Wait, I would assume that most immigrant agricultural workers in SC (and nationwide) are illegal. There is no question that they drive down wages to the point that most American citizens do not want to do the work. So called “guest workers” that come for the season tend to get higher wages, and return to their home countries after their work period ends. They are less of a drag on the economy.
Under Trump’s proposal (and by the way, I think he’s a complete asshole), better educated and skilled immigrants will probably contribute more to the local and national economies and take less in public assistance than those will less education and skills.
This policy, along with dramatic cuts in illegal immigration, should benefit American citizens compared to the current diaspora of illegals that we have.
Correct on both counts. But beyond just being on the Gang of Eight, Graham has long been chastising the GOP on their immigration stances, including DREAMERS.
I am definitely no fan of Graham’s, but on this issue, I don’t think he is taking his usual “deeply concerned but will vote for it anyway” stance.
Well played President Bannon - the Russia collusion, WH chaos, Fredo’s dilemma and all the other corruption stories are now off the front page (not really) and your white nationalist base is answering your call to arms… thanks to a bill that will never make it to a Senate hearing.
Hogwash, from start to finish, filled with stereotypes that have no basis in reality.
Nor is this “Trump’s proposal”, but given the voice of rest of your post, I can definitely see why you want to give him credit. The proposal is the most draconian reduction in legal immigration this country has attempted since the 1920s (and how did that work out?)
That sentence along is just packed with bullshit. SC economy, as Graham pointed out, is agriculture and tourism. These are not economies driven by “highly skilled” people.
“take less in public assistance” is the real clincher to show you are just aping the knuckle dragging talking points. Undocumented workers are not lining up to collect SSI or food stamps or Medicaid/Medicare. They try to stay as far off the radar as is humanly possible. But what they DO do is pay the taxes that go towards providing those services.
Which is one core issue that people like you simply cannot wrap your brains around. We are in a time frame where more people are retiring, (and have already retired) than there are workers. To sustain that, we need more workers.
There is a lot of question about that point. Mainly because its completely untrue. But what is even more striking, is you are basically proposing that more skilled immigrants will want to go work in the fields because…brown skinned people just naturally like that sort of work??
The reason why we use cheap labor in agriculture, is because the American consumer will balk at the price of produce and other foods. We have seen this play out time and time again when states try to crack down on undocumented workers…their economies tank. And there is NEVER an increase in “American citizens” showing up to pick up the slack.
Sure. It will increase the amount of money she is selling those visas for. Cut the supply of visas available, makes every visa remaining more expensive.
Yeah, that’s the worse part about them being here. How the hell do you beat, berate, oppress, prosecute and jail people that stay under the radar? Ingrates.
Strange how the dog that caught the car is suddenly saying that we need all those illegals to do our field hand work and clean our dishes. They were never honest in the past when they were debating the immigration laws, spewing the same tired crap about illegals to fan their base’s anger, but suddenly with this draconian new Trump law they are sounding more like Democrats.
Another Trump proposed policy that will go down in flames at the hands of Republicans.
This is the fault line in the great Republican Civil War -Immigration.
Trump was largely elected because his base hates anything more foreign or spicier than ketchup. Which is why he won the Republican Primary over people like, well, Lindsay Graham. Trump’s demagoguery on immigration was like pouring gasoline on a fire, but he’s finding its a lot more difficult to enact those revanchist policies than he thought.
So we have Trump/Bannon/Miller on one side and establishment Republicans on the other.
Yes it would, because the purpose of the bill is simply for making mediocre men like Stephen Miller and Tom Cotton feel better about themselves and not have to face the fact that being white and male were the only advantages they had going for them
Just the opposite as an employer/landlord/etc you can get away with even worse treatment, because what are they going to do go to the authorities that will promptly deport them?
This is what’s behind the new Trump immigration proposal:
"Similarly, an October 2015 Public Religion Research Institute poll found that nearly two-thirds of Republicans thought that “discrimination against whites has become as big of a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities…Support for Trump depended far less on personal economic anxiety — “I’m afraid of losing my job” — than on a distinctly racialized anxiety: “I think minorities are taking jobs from people like me.”
is disingenuous bullshit with no basis in reality.
What’s particularly asinine is the fact that I’ve heard this same class of white people—and the conservative politicians they vote for and the conservative commentators they listen to—say for fifty goddamn years that black people should get off their asses and be grateful to take whatever shit job they can get, regardless of pay or working conditions, because work itself is ennobling and character-building and all the rest. Yet when it comes to the physically demanding jobs that Hispanics and other immigrants are willingly doing, all of a sudden those jobs don’t pay enough for these entitled white people.
Gee, Lindsey, do you really think it will be devastating? When Alabama and Georgia began its anti-immigrant hysteria Latinos left in droves. It caused Georgia to see over $2 billion in crop losses; I suspect Alabama’s Ag industry suffered comparable damage.
While I agree with you on the lack of factual underpinnings, the general idea that Americans lose jobs to immigrants willing to work for lower wages is widely accepted. Cotton’s bill has support beyond the Republican base.
The last senate immigration bill that was negotiated was in 2013. The “gang of eight” bill received 68 votes and included $40 billion for border security, agriculture visas, “path to citizenship” etc. The house under Bohener refused to bring it up for a vote hence we have Trump and the current situation.
