Rep. Salazar Recycles Same Tired Pro-Amnesty Talking Points

Earlier this month, freshman Consultant Maria Elvira Salazar talked immigration and amnesty with Fox Enterprise Community’s Larry Kudlow, the previous head of Donald Trump’s Nationwide Financial Council. The interview started with a latest trade Rep. Salazar had with former Trump senior adviser, Stephen Miller. Throughout the the rest of the dialog, Ms. Salazar – a Republican representing Florida’s 27^th (Miami space) District – tried to promote mass amnesty to Fox viewers as Mr. Kudlow appeared to nod in settlement.

Her speaking factors could
not be authentic, however they actually symbolize all the things that’s unsuitable with the
pro-amnesty, soft-on-illegal-migration wing of the GOP. Listed below are a number of of her
details (in daring), together with responses.

To cite Politico,
“ʻI advised him [Stephen Miller] that the GOP wants to draw the browns,’ mentioned
Salazar, a Cuban American.”

Right here Salazar sadly racializes what shouldn’t be a query of race, however of regulation and sovereignty. She can also be confusingly conflating Hispanics, immigrants, and unlawful aliens. What’s extra, the Florida Republican is actually recycling the pro-amnesty GOP’s mantra that the easiest way for the Republicans to win over Latino voters is to tolerate unlawful migration and promote amnesty. The truth, nevertheless, is that the Trump-era GOP – with its pro-border-security, anti-illegal-migration message – really improved its standing with Hispanic voters (see right here and right here).

She additionally advised Politico:
“We, for the final 30 years since Ronald Reagan, haven’t despatched the correct message
to the browns. Reagan was the final man who gave a path to citizenship to three
million folks … 35 years in the past. It’s time for us to do the identical factor that
Reagan did.”

What this assertion ignores is the truth that the 1986 amnesty was a counter-productive failure and that it got here with a promise that it will by no means be repeated. The guarantees of enforcement didn’t materialize, whereas the variety of unlawful aliens in america elevated virtually fivefold, from 3 million  to an estimated 14.5 million now (in fact, Salazar repeatedly cited the 11 million determine, which is undoubtedly an under-estimate). Though the congresswoman pays lip service to frame safety, now we have already been down this path earlier than, and it clearly didn’t work.

When talking of unlawful
aliens, Salazar advised Kudlow: “most likely most of them, 80 p.c of them (…)
have been right here for greater than 5 years, they’ve American kids, they’ve
not dedicated against the law, they pay taxes, and so they’re doing jobs that different
People don’t need to do.”

The Florida politician is
ignoring the truth that any overseas nationwide within the U.S. illegally has by
definition damaged our immigration legal guidelines, and this isn’t topic to any statute
of limitations. In different phrases, residing right here illegally for an extended time period
doesn’t diminish or change the truth that one is residing in our nation
unlawfully. Moreover, many, if not most individuals working illegally are
partaking in id fraud or id theft, each of that are federal crimes.

Whereas it’s true that unlawful aliens pay some taxes, FAIR has proven the burden of the unlawfully-present inhabitants to American taxpayers – $133.7 billion – far outweighs any fiscal contributions unlawful aliens make.

Furthermore, the reality is that People will do any job at market-level wages and in respectable working situations. In truth, the Heart for Immigration Research has proven that of 474 separate occupations outlined by the Division of Commerce, none are illegal-alien-majority. 

When Larry Kudlow
expressed skepticism in direction of family-based chain migration, arguing that immigration
ought to be merit-based, Rep. Salazar responded that: “merit-based is what we
have to do, however keep in mind that not all people that may be a physician or an engineer is
wanted within the market. You additionally want folks selecting up jalapeno peppers,
you want folks selecting up tomatoes in homestead[s]in my space, you additionally want
those who which can be going to be serving the within the hospitality trade. It’s
merit-based.”

It is a prime instance
of semantic manipulation, for Ms. Salazar has primarily collapsed any distinction
between high-skilled, high-wage occupations (docs, engineers) and
low-skilled, low-wage jobs (farmworkers, cleaners), implying that each are
equally based mostly on “advantage.” And plenty of farmers nonetheless “want” overseas laborers to
manually decide crops just because the regular provide of low-cost unlawful alien
labor has disincentivized them from mechanizing. As well as, she has not
thought of the seemingly results of an amnesty on the farmworkers, who would
both transfer into considerably better-paying jobs within the authorized financial system (thereby
competing with low-income People), go on welfare, or each.

Maybe the biggest elephant within the room in the course of the Kudlow-Salazar trade was the matter of how a lot mass amnesty would price. Ms. Salazar makes it sound like granting “legality” to hundreds of thousands of unlawful aliens would merely be a matter of compassion whereas additionally benefiting the financial system. However in the actual world, it will result in extra taxes and debt. In response to the Heritage Basis, a mass amnesty would price $3.6 trillion over a 75-year interval. Thus, amnesty shall be removed from a “free lunch.”