec #’s)? Or is that some euphemism for NOT arresting and deporting illegals caught in workplace raids or through checks of phony work ID?
“earned citizenship for unauthorized immigrants” — Would “unauthorized” be another word for “undocumented”, which was another word for “illegal”? If you come here illegally but get to “earn” your way to citizenship, didn’t you get “amnesty” for being here illegally. (Amnesty being defined as being allowed to remain and not get deported.) Deportation is the penalty for being here illegally, isn’t it? Or should we just end that for everyone?
“legal immigration mechanisms for needed workers that are responsive to our economy” — You mean like the H1B visa program, where high-tech companies lay off American workers and replace them with high foreign workers who are much less likely to object to lower pay and longer work hours, and who are unlikely to join union organizing efforts because if they lose their entry job, they have to return home? You mean that kind of “responsive to our economy’?
“Add $66 billion to the tax base” — First, which tax base? The federal gov’t loves illegals paying into Soc Sec. State who don’t get that money but have to provide the education, police protection, emergency rooms, and other services, hey, not so much. Second, your argument assumes that if illegals don’t do certain jobs then nobody will. Otherwise, what taxes the illegals pay would also be paid by legal workers doing those same jobs, right?
“a $1.5 trillion gain” — Just how would that occur? I mean, if illegal immigrants are already paying taxes, how does legalizing them boost tax revenues. In fact, wouldn’t legalizing them allow them to claim more tax benefits and services financed by taxes?
This post from jbade is right on the money: “simply not true they are paying an above minimum wage but below what was normal example 1986 carpenters phx $21.14 — carpenters 2003 12.40 NO BENEFITS”
Jbade is talking about Phoenix. Here in SoCal it’s the same story. Illegals in construction have cut pay about in half, but that’s still double minimum wage (or higher). And the workers who have been displaced are largely older (40′s to late 50′s).
Those of us who were around for the big 1986 “one-time” amnesty that was going to be coupled with stiff border and workplace enforcement remember how what we got was the amnesty without the rest of it — and 12-20 million more illegals as a result. Don’t expect us to buy that load of crap again. That’s why, during the last big push a couple of years ago for “comprehensive immigration reform”, what carried the day was the cry of average citizens for “enforcement and border security first, legalization later”.
Between backing Wall Street and gutting true health care reform the Dems have started to cut their throats with average citizens. The extra latino votes gained by ramming through loophole-ridden, PR-spin, bullshit “comprehensive immigration reform” is only going to succeed in driving more traditional voters away from the party. Voters these days are primarily interested, and rightfully so, in candidates who are going to look out for them. Bringing in more illegals to be exploited by the exploiter corporations is not a solution.