Posted on 01/16/2020 6:22:46 PM PST by NRx
In 2001, when I was the new Washington correspondent for The Arizona Republic, I attended the annual awards dinner of the National Immigration Forum. The forum is a left-right coalition that lobbies for unauthorized immigrants and expansive immigration policies. Its board has included officials of the National Council of La Raza, the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, as well as the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Restaurant Association and the American Nursery and Landscape Association.
After dinner, the group’s executive director, Frank Sharry, made a pitch to business allies who wanted Congress to allow them unfettered access to foreign workers. “You guys in business get all the workers you want, whenever you want them,” he proposed. “No bureaucracy.”
“Sold!” yelled John Gay, a lobbyist for the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Mr. Sharry quickly added that the deal must include advocacy for “three little, tiny pieces of paper: a green card, a union card and a voter registration card” for unauthorized immigrants.
...the exchange was a revelation about the politics of immigration in Washington. Business lobbyists like Mr. Gay — conservatives who seek loose labor markets so employers can keep wages down — align themselves with liberal activists like Frank Sharry to pursue policies that serve their groups.
...This mismatch of political influence, combined with the social and fiscal consequences of a wave of low-skilled immigrants, led me to believe that immigration should be restricted so that its power to invigorate our country is not eclipsed by its potential to harm workers. I think immigration, like capitalism itself, should be regulated in the national interest, not shaped to serve the free-market libertarianism of the right or the post-national humanitarianism of the left.
That’s why I call myself a liberal restrictionist.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Well, Gee, Jerry... YOU get a COOKIE.
Just waking up, huh...
“That’s why I call myself a liberal restrictionist.”, or douche for short
Ex liberal.
American Immigration Lawyers.
It is quite a racket. Put up a lot of complicated laws and rules to navigate in order to immigrate or import workers. Encourage people to break or bend the rules, which makes it even more complicated to regularize the situation.
Lawyers! To the rescue. Hours and hours of rescue, at anywhere from $200 to over $1000 per, depending if the client is an illegal alien, or corporate entity.
Amazed they printed this. Good for him. Still bad for the NY Times, a zombie newspaper.
“Ex liberal.”
By noon tomorrow he’ll be a white supremacist nazi.
This will come as a surprise to him.
When people sometimes wonder why we have trouble persuading people from the other side to consider our view of an issue, comments of this nature are one of the things I point to. This guy has taken a very large step towards a pragmatic conservative position and your response is vulgar name calling.
Well, the author is still a big ol’ liberal. He just understands that unrestricted/illegal immigration keeps wages down—and that ain’t in the interest of the working class he champions.
Can’t have it both ways ahole.
It’s a step. Ronald Reagan was one of the most effective political leaders of either the right or left since FDR. And one of his cardinal rules was that if he could get half of what he wanted today, he’d take it and worry about the other half tomorrow. In an era of closely divided government this is a battle that will require a certain amount of reasoned persuasion to carry the day. This is a start and I will accept it on that basis.
a few years ago I would have agreed with your point.
You’re right. We should acknowledge positive change in liberals. But our Reagans and Trumps are so far between and the gaps are filled in with Bushes and McCains!
Flimsey Grahamnesty is to the left of this liberal.
He still wants amnesty.
If you’re an environmentalist....as many on the Left claim to be, how can you possibly support ever more overcrowding which puts an even greater strain on natural resources?
How can you support moving tens of millions of people living low carbon lives in less developed countries to more developed countries where they too will adopt the high carbon lifestyles of the people in those countries?
Just one more massive contradiction in Leftist ideology to along with supporting gays and women’s rights and simultaneously supporting islam which hates both.
Or championing female empowerment and women’s sports but allowing biological men to claim they are “transitioning” without even having any surgery to participate in women’s sports where they routinely stomp actual females due to their massive biological advantages which come from being male.
etc etc.
The left only became pro immigration to paint Trump as a racist just like they went from bing “anti-war” to sounding like neocons who want war with Russia because Trump wants peace.
Just because he works for a business lobbying group this nitwit liberal thinks Gay is a conservative.
If you get someone to change their position because you’re nice to them they haven’t changed their mind about anything. Real change of mind rests on a foundation of reason.
I read an article on a Nordic communist party that’s getting called Nazis by the liberals ... because it no longer champions massive immigration and social justice. The irony is lost on the social justice types. The communists said the exact same thing - that massive low skill immigration of mostly Muslims and Africans was hurting poor native born, their constituency, by competing for welfare and reducing employment/wages. They also said that social justice’s focus on sexual minorities and luxury issues was a distraction from feeding, housing and taking care of people.
Now if only we could get American communists to agree ...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.