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.”
"Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has clearly awakened the Washington establishment beast.
Not only is the liberal media and establishment right-of-center coming out guns-a-blazing at Walker over his pro-American worker position on legal immigration, but now Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)—the most pro-amnesty Republican there is, someone who worked for years with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) on immigration—is leading a charge against Walker’s new position.
“I think most statistics show that they fill part of the workforce that are much needed. We have, and I’m a living example of, the aging population. We need these people in the workforce legally,” McCain said when asked about Walker’s position by mainstream media reporters, according to the openly liberal Talking Points Memo’s Sahil Kapur.
“I do,” McCain added when asked if he worries Walker’s position makes the GOP look “anti-immigrant.”
“I do,” McCain said:
And I think that one of the biggest mistakes that Mitt Romney made in his campaign was his comment about “self-deport[ation].” Look, 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. We need to address the issue. And we need to do it in a constructive fashion, or we do not win the 2016 election. I can’t be more specific.
McCain is likely to face a primary challenge from either Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) or state Sen. Kelli Ward due to the fact he’s abandoned conservative principles on so many major issues—immigration chief among them."......
He would know about not winning a presidential campaign, even with a vibrant, exciting and base-pleasing running mate.
June 2013: "Teacher trafficking The strange saga of Filipino workers, American schools, and H-1B visas"
".............How it will affect the Filipino teacher pipeline remains unclear. It’s been a lucrative business since 2001, when a California-based agency supplied some of the first Filipino teachers to Boston Public Schools. They were considered so important that the late Senator Ted Kennedy intervened to get their visas before the school year began.
Since then, more than 60,000 H-1B visas have been approved for school teachers, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services data. There are 600 Filipino teachers who paid up to $8,000 each in fees to work in Baltimore schools. In El Paso, two school administrators were sentenced to probation for their role in a human trafficking case in which 273 Filipinos paid $10,000 apiece for teaching jobs, but arrived to find fewer than 100 positions available."..........
Well that sounds like the same talk we've heard for years......nothing new there.... So just how does he plan convince the Congressional dingbats that are all in for the Global Freeworkforce Borders.
We need to be more direct with questions rather give these candidates a stage to say what we already know is the problem....we need to know how THEY'RE going to move Congress to act????...who do they expect will stand now and then with them on the issues they want to address if they become President???
What are they going to do that's efficient and effective enough to get the work done with Congress?? I say this because I really am fast convinced our Government and ANY Administration is fully focused on the International Stage first and foremost.....and their next election to keep their seats and do their supporters favors in order to keep everyone in WAshington in their wealth and comfort zones.
I'm equally convinced that more powers need to be given back to the states....period...because that is where things will get done and distributed accordingly...as well as local.
Daily Caller: “...........Sessions has demonstrated a willingness to defend these views even in the face of a strong bipartisan pushback — of the kind Walker can now expect. Walker will face questions about his sincerity, since this new rhetoric contradicts previous statements he’s made on the subject, and an angry Republican donor class.
Walker will be tied to protectionists, xenophobes, population control-supporting environmentalists, eugenicists, you name it. Can he take the heat, making an argument that has generally been exiled to Washington’s backbenches since the death of Barbara Jordan in the 1990s?
According to a recent Gallup poll, 84 percent of Republicans are dissatisfied with current immigration levels and most want less immigration.
They have the ear of at least one senator. Now maybe they have a presidential candidate, too.”
http://dailycaller.com/2015/04/21/why-scott-walker-moved-right-on-immigration/
Walker has walked the walk in Wisconsin.
Democrats called him Deadman Walker (as they were running John Doe investigations against him and his conservative supporters).
He’s still standing and pressing on.
I don't believe that...I believe what they want is “controlled” immigration.....there is a difference.
I say this because they've stopped using the word “Assimilation” and changed it to “integration” ....which means various different cultures living 'side by side' in any given area they "seed" them to grow.
I don't want a President that's just standing and pressing on...I want one who hits back and takes the opponent down because Washington certainly is going to do that when they get there....and then they'll sit on his chest.
We need a Pres. who not only fights....but knows how to navigate the rats nest there. I'm not convinced Walker has what he needs to do that....convince me. BTW Don't go on about all his achievements....they all have those...."How" does he expect to be effective once he's there is what we need to know.
You can’t nit pic anything if that’s your aim.
Walker has proven himself as an effective governor in Wisconsin.
He has filed and joined lawsuits against D.C. dictates, fought activist judges in WI; Walker is the only governor to ever survive a recall election. He was reelected by a wider margin than in his first election.
He’s lowered taxes while working to fix Wisconsin’s financial mess brought on by years of liberal blood sucking off the land. There’s much more if anyone bothers to know what he’s done. I’ve certainly posted a lot of it. Now posters are coming back demanding to have it all spoon fed to them again.
Then, yesterday there was a poster on another thread that said they didn’t care what he’d done in Wisconsin - classic Alinsky, wack-a-mole, turning the page to deflect from the fact that Gov. Scott Walker looks pretty darn good on paper and in action.
Beyond that, there are the real fringe posters making the rounds here, and on other sites, demanding to know why Walker “ALLOWED” the Democrat DA and prosecutor in WI go after innocent citizens - stating that they haven’t read the background but ready set up a straw man to campaign against him.
You keep talking about Wisconsin and what he’s done there, I’m aware of what he’s done so you can stop any time trying to spoon feed me...which you seem to think you have to do...
I’m ‘not’ talking about Wisconsin....’Washington’ is an entirely different beast and we all know that...That is what I want to know... how he intends to handle ‘Washington’ when and if he gets there..... I’m not hearing any more than the same old stuff every other candidate is said in every election... Jobs, Abortion, Social issues and the like. We already know those are issues....but they are not the root of the problem that needs to be handled.
Does Walker have ‘the muscle behind him’ to shake Washington and be effective there and how does he intend to do that?....Because if he goes there on his own and without inside connections to make things happen he’ll fail and then some.....
We can’t afford the time for someone to go there and find their way around the halls of Washington ....and it isn’t good enough to see what he’s done on paper....nor whatever action he’s done in your state. This isn’t about wack-a-mole politics to deflect anything...it’s about the survival of this country.....
I realize your post is an effort to say that Walker can’t find his way around D.C. but that isn’t an issue. He knows government and how it works.
He certainly has been able to walk and chew gum in Wisconsin (under intense fire, since before he was elected governor). I suggest that your concerns are unwarranted.
Walker also seems able to work with his colleagues effectively and when the results of his policies (proof is in the pudding) are in evidence, the electorate (that was told what an awful, stupid, device man he is) come over to his side and “stand with Walker.”
” In an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly Monday, the Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said he isn’t troubled by poll numbers showing him trailing Hillary Clinton in the Badger state, saying past history shows he’ll come out victorious in the end.....
“Polls are important snapshots, but in the end the only one that matters is on election day,” Walker said. “We’ve proven three times in four years in a state that hasn’t gone Republican for president that we can win by talking about transferring power from the big government special interest to the hard working taxpayers, and that’ll happen again here.”
http://newsl.org/2015/04/walker-optimistic-weve-won-three-times-in-four-years-itll-happen-again/
But it didn't pan out that way.
My gripe is not with legal immigration, but the State Dept.’s unholy alliance with the UN bringing in 100’s of 1,000’s of “Refugees” with little to no vetting that legal immigrants have to go through. This should be strictly case by case. If your country is such a hellhole, how is that my problem??? America cannot survive much longer at the hands of all these D&R Traitors who have made it our problem.
So, I'll post this information for you and others who are accessing the field of candidates.
January 3, 2011 - Walker assumes Office of Governor of Wisconsin.
June 27, 2011: Walker Revokes In-state Tuition For Undocumented Students Attending Univ And Colleges In Wisconsin "- On Sunday, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) signed his two-year 2011-2013 budget, which included ending in-state tuition for undocumented students attending public universities and colleges. In-state tuition for undocumented students was approved two years ago by former Governor Jim Doyle (D) after the Hispanic community struggled for 10 years to pass it."...
___________________
Just as Scott Walker is the only governor to survive (and handily) a recall election; Wisconsin is the only state to repeal instate tuition for illegals.
Matt McSalmon is no good.
We need someone generic like Kelli Ward.
“My gripe is not with legal immigration”
Did you know that our immigration policy brings in, legally, over 1 million per year? That is not counting illegals. There is no assimilation, no “melting pot” going on. We can not maintain an American identity much longer. Could you explain why legal immigration is sacrosanct, and our American identity is not? When an immigrant comes over now, either an American loses a job, or he loses tax money, and usually both. Why is it a moral imperative that we take in the world’s great unwashed at our peril? I won’t even mention that all the diseases that were eradicated in this country are back.
I can’t find the article, but it was about how Walker does accomplish these things when it seems most are afraid to speak out on issues (like the public sector unions).
Basically, Walker listens first. He doesn’t offer his position. He takes in everyone’s position first, then uses those to support his position.
It is a clever negotiating tactic that I am familiar with.
Walker is brilliantly clever in this way.
It worked when he was on Milwaukee Council which was loaded with liberals....yet Walker still was able to bring them along with him on many occasions.
If you research, you can find the article.
I think this is what you are looking for in your question to CW.
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