Jeb Bush Jr. Backs Silicon Valley, Democrats, in DACA Challenge Against Donald Trump

DACA Joe Raedle Getty Images
Joe Raedle/Getty

The son of establishment GOP champion Jeb Bush – Jeb Bush Jr. — has openly allied with Democrats and Silicon Valley’s billionaires by supporting President Barack Obama’s DACA amnesty for 800,000 illegals.

Bush revealed his views in a tweet which touted the Chamber of Commerce claim that more migrants allow member companies to expand and hire more people:

The DACA program is in danger because candidate Trump promised to end it on  “Day One,” because a group of 10 state Attorneys general has announced a pending lawsuit, and because Trump needs to pressure Democrats legislators and business lobbyists to accept his pro-American “RAISE Act” merit immigration reform.

The economic data cited by Bush is based on claims made by the open-borders, cheap-labor CATO Institute, the Democrats’ Center for American Progress and Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us, which has been derided by opponents as the “billionaires’ liberation front.”

According to its website, “FWD.us is mobilizing the tech community to promote policies that keep the U.S.  competitive in a global economy, starting with fixing our broken immigration system and criminal justice reform.” The group was formed to push through the 2013 “Gang of Eight” immigration and amnesty bill because Democrats refused to help increase the flow of foreign tech-workers to CEO’s companies unless the CEOS backed their push to win citizenship for Democratic-leaning Latino and Asian illegal immigrants. That bill would have shifted more of the nation’s economic annual income from employees over to employers and investors, according to a 2013 report by the Congressional Budget Office.

The new joint CAP/FWD.US report says DACA’s end would be bad for the economy and illegal immigrants — but it also shows that Trump’s promise to end DACA will open up to 700,000 jobs to young Americans, including the 4 million Americans who will turn 18 this year. According to the study:

This report specifically finds that for every business day that DACA [two-year work permit] renewals are put on hold, more than 1,400 DACA  recipients will lose their ability to work and could be let go by American employers. This could result in monthly job losses for more than 30,000 individuals each month. In total, if DACA is revoked, nearly 700,000 [illegal immigrant] individuals who are currently employed and contributing as a productive part of the American  workforce would be stripped of their ability to work and could be fired over the course of the next two years.

The study was also leaked to Axios which reported:

The research comes from FWD.us, a pro-immigration reform group co-founded by Mark Zuckerberg, and the Center for American Progress, with data from the Cato Institute. They’re unveiling the findings this morning, but Axios got an advance look.

The findings: 91% of DACA recipients, 700,000 people in total, are employed. If Trump ends renewals for the program, 1,400 people per business day will lose their authorizations to work.
Why it matters: Ending DACA wouldn’t mean all of the “Dreamers” would be deported. But it would mean they’d lose their ability to work legally, and that could have significant economic consequences.

Multiple studies by business groups admit that the loss of the illegal-immigrant labor force will pressure employers to compete for  American workers by offering better wages and working conditions to all potential hire, including new immigrants, Latinos and disadvantaged African-Americans. That is not an immediate problem for Silicon Valley, partly because few of the DACA illegals work in professionals sought by high-tech firms, according to a recent study backed by the CAP.

That is not an immediate problem for Silicon Valley, partly because few of the DACA illegals work in professions sought by high-tech firms, according to a recent study backed by the CAP.

But the Valley CEOs will also lose political clout if DACA is ended. In likely 2018 and 2019 talks about an immigration reform, Democrats legislators will put a higher priority of restoring the DACA amnesty than on getting more high-tech workers for their Silicon Valley donors.

The last paragraph of the CAP/FWD.US study admits the impact on CEOs of DACA’s removal, saying “DACA was always designed to be temporary, but repealing the program without a process for individuals currently protected by it to continue to live and work in the United States will place an extreme hardship on U.S. businesses, on local communities, and on the American economy.”

Jeb Bush, the father, is also defending the DACA amnesty by tweeting a link to a pro-DACA editorial in the Miami Herald.

This story has been updated to emphasize that the job-loss tweet was sent by Jeb Bush Jr., not by Jeb Bush, the candidate in the GOP’s 2016 primary race. 

 

 

 

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