Posted on 03/31/2014 10:09:58 AM PDT by Tamyra Murray
On March 18, an immigration forum, “Free Market Approaches to Immigration Reform,” was held in Lansing. The three speakers– Helen Krieble, Alex Nowrasteh, and Bing Goei — embraced an ‘open borders’ mindset and the debunked notion that immigrants are two times more entrepreneurial than Americans.
The forum not only pushed Republican Gov. Rick Snyder’s plan to import more foreign workers (which would lower the wages of American workers), it seemed to be part of a national effort to promote comprehensive immigration reform (vs. immigration enforcement) on a state-by-state basis.
Helen Krieble, founder of the Vernon K. Krieble Foundation and amnesty proponent, said that immigration is a constitutional issue, and if we are to follow the Constitution then we need to allow more immigrants to come here and make it easier for them to do so. She introduced her idea of a “Red Card Solution,” an easier-to-obtain and friendlier-to-obtain visa (non-citizen work permit) to replace our current visa system. The card requires only that an immigrant have a self-sustaining job, be fingerprinted, and have biometrics embedded on the red card. If employment runs out, the immigrant simply takes himself back to his home country.
She wrapped up her speech by energetically saying that we have too much government intrusion into our lives, and we need to get “central planning” out of our immigration system.
Helen Krieble, Bing Goei, Alex Nowrasteh.
Next, Alex Nowrasteh, a Cato Institute immigration policy analyst who has been criticized by NRO as being for “open borders,” claimed that immigrants drive up wages of citizens/natives, because non-English speaking immigrants take the low-skilled jobs, allowing citizens to move up the ladder to higher paying, more meaningful jobs, and that immigrants increase the productivity of their citizen counterparts.
Nowrasteh called for a return to the Bracero program (initiated in 1942). He said that during the years the program was in place there was almost no illegal immigration, and border agents were not much needed because many immigration problems were solved by Bracero.
The federal Bracero program was discontinued in 1964 by President John F. Kennedy. He stopped the program because of the negative impact immigrant workers were having on wages and availability of jobs for citizens. When the program was ended, wages increased for citizen farm workers.
Bing Osei, a Grand Rapids businessman who will head the Michigan Office for New Americans, wrapped up the forum by promoting Governor Snyder’s plan to bring 50,000 immigrants to Detroit to fill jobs that, according to the Governor, apparently Michiganders are not qualified to fill. Initially, Mr. Osei said they only would be filling high-tech jobs such as STEM jobs, but later in the presentation he said they would also be filling jobs in the construction and hospitality industry. He claimed that by the year 2018 there will be 175,000 job openings and not enough qualified workers.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, there has not been a surplus of STEM jobs.
Mr. Osei pleaded with the federal government that bringing more immigrants would improve our economy and create jobs and that Michigan should have its own immigration laws/policies. Isn’t it ironic that whenever a state tries to enact E-Verify or a law such as Arizona’s SB 1070, people are up in arms, saying that we must follow federal immigration law and that the states have no right to make their own enforcement laws? In January, Governor Snyder met with President Obama to discuss getting a privileged number of visa allotments for the state.
With Michigan’s high unemployment rate, the addition of foreign workers may add to the disenfranchisement of American citizens. Michigan, after all, still has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.
One wonders why an opposing viewpoint was not represented at any time during the forum.
Even the New York Times, hardly a bastion of conservative thinking, has described the Snyder plan to attract 50,000 “smart” immigrants to Detroit as “unsettling.”
Editor’s Notes: For another view on this panel, go here.
Tamyra Murray lobbies for U.S. Inc. and partners with FAIR on immigration-related issues. A resident of Frankenmuth, she has also worked in the construction industry
And Michigan college students are asking Rick Snyder why they’re wasting time and money on college when these morons sit right there and say they want to import people to do the jobs.
Maybe the immigrants will open up liquor stores, and mini-marts, in those repressed areas.
Snyder likes to tout Dow Chemical as a great success story of an immigrant founded company. The only problem is that Dow was only 6 months old when his American parents moved back to the USA from Canada and Dow didn’t start the company for more than 30 years.
cripple creek, my own daughter is a student at SVSU. She asked me how she will pay her students loans off if she can’t find a job after graduation, if Snyder gives the jobs to immigrants....
Another Anarchist.
“Maybe the immigrants will open up liquor stores, and mini-marts, in those repressed areas.”
Sure, and they’ll do it with Federal loans.
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