Joe Crowley: Families Who Cross Border Illegally Should be Financially ‘Compensated’

Democrat Caucus Chair Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) on Wednesday suggested to reporters on Capitol Hill that immigrant families caught illegally crossing the border should receive financial compensation.

A partial transcript follows: 

CROWLEY: To have these children depart, separated, is one of the most reprehensible things I’ve ever witnessed in my 20 years of service here in the House of Representatives. These children need to be reunited with their parents immediately. Once again, the administration’s actions in the first place, with the inability to restore these families, is reprehensible. The damage that has been done to these children will be life-long, to these family units will be life-long, as well. In fact, I suggest they need to be compensated for what this administration did to them, The first form of compensation needs to be the full reunification of these families

Crowley, presently in his 10th term in Congress and the fourth highest-ranking Democrat in the House, lost to self-described “democratic socialist,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York’s 14th congressional district primary in June. The 28-year-old’s far-left platform includes abolishing ICE, universal guaranteed employment, and Medicare for all. In an interview with CNN, Ocasio-Cortez said she supports impeaching President Trump, despite warnings from Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to avoid the issue. Crowley’s former opponent has yet to suggest immigrant families caught crossing the border should be given money.

The outgoing lawmaker’s remarks are striking considering the harmful impact illegal immigration has on the American worker. According to a 2016 study released by The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, “Immigration cuts working Americans’ wages by roughly 5.2 percent per year, or a total of $500 billion per year. That $500 billion ‘immigration tax’ is scooped up by new low-wage immigrants and by the owners of companies which employ the new immigrants.”

Of course, Crowley is far from the first member of Congress to propose policies that would hurt the working class. House Speaker Paul Ryan infamously wanted to import more immigrant laborers to milk cows in Wisconsin, despite that farmers are already using U.S.-made robots to complete the necessary task. As Breitbart News’s John Binder reported: “After the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was implemented, American manufacturing employment plummetted with five million manufacturing jobs being eliminated between 2000 and 2014. The Rust Belt has been one of the hardest regions hit because of U.S. free trade with Mexico. In total, about 700,000 U.S. workers have been displaced.” Effectively, Crowly wants taxpayers to fund further damage to themselves.