Cheap Labor, Open Borders Swamp Embraces Trump's DHS Pick: 'Experience Being Valued over Outsiders'

The Washington, D.C. political establishment – which supports a constant inflow of cheap, foreign workers to take American blue-collar jobs – and open border policies, is heaping praise on President Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Kirstjen Nielsen.

Nielsen, a donor to Republican establishment darling Jeb Bush and former DHS official under President George W. Bush, is being praised by pro-open borders Bush allies with whom she’s previously worked.

In the Washington Post, former Bush official and lobbyist Stewart Verdery welcomed Trump’s choice to pick Nielsen to run DHS because she was not an outsider.

“Nielsen’s nomination is a strong signal of competence and experience being valued by the White House over ideologues and outsiders,” Verdery told the Washington Post. “The homeland mission requires an unusual, diverse set of skills, and she has expertise in almost all of them.”

In 2014, Verdery urged House and Senate Republicans to give in to amnesty for the 12 to 30 million illegal aliens living in the U.S., writing for CNN how the GOP needed to support the expansion of foreign work visa programs, where cheaper foreigners are brought to the U.S. to take American jobs.

As a lobbyist, Verdery’s Monument Policy Group represents tech firms like Microsoft and Amazon, both of which have lobbied the Trump administration for more foreign workers to be imported to the U.S., further driving down the wages of American workers, immigration reformers argue.

Microsoft, which Verdery’s lobbying firm represents, even admitted to hiring illegal aliens who have been shielded from deportation by the Obama-created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, as Breitbart Texas reported.

Also praising Nielsen’s appointment to DHS is pro-amnesty Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, who has a long record of opposing the pro-American immigration agenda that got Trump elected.

In the Washington Post, Ridge said of Nielsen:

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge (R), the first secretary of homeland security, said in a statement that Nielsen was a “homeland security veteran” who was “extremely well versed in the all-hazard threats” challenging the nation’s security and resilience.

“Kirstjen can hit the ground running and there won’t be a learning curve,” Ridge said. “Most importantly, in this hyper-political environment, Kirstjen is not a self-promoter. She is a patriot and takes a mission-focused approach to her work.”

When Ridge was serving as the head of DHS under Bush in 2003, he demanded that the entire illegal alien population be “legalized” and allowed to remain in the U.S.

At the time, Trump ally and Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) slammed Ridge for indirectly pushing amnesty, all while potentially creating a surge at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Mr. Ridge ought to read the laws he is charged with trying to enforce,” Tancredo told the Washington Times. “We have laws on the books that call for him to find and deport these people, and if he is unwilling to do so, he should resign.”

In 2010, Ridge railed against Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s pro-American immigration enforcement — which Trump ally and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach helped craft — saying that instead of deporting illegal aliens, the federal government should have stepped in and legalized the millions of illegal aliens in the U.S.

“It’s ridiculous to think … we’re going to identify 12 million to 14 million people and send them back,” Ridge told the Associated Press at the time.

In 2016, Ridge even went on a media tour to announce that he refused to support Trump’s “America First” candidacy, writing in US News:

My disregard for Donald Trump has been well documented by multiple media outlets over the last several months, so I won’t belabor it yet again. Suffice to say that I am disappointed that he is our party’s nominee. With a bumper sticker approach to policy, his bombastic tone reflects the traits of a bully, not an American president and statesman. If he cannot unite Republicans, how can he unite America? I simply cannot endorse him.

Nielsen’s DHS appointment was additionally cheered by former Bush official Frances Townsend, with the D.C. establishment figure telling the New York Times that Nielsen is “competent.”

“She is tough as nails, competent and has rightly earned the president’s respect,” Townsend said.

In 2013, Townsend welcomed the failed effort to give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens — known as the “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill — saying the open borders plan was in-line with the Bush administration’s goals on immigration.

“This is a redux of the Bush effort and the underlying principles,” Townsend told the Daily Beast at the time.

Nielsen has no record of working specifically on immigration-related issues, despite Trump making pro-American immigration reforms the main theme of his administration. The yet-to-be-confirmed DHS head also does not hold any clear record when it comes to supporting initiatives that reduce legal immigration and limit foreign guest worker programs in order to give wage and competitive relief to America’s working-class and middle-class workforce.