Posted on 04/22/2015 12:04:08 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s newfound skepticism of legal immigration levels is a potential turning point in the still nascent presidential race, potentially dragging the Republican Party further to the right than Mitt Romney’s hardline immigration platform in 2012.
“In terms of legal immigration, how we need to approach that going forward is saying – the next president and the next Congress need to make decisions about a legal immigration system that’s based on, first and foremost, on protecting American workers and American wages,” Walker said Monday in an interview with Glenn Beck. “It is a fundamentally lost issue by many in elected positions today – what is this doing for American workers looking for jobs, what is this doing to wages, and we need to have that be at the forefront of our discussion going forward.”
Walker’s remarks widened a growing divide in the 2016 field between Republicans like Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul who want to expand the party to voting blocs outside their base, especially Latinos, and those, like Walker, who see riling up the party’s older and whiter conservative base as the key to general election success.
Up until Walker’s interview, the only presidential prospect that had expressed concern about legal immigration levels was former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.). Even relatively hardline “amnesty” critics in the 2016 field like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) have argued for increasing the number of immigrant visas available each year. In the 2012 GOP contest, border hawks frequently challenged claims they were anti-immigrant by countering they would make legal immigration easier. Mitt Romney, who lost 73% of the Latino vote after proposing undocumented immigrants “self-deport,” told foreign students at American universities through the election that he would “staple a green card to your diploma” as president. Walker had also backed expanded access to legal immigration in the past, prompting his fired former aide Liz Mair to accuse him of an “Olympics-quality flip-flop.”
For Republicans who have tried to push the party toward immigration reform to confront its disastrous showing with Latinos and Asians in 2012, Walker’s turn stoked fears that their political situation might go from bad to worse.
“The reality is we are losing the support of the Hispanic community, the reality is the fastest growing part of our population in America is the Hispanic community,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is backing fellow immigration dove Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) for president, told msnbc on Tuesday. “We need to address the issue and we need to do it in a constructive fashion or we do not win the 2016 election.”
But immigration levels have long offered a tempting target for a candidate looking to conquer the field’s right flank and willing to anger GOP donors (the Chamber of Commerce and Koch brothers are strongly pro-immigration) and immigrant communities in the process. Polls have shown Americans, and especially Republicans and independents, are wary of legal immigration even as they favor a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Advocacy groups like NumbersUSA that are devoted to blocking legal status for undocumented immigrants also call for lower legal immigration levels. Reducing immigration levels is a popular topic in certain corners of conservative media. In addition to Beck and other conservative talk show hosts, Breitbart Newshas made it a regular focus. The Daily Caller, until recently, employed a reporter whose beat consisted primarily of haranguing politicians over their support for legal immigration.
Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who Walker talked with over the phone about the issue and told Beck was an influence, has spent years challenging his colleagues over the issue, arguing that guest worker programs and H1B visas for high-skilled workers drive up unemployment and drag down American labor standards.
“I thought that was a very responsible and commonsense approach,” Sessions told msnbc when asked about Walker’s comments. “It’s unthinkable we admit a million people a year lawfully and nobody’s even willing to discuss whether that’s the right number and if we have within it the right makeup of skills and education levels,” he added.
As Sessions likes to point out, it’s not just the conservative base that has raised objections over the issue, either. Major unions, led by the AFL-CIO, are also dead set against legislative proposals to expand H1B visas for high-skilled employees and critical of guest worker programs for lower-skilled workers. Big tech companies, represented by groups like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us, argue that they can’t find qualified applicants without looking abroad and the resultant economic boost helps everyone. The Chamber of Commerce and other trade groups argue low-skilled immigrant workers take jobs Americans are unwilling to do at any price. Labor organizations and populist conservatives argue that businesses are only interested in foreign workers because they’re willing to work for lower wages with fewer benefits. Unions reached a compromise deal with the Chamber of Commerce in 2013 on guest workers and backed the Senate’s bipartisan comprehensive bill, but with that legislation dead they’ve taken to protesting more narrow proposals focused on work visas alone.
One prime target is the I-Squared Act, which would raise the cap for H1B visas and make it easier for qualifying foreign workers to bring their children and spouses along with them. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is a co-sponsor of the 2015 iteration, setting up a potential clash with Walker in the GOP debates.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a sponsor of the bill, bristled at the notion that an increase in STEM workers (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) would negatively affect Americans.
“That’s poppycock,” he told reporters on Tuesday. “We know that when we graduate PhDs, masters degrees, engineers, we don’t have enough of any of those.”
To Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, Walker’s remarks served as a warning to GOP leaders of the cost of inaction on comprehensive immigration reform.
“With no constructive place to go, they’re going to end up in a destructive place,” Noorani said. “They’re heading further right than Mitt Romney.”
Who is your top candidate?
McCain is as right about immigration as he and Feingold were about free speech.
I find it interesting how the media wants to believe that a candidate’s change with respect to a certain issue during the campaign is always a genuine change of heart, despite the history of such changes, where the candidate usually changes their words but not their actions.
I like a bit of comedy with my morning coffee. :)
Your post makes a lot of sense. I, too, have beeb asking for specifics on what Walker would do as President. What he has done as governor is not a template because of exactly what you described. Washington has a completely different heirarchy and mode of operation.
I like Cruz because he has told us what he intends to do and I trust him to do it. So far, no one has told me what policies Walker will advance as President.
Yes, add me to the list.
.....”What he has done as governor is not a template because of exactly what you described. Washington has a completely different heirarchy and mode of operation”....
Well that’s just it and when they get there time cannot be wasted for any to figure out who and what is set to trip them up...things will have to be “done” asap.....there is no learning curve this time around.
That’s another reason why I’m comfortable with Cruz...he already knows what to expect, from whom, and where the traps are set... and has had his own inside people functioning. So he’ll simply pick up the ball and go with it...and I don’t expect him to let any grass grow under his feet...after he’s been briefed on what he needs to know.
I agree. Cruz is motivated and it doesn’t hurt that he’s Brilliant!
Too bad Reagan was so ineffective when he came to Washington.
if he had just known more he might have gotten something done........
/s
....”He knows government and how it works”...
He does not know the difference between running his state and the corridors of Washington politics, which as I said is a different beast entirely.
Will Walkers “colleagues” be going to Washington with him...or are those there who are NOW in his court operating in Washington and setting things up for him?
You see I know that Cruz has that and one of the huge ‘distinctions’ between the two.....Walker hasn’t made this known one way or another....and further.... ‘what’ has he actually stood up to ‘IN’ Washington that would assure us he has the backbone to go against that flow if he gets there????
These are perfectly reasonable questions that he’s not addressed to my knowledge....
Reagan had connections both in Washington and across the nation as we know...before and after he arrived there....and certainly the country wasn’t even close to being in the dire straits it is here and also on the International stage. There was time for him to get comfortable with the environment of WAshington...which he was already familiar with.
McCain is anti American worker. His day is over
.
He knows the Constitution...he knows ‘how’ those in Washington are opposing it and the legal means they’re manipulating....so Cruz also being a Lawyer is more than helpful.....it gives him another leg others do not have and why he can and does raise the issues of the Constitution that he has and does.
Just so you know, I prefer Cruz.
I just find the argument being made, that he won’t be able to handle Washington to be pretty weak. It was made against Reagan as well and was wrong.
Reagan came into Washington at ‘a different time’...and certainly Washington wasn’t packed with Muslims and various other anti-Americans to the degree we have now in our government operating against us.
For me we need a President who has been inside that beast and watched it operate these past 8 years...Cruz would know where the weak points are and where to strike against it without the adjustment time an outsider is going to need.
Time is significant because the world has despots and leaders who are currently reading themselves and acting knowing in mind a change in the Presidency is forthcoming.
I can truly say that even with 9/11 happening... I have not sensed as much danger to our country as I have with this Administration and those who have been purposely brought into it over these past 8 years and operating against this country.
So the time element is significant. And someone who is already familiar with the happenings “inside” Washington.
Next question: Does anyone care what McCain thinks?
He also handles the media, and media gotchas better than anyone since Reagan.
That's why I prefer him, I don't think either of them have an edge in knowing how to handle Washington. But then again, as I said earlier, neither did Reagan. One thing, we both prefer the same guy.
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