The Elephants in the Democrats' Back Room

Given that many believe that the interests of lower income Americans are most strongly represented by the Democrats, one might expect that the Democratic Party would be opposed to our illegal and legal immigration consisting largely of poor and little-educated immigrants. This follows from the fact that our poor and blue collar citizens bear a disproportionate burden from our unskilled immigration. (See Blog of June 20 – “Our Immigration Policies Are Hurting Our Poor.”) The burden on our lower income citizens becomes even greater in periods of high unemployment such as the present.

Poor and less-educated Americans have typically been a bastion of support for the Democrats and the better off Democrats have typically supported government programs to help our poor. Yet today’s Democratic Party favors amnesty for most illegal immigrants and no meaningful enforcement of our immigration laws for the foreseeable future. These are the key tenets of current Democratic immigration policy despite the fact that the majority of all voters oppose a general amnesty and an open door for illegal immigrants, and despite the fact that these policies are not in the best interests of our poor and less educated citizens. (For more discussion on the current policy of the Obama administration see blog of July 9 entitled "Kinder, Gentler Obama Immigration Policy.)

In times past, Democrats have stood tough on illegal immigration. Under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson the bracero program of Mexican guest farm workers was closed down in the 1960’s on the grounds that it deprived American farm workers of jobs and higher wages. When it became evident that the guest farm workers just changed status to illegal immigrants, President Carter tried to introduce more effective legislation to crack down on illegal farm workers but was single-handedly rebuffed by Senator Eastland of Mississippi who was a champion of agricultural interests at that time.

Traditional allies of the Democrats are the labor unions which at one time uniformly opposed large-scale immigration as increasing the pool of low-wage non-union workers who could compete for jobs. For example, closing down access to illegal immigrant laborers was a key part of Cesar Chavez’s plan to improve conditions for farm workers through the United Farm Workers union. His advances for farm workers were subsequently undone by illegal immigration (footnote 1).

After years of shrinking membership, some unions are beginning to become immigrant advocates with the objective of adding immigrants to their membership. “In February 2000, the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO announced it was changing its historic position – it would now support expanded immigration, lenient enforcement of immigration laws and the legislative agenda of immigrant advocacy groups. Subsequently, AFL-CIO officials publicly explained that the organization was ‘championing immigrant rights as a strategic move to make immigrants more enthusiastic about joining unions.’” (See footnote 2)

Black Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Jordan was chair of the U. S. Commission on Immigration Reform from 1993 until her death in 1996. The Commission made a number of carefully crafted recommendations to reduce illegal immigration and legal immigration of the poor and unskilled. Jordan explained: “in an age in which unskilled workers have far too few opportunities opened to them and in which welfare reform will require thousands more to find jobs, the Commission sees no justification to the continued entry of unskilled foreign workers” (footnote 3). Unfortunately, with Jordan’s death in 1996 the Commission lost political influence and its more significant recommendations were never enacted.

Given that American blacks are disproportionately disadvantaged by the addition of large numbers of poor legal and illegal immigrants to our country, why is it that President Obama and his fellow Democrats do not stand up for the interests of poor blacks and the other poor American citizens? The answer likely lies in the fact that President is very much out of touch with reality and highly motivated by the calculus of back room politics. The bottom line of the latter is that today’s poor and little educated legal and illegal immigrants are tomorrow’s Democrats. And with every year that passes, the numerical importance of the Latino population grows making their voting impact more of a factor in some elections (see prior blog of September 10 entitled "Three Reasons Why the Impact of Our Illegal Immigration Is, Has Been, and Will Be Greater Than One Might Expect").

Moreover, the children of these immigrants and their children also tend to vote for Democrat candidates since their education, income and wealth achievements also tend to be below average and their use of welfare programs tend to be above average. In the words of one researcher: “The undeniable truth is that most Latinos reside in locations that are thoroughly monopolized by Democratic Party operations – places that have been the residence of Democratic voting populations for decades, even generations – typically in dense urban counties….” (footnote 4).

The Democratic Party appears to have an alliance with the tort bar which which has likely used its influence to obtain legislative favors such as not including any meaningful reform of malpractice litigation in the Democratic national health proposals. Similarly, the immigration bar is a prosperous and influential group which naturally favors and lobbies for more immigration, legal and illegal, which in turn leads to higher volumes of profitable business for them. Since the immigration bar's objectives now coincide with those of the Democrats, this attorney group is likely to be contributors to the Democratic Party, its candidates, and its causes, which in turn gives the immigration bar even more influence.

There is also a feeling among many Democrats of the liberal persuasion that we should help the world’s poor by opening our doors wide to them, rich nation that we are. President Obama shows every evidence of being one of this group of left leaning Democrats. In their egalitarian approach, they believe that all immigrants have equal potential to boost our country and that it is noble of us to take in the world’s poor and uneducated – in the inspiring words of Emma Lazarus: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” The Lazarus poem was, of course, more appropriate for its time -- the 1800s when our economy had a great need for unskilled laborers and there were no government welfare programs. These Democrats will not acknowledge that in today’s economy highly educated and skilled labor has taken the place of unskilled labor as the dominant part of our workforce. Thus certain immigrants, such as the “best and the brightest,” are likely to make more of a contribution to this country and assimilate more easily than the unskilled and little educated, to the advantage of all of our existing citizens.

Moreover, liberal Democrats will usually not acknowledge that the immigration of large numbers of the poor and little educated makes life more difficult for our existing poor citizens. They do not see that it is contradictory policy to make great and costly efforts to eliminate poverty in this country and import much more poverty at the same time. This contradiction is also played out in the distribution of income objectives which many left leaning Democrats focus on -- they want a more even distribution of income in this country and yet they are strongly in favor of high levels of poor and little educated immigration which makes for a less even distribution of income.

Footnotes

1 See Philip L. Martin, “Promise Unfulfilled,” Center for Immigration Studies, January 2004.


2 Quote is from Vernon M. Briggs, Jr., “Immigration Policy and Organized Labor: A Never Ceasing Issue,” Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Immigration, May 24, 2007.


3 U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, “ Statement of Professor Barbara Jordan, Chairman,” News Release, Washington, DC, June 8, 1995.

4 James G. Gimpel, “Latino Voting in the 2006 Election: Realignment to the GOP Remains Distant,” Center for Immigration Studies, March 2007.