Latino Democrats Tout Migrants as Their Constituents

Asylum
John Moore/Getty Images
Neil Munro

Democratic Latino politicians are demanding President Joe Biden protect the interests of foreign migrants, regardless of the huge civic and pocketbook damage to unhyphenated Americans, Latino-Americans, and legal immigrants.

“We are here to protect immigration as it is,” Rep. Nanette Barragan (D-CA), told an audience of legislators, activists, and media at a December 13 rally beside the Capitol.

The rally called on President Joe Biden to deny any significant concessions to GOP negotiators in the debate over his demand for $14 billion in emergency funds to accelerate and hide his migration flood, and funds for wartime aid for Israel and Ukraine.

Barragan said:

Let me put it a little differently. We’re here to call on President Biden and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to reject the immigration and border bills at the hands of Republicans in the ongoing negotiations around the supplemental [emergency funding bill]

The event included multiple Democratic legislators who championed illegal migrants and future migrants — and rhetorically divorced their American constituents.

Almost none of the legislators mentioned the cost of migration to their many constituents — Latino and other — who lose wages, jobs, homes, status, and investments because desperate migrants must work for less.

Since 2021, Biden’s deputies have admitted more than six million migrants, most of whom are Latino. This huge inflow is in addition to the annual inflow of legal immigrants and temporary visa workers. Overall, Biden is admitting roughly one migrant for every newborn American.

The Latino Democrats demanded an ethnic-politics seat at the negotiations as the quasi-official representatives of the migrants, most of whom are Latino.

“Not a single member of the CHC [Congressional Hispanic Caucus] was given a heads up that the administration would be proposing or considering these right-wing nonstarters,” said Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ). “That is a hard slap in the face to all the Latino and immigrant communities we represent.”

“These negotiations are taking place without a single CHC member at the table,” said Barragan. “That is completely unacceptable … We need to continue to push to have our seats.”

The Democrats obscured the difference between illegal and legal migrants, and many described the illegal migrants as members of their constituency.

“We’re here to make things better for our constituents,” said Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX). “That’s why we are telling President Biden and the Senate Democrats to hold strong … We can pass support for allies in Ukraine without throwing immigrant families under the bus.

The event was supported by Spanish-speaking migrants from Casa de Maryland, whose leader has faced severe criticism from Democrats for apparently backing Hamas’s war against Israel. 

“We can make sure that this [migration] system works … that after they cross the border, they come to us for jobs and housing, and some transportation to get to their relatives in other parts of the country,” said Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX).

“This is a movement to consult the most affected communities — immigrant and Latino communities and other communities across the country,” said Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-IL). “We have been excluded.”

Republicans want to “gut our immigration system at the expense of immigrants,” said Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL). “We believe that this country has a duty to help innocent migrants … We believe that all people, regardless of their status, should be treated with dignity and respect by virtue of being a human.”

“We’re not collateral damage, we’re not expendable,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Az).

On December 14, the New York Times profiled some of the migrants being welcomed by the Latino politicians:

Nearly 400,000 children have come to the United States since 2021 without their parents, and a majority have ended up working ….

A 16-year-old fell off a roof in Arkansas and shattered his back. A 15-year-old in Florida was burned all over after he slipped from a roof and onto a vat of hot tar. A child in Illinois stepped through a skylight and fractured his spine.

Some of the Latino politicians promised their support for Americans — but ignored the pocketbook impact caused by their flood of migrant workers and renters.

Republicans “view this as an issue that they can win on the political front … at the expense of people who are sacrificing so much to have their shot at their American dream,” said Rep. Robert Menendez (D-NJ). “We will win the future of this country that looks like us, that’s diverse like us. and it will be better for every single American.”

The Latino politicians also used the event to promote migrant workers as a benefit to employers and the nation’s economy, even as they ignored the impact of migration on Americans’ wages, jobs, housing, schools, and careers.

“Our country thrives because of immigrants,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX). “I bet every one of my colleagues can tell you stories about CEOs and business owners and leaders of industry who come to us saying, ‘We need workers, we need a workforce.'”

Biden’s economic policy of Extraction Migration has pulled at least four million extra foreign workers, renters, and consumers into the nation’s communities.

That flood is urged and welcomed by business groups because it cuts Americans’ blue-collar wages and white-collar salaries. It also boosts profits by reducing marketplace pressure to invest in productivity-boosting technology, heartland states, and overseas markets.

The inflow also reduces economic pressure on the federal government to deal with Americans’ problems — homelessness, low wages, a shrinking middle class, slowing innovation, declining blue-collar life expectancy, spreading poverty, the rising death toll from drugs, and the spreading alienation among young people.

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