Trump Defeats Democrats ‘Amnesty-or-Shutdown’ Threat

Amnesty
C-SPAN screenshot
Neil Munro

Democratic leader Sen. Chuck Schumer has joined the retreat from the Democrats’ shutdown-or-amnesty threat, marking a solid victory by President Donald Trump and his voters.

However, Democrats are quietly developing a counter-attack by recruiting several GOP Senators — including Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska — to push an amnesty for 3 million so-called ‘dreamers’ in exchange for token benefits for Americans. The effort is being led by Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, and it is also intended to block the pro-American, Trump-backed reform being pushed by GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley which would stop chain-migration and end the visa lottery.

Trump won the amnesty-or-shutdown fight by aggressively criticizing the Democrats’ for their support of unpopular mass immigration. In late November, for example, he taunted Democrats’ just before a White House meeting with top Democrats.

Trump’s clout in the dispute is boosted by his popular pro-American immigration policies, which he summarizes as “Buy American, Hire American.”

Schumer quietly acknowledged the Democrats’ defeat in his December 12 morning announcement in the Senate, when he placed the unpopular and unconditional ‘dreamer’ amnesty last on his list of priorities for the budget talks. He said:

First and foremost, we must resolve the issue of spending caps. If we do nothing, there will be painful and unnecessary cuts to both defense spending and programs that invest directly in jobs and economic development for the middle class in early January …

As Democrats continue to push for desperately needed funding to combat the opioid crisis, improve veterans health care and shore up pension plans, we’ll also be pushing to reauthorize chip, the children’s health insurance program, and community health centers, as well as dealing with certain health care programs that have expired.

We have to do more for the Americans in texas, florida, Louisiana, Peurto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin islands who are still recovering from devastating natural disasters. 

We’re in the process of negotiating with Republicans to provide a significant investment in border security in exchange for DACA. These talks continue to progress, and I’m hopeful we can reach agreement on that issue as well. 

So … we have got a lot to get done before the end of the year. we don’t have much time to do it. but with a concerted effort of both parties, negotiating in good faith, I believe we can reach an agreement acceptable, not to every member of either chamber, but to large numbers of members on both sides of the aisle so we can pass by a wide margin our agreement.

The amnesty retreat minimizes the Democrats’ likely losses. In 2013, Schumer pushed the “Gang of Eight” mega-amnesty, which helped cost him nine Senate seats in 2014.

Schumer’s climb-down was presaged by the Sunday retreat of his deputy, Sen. Dick Durbin, who said during his December 10 appearance on “Face the Nation”:

There are many important issues [in the budget]. DACA to me personally and the DREAM Act are very personal and mean an awful lot. But when we’re talking about funding our government, providing the resources and programs that many middle income families use across America, dealing with the opioid crisis, making certain that we take care of our veterans, making certain that we have the money for biomedical research.

Establishment media outlets minimized coverage of Schumer’s retreat.

The Schumer retreat is a tough blow for three billionaire-backed groups pushing for a cheap-labor amnesty. The Emerson Collective, FWD.us and New American Economy groups have spent heavily to bring pro-amnesty protestors into D.C., to create videos of starlets or illegals asking for an amnesty, and to influence legislators.

Durbin is now working with several senators, including Murkowski and Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, to peel away support from Grassley’s SECURE Act, which is backed by President Donald Trump. According to a report in TheDenverChannel.com, the strategy sweetens the amnesty with a few token security measure — such as cameras and upgraded border fences — while discarding important changes, such as an end to chain migration and the visa lottery.

TheDenverChannel report said:

Two of the Senate aides also told Denver7 that Republican Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina were involved in the talks. Graham was also a member of the “Gang of Eight” and is the sponsor of this year’s version of the Dream Act …

The working proposals from the bipartisan group would allow for some border security measures to be added onto the Dream Act base, three sources said. They said that the added security measures were being included to get more Republicans and the White House on board.

Some of the border security measures that have been discussed include improving technology, adding fencing along certain parts of the border, as well as other border security-strengthening measures posed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, including new drone technology, cameras, hiring incentives, and drug interdiction measures, two people told Denver7.

Grassley’s immigration group include Graham, Sen. John Cornyn, Sen. Thom Tillis, Sen. Devid Perdue and Sen. Tom Cotton. But the group is split. For example, Cornyn has called for a slow phase-out of chain migration, and Tillis is urging passage of his SUCCEED amnesty for at least 1 million illegals.

Multiple polls show the public is strongly opposed to the Democrats’  threat to shut down the government if they do not get their DREAM Act amnesty by Christmas for 3 million illegals –plus their at-home chain-migration relatives.

The Democrats’ calls for amnesty are unpopular because they contradict Americans’ sense of fairness to other Americans. Business groups and Democrats embrace the misleading, industry-funded “nation of immigrants” polls which pressure Americans to say they welcome migrants. But the alternative “fairness” polls show that voters put a much higher priority on helping their families, neighbors, and fellow nationals get decent jobs in a high-tech, high-immigration, low-wage economy. The political power of the voters’ fairness priorities was made clear during the GOP primaries and again in November 2016.

Four million Americans turn 18 each year and begin looking for good jobs in the free market.

But the federal government inflates the supply of new labor by annually accepting 1 million new legal immigrants, by providing almost 2 million work-permits to foreigners, by providing work-visas to roughly 500,000 temporary workers and doing little to block the employment of roughly 8 million illegal immigrants.

The Washington-imposed economic policy of mass-immigration floods the market with foreign labor, spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.

The cheap-labor policy has also reduced investment and job creation in many interior states because the coastal cities have a surplus of imported labor. For example, almost 27 percent of zip codes in Missouri had fewer jobs or businesses in 2015 than in 2000, according to a new report by the Economic Innovation Group. In Kansas, almost 29 percent of zip codes had fewer jobs and businesses in 2015 compared to 2000, which was a two-decade period of massive cheap-labor immigration.

Because of the successful cheap-labor strategy, wages for men have remained flat since 1973, and a large percentage of the nation’s annual income has shifted to investors and away from employees.

 

 

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