How Ted Cruz Became a Jeff Sessions Republican

National Review ^ | November 18, 2015 | Eliana Johnson

[Isara]

Cruz has long supported higher levels of legal immigration. When he cited concerns over wages and subsequently backtracked on increasing the levels of guest workers and legal immigrants, many saw a new policy intended to appeal to Republican grass roots, but also the influence of the Senate's foremost immigration hawk.

The controversial argument that immigrants, both legal and illegal, are depressing the wages of the lower and middle class has become something of a calling card for Alabama senator Jeff Sessions. Over the past decade, his office has essentially served as ground zero for the war against comprehensive immigration reform and as a clearinghouse for the intellectual and political arguments against it.

It's not the first time the soft-spoken Southerner has managed to inject his arguments into the presidential primary. Cruz is but the latest in a series of Republican contenders to consult with the senator on immigration and to come away from the conversation singing Sessions's tune. Sessions's influence on the party is more often felt than seen, but as the Iowa caucuses approach and Republicans look to rally the grass roots, it is becoming increasingly visible.

Cruz's immigration plan, unveiled Friday in a speech in Orlando, Fla., calls for halting increases in legal immigration "so long as American unemployment remains unacceptably high" and for limiting the H-1B visa program to those with advanced degrees. It is a dramatic departure for a candidate who just six months ago was criticizing former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's rightward shift on immigration and asserting, "There is no stronger advocate of legal immigration in the U.S. Senate than I am."

Cruz had already had a change of heart, but his public pronouncements followed a two-hour meeting with Sessions and his top staffers. The subject of the discussion was an H-1B reform bill - Cruz had proposed that he and Sessions team up to push the bill.

According to Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies and a leading immigration hawk, Sessions's ten years of work on the immigration issue have given him "credibility with the base, and that is something that is in very short supply among politicians."

That credibility is also something Cruz needs to preserve if he is to win the Republican nomination. "The presidential candidates seeking the Republican nomination should listen to Jeff Sessions," says Rick Tyler, Cruz's national spokesman. Sessions has "been focused and consistent on solving the problem of illegal immigration," Tyler says. "Senator Cruz has worked with him on a number of immigration-reform bills and will continue to consult with him."

Sessions has been unrelenting in advancing a populist argument against comprehensive immigration reform.

Sessions's credibility derives from his monomaniacal focus on immigration and the role he has played in rallying his colleagues in the Senate and the House against the comprehensive reform bills in 2007 and again in 2013. Armed with reams of data and numerous academic studies, most notably from Harvard economist George Borjas, Sessions has been unrelenting in advancing a populist argument against comprehensive immigration reform. It is the rich, he says, who benefit from low-skilled labor, which keeps wages down and profits up, while the poor have seen their salaries drop or their jobs replaced entirely by foreign workers.

"The principal economic dilemma of our time is the very large number of people who either are not working at all, or not earning a wage great enough to be financially independent," reads a passage in the senator's 23-page guide to the issue for newly elected lawmakers. "What sense does it make to continue legally importing millions of low-wage workers to fill jobs while sustaining millions of current residents on welfare?"

It's an argument not often heard in the immigration debate. On the left, union leaders who might naturally make the argument have dropped their opposition to amnesty (the New York Times chastised them for it in 2000, noting that it would "depress the wages" of native-born workers), and Republicans have focused largely on legality, ensuring that immigrants are entering the country legally. "I think Sessions fills a needed gap in that sense," says Yuval Levin, the editor of National Affairs and a contributing editor of National Review. "It makes sense to think about wages when you think about immigration."

For Republicans, it also seems to make sense politically to argue that increased immigration levels depress wages on the low end of the scale – it undermines the perception of the GOP as the party of the rich. By pressing the case within the Republican conference on Capitol Hill, Sessions has made the Republican side of the immigration debate something that "really does resonate with a number of people, especially since the market crash, the economic slowdown, which really hasn't ended for most people," Krikorian says.

The first mention of Sessions's name on the campaign trail came not from Ted Cruz but from Scott Walker. "Our sense was that Walker was new to the federal scene and therefore would benefit from our thoughts," says a Sessions aide, who sent the Walker campaign the primer the senator distributed to freshmen lawmakers in January. Sessions followed up in a series of phone calls with the governor.

Walker turned heads when he told radio talk-show host Glenn Beck that the next president should champion a legal immigration policy that focuses "first and foremost on protecting American workers and American wages."

Then he dropped Sessions's name, in a nod to the Republican base that on this issue, he understood their concerns.

"I've talked to Senator Sessions and others out there," Walker said, "but it is a fundamentally lost issue by many in elected positions today ... and we need to have that be at the forefront of our discussion going forward."

It was one of the high points of Walker's short-lived campaign, but he never explained what an emphasis on wages would mean as a matter of immigration policy.

Walker was thrown in part by the tumult Donald Trump introduced into the presidential primary with the announcement of his campaign in June. In Trump, who began to use his enormous platform largely to stoke populist resentment about the type and amount of immigration into the U.S., Sessions and his team saw an opportunity to amplify their message.

The Trump immigration plan has Sessions's fingerprints all over it.

In a series of phone calls, they provided policy advice that culminated in their collaboration with the Trump campaign on Trump's immigration proposal. The Trump plan has Sessions's fingerprints all over it: It argues that "the influx of foreign workers holds down salaries, keeps unemployment high, and makes it difficult for poor and working-class Americans - including immigrants themselves and their children - to earn a middle-class wage." The policy proposal: Decrease the number of low-skilled immigrants who enter the country legally, and require companies to favor American workers over foreign-born visa holders.

Trump himself seemed to acknowledge Sessions's political value and the credibility he has with grassroots conservatives. When Sessions joined him on stage at a campaign rally in Mobile, Ala., in late August, Trump was full of praise. "He's been so spot-on, he's so highly respected," Trump said of Sessions, who responded slyly: "I'm really impressed with your [immigration] plan. I know it will make a difference."

Had Trump familiarized himself with it, it might have.

Instead, during the Republican debate hosted by CNBC last month, he contradicted key aspects of his Sessions-inspired immigration plan. The plan had called for lowering the rates of legal immigration. In the debate, however, he said:

I'm in favor of people coming into this country legally. And you know what? They can have it any way you want. You can call it visas. You can call it work permits. You can call it anything you want.

Nobody ever called Trump a disciplined messenger. But the label has often been applied to Ted Cruz, and if Cruz continues to carry the Sessions mantle in the Republican primary, the Alabama senator's views will get a wider hearing than ever before.

[Isara]

Nobody ever called Trump a disciplined messenger. But the label has often been applied to Ted Cruz, and if Cruz continues to carry the Sessions mantle in the Republican primary, the Alabama senator's views will get a wider hearing than ever before.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

But the label has often been applied to Ted Cruz

Here's Cruz's team just this last Friday:

"While Cruz may not support legalization, he hasn't definitively ruled it out. His position, his campaign said, is that he'll refuse to even discuss what to do with the undocumented population until the border is secure."

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-11-13/did-ted-cruz-actually-support-legal-status-for-undocumented-immigrants-

This is from Cruz and his people, the same ones calling Rubio a liar for claiming that Cruz supported granting legal status and expanding H1-B visas.

Disciplined messenger? Maybe, but the message is telling us that amnesty is still on the table in a Cruz presidency.

[my right]

why should immigrants depressing wages be controversial? any damn fool should be able to see that.

[Isara]

Presidential Candidates Comparison (Cruz vs. Trump)

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[Isara]

Trump supported TARP, auto bailout and Porkulus bill.

Trump's Record on Free-market Issue: (from the Conservative Review)

Trump has a terrible record on free market issues. The only bright spot is the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing, but this glimmer is countermanded by his repeated support for bailing out Wall Street and the auto industry, and increased stimulus spending. Of particular concern is Trump's belief that the government can use eminent domain powers to seize private property in the name of private economic development. This comes as no surprise, given his support for using eminent domain to profit his own company.

Trump supported the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of London, allowing public authorities to seize private land for economic development by private investors; Trump said, “I happen to agree with [the decision] 100 percent.” (National Review)  This is no surprise given Trump’s attempt to use eminent domain in his own line of work. (Institute for Justice)

Trump supported President Obama’s 2009 stimulus, saying: “The word stimulus is probably not used in its fullest…you know, certain of the things that were given weren't really stimulus. They were pork, as we call it, or they were gifts to certain people. But overall, I think he's [President Obama] doing very well. You do need stimulus and you do have to keep the banks alive.” (CNN) 

Trump supported TARP, saying, "You had to do something to shore up the banks, because ... you would have had a run on every bank." (CNN) 

Trump supported the 2008 auto bailout, saying, “I think the government should stand behind them 100 percent. You cannot lose the auto companies. They’re great. They make wonderful products.” He also said that the federal government could “easily save the companies.” (Daily Caller) 

Trump criticized the Federal Reserve’s intervention in the debt market, saying quantitative easing creates “phony numbers” that mislead the marketplace and “will not ultimately benefit the economy. The dollar will go down in value and inflation will start rearing its ugly head.” (CNBC) 

Donald Trump has a history of using eminent domain to complete business deals. Multiple times Trump has supported the use of government agencies to take possession of homes and businesses for use in his private business plans. Eminent domain seizures are reserved only for public use of property rather than abuse by the government taking property from one individual and giving to another. (Washington Post) 

Donald Trump has sought and received crony capitalist tax breaks for his commercial properties in New York. These tax breaks, and even an abatement, force the property taxes of other property owners to rise at the expense of the connected. Special treatment for one business or industry over another with the tax code conflicts with free market principles. (National Review) 

In 2009, Trump supported Barack Obama's call for limits on the pay of executives. (CNN)

[BJ1]

America had tremendous economic growth from the founding up until The Great Depression, when immigration was restricted. I don’t think we should necessarily say immigration is a problem. However back in those days immigrants were left largely to their own hard work to make it. Contrast that today with about half of all immigrant headed families getting some welfare assistance (source http://cis.org/Welfare-Use-Immigrant-Native-Households).

I think it’s great to attract the best and brightest from around the world. And further to attract a population with a work ethic much higher than most native born Americans. But along with those, we are getting men and women who can’t seem to make it here either.

[erod]

[kabar]

We have just had the two highest decades of legal immigration in our history. Since 1990 35 million legal permanent immigrants have settled here. In 1970 one in 21 was foreign born; today, less than one in 8 is foreign born, the highest in 105 years; and within a decade, one in 7 will be foreign-born, the highest in our history.

We bring in far too many legal immigrants. We have a huge surplus of labor. The labor participation rates are the lowest in 38 years. Immigrants are taking American jobs and depressing wages. If we had a shortage of labor, wages would be going up, not down.

Civilian labor force participation rate

87% of the legal immigrants are minorities as defined by the USG. Immigrants and minorities vote more than two to one Dem. By 2019 half of the children 18 and under will be minorities and by 2043 non-Hispanic whites will be 50% of the population, down from 89% in 1970. The Dems are well on their way to becoming the permanent majority party. Demography is destiny.

[Redbob]

"The controversial argument that immigrants, both legal and illegal, are depressing the wages of the lower and middle class..."

How can any rational person call this "controversial" or dispute it?

The sole purpose of H1B visas is to provide U.S. business with cheap engineers and technicians; the sole purpose of farm worker visas is to provide cheap farm labor.

[ConservingFreedom]

H-1B ping. Let me know if you're not on the list and want to be added (or are and want to be removed).

[kabar]

We bring in 1.1 million LEGAL PERMANENT IMMIGRANTS a year who compete legally with Americans for jobs. We issue 65,000 H-1B temporary work visas a year.

[central_va]

The controversial argument that immigrants, both legal and illegal, are depressing the wages of the lower and middle class

Eggheads like this authorette have a hard time dealing with reality.

[ConservingFreedom]

The controversial argument that immigrants, both legal and illegal, are depressing the wages of the lower and middle class

Eggheads like this authorette have a hard time dealing with reality.

I guess the Free Traitors have realized that their previous stance of 'tough beans for the wages of the lower and middle class - that's the free market' wasn't winning friends ... so they've decided to deny that markets still work the way they've always worked.

[central_va]

I guess the Free Traitors have realized that their previous stance of 'tough beans for the wages of the lower and middle class - that's the free market' wasn't winning friends ... so they've decided to deny that markets still work the way they've always worked.

The mental gymnastics that is going on denying the obvious is really something to see.

[itsahoot]

How Ted Cruz Became a Jeff Sessions Republican

He figured out he couldn't beat Trump any other way. Campaign conversions do not count with me.

[BJ1]

Thanks for all those graphs. Just one comment on your destiny comment. Once most blacks voted for republicans. Things do not have to stay the way they are.

[ConservingFreedom]

Campaign conversions do not count with me.

That applies to Trump's campaign conversions, too, right?

[khelus]

I found some interesting use of language in Cruz's plan:

"Halt any increases in legal immigration so long as American unemployment remains unacceptably high. The purpose of legal immigration should be to grow the economy, not to displace American workers. Under no circumstances should legal immigration levels be adjusted upwards so long as work-force participation rates remain below historical averages.

Cruz is using the fuzzy metrics. What is unacceptably high? What are historical averages ?

Cruz 'consulted' with Sessions not necessary took his advice.

His actually is saying keep the same numbers as now and don't increase the number unless fuzzy metrics are met.

[itsahoot]

That applies to Trump's campaign conversions, too, right?

Nope, he came to that on his own. Cruz had to wait for his donors to let him adapt his message to try and stave off Trump, not because he believes what he is now saying about immigration. Trump has never cast a single vote in either House excepting of course the ones he bought.

[ConservingFreedom]

That applies to Trump's campaign conversions, too, right?

Nope, he came to that on his own. [...] Trump has never cast a single vote in either House excepting of course the ones he bought.

'Donald Trump is now the super-hawk on immigration. It wasn't always so, and not so long ago. A Newsmax article from November 2012 on his views on what went wrong in the election is making the rounds. Back then, Trump's view on immigration was utterly conventional – he wanted a "comprehensive solution" to accommodate immigrants who want to be "wonderful productive citizens," and thought Romney's policy of attrition (infamously described as self-deportation) was "maniacal" and mean-spirited' - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3309919/posts