Latest Hearings Reveal Nativist Colors of the GOP on Immigration

[pampango]

"New Jobs in Recession and Recovery: Who Are Getting Them and Who Are Not"

http://americasvoiceonline.org/blog/entry/latest_hearings_reveal_nativist_colors_of_the_GOP_on_Immigration/#When:18:38:38Z

House Republicans really let their nativist flag fly yesterday with simultaneous hearings on "New Jobs in Recession and Recovery: Who Are Getting Them and Who Are Not" (or rather: "Why Immigrants are Supposedly Recovering from the Recession Faster than Natives and What We Can Do to Make Sure They Don’t Get Jobs") and "The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response."

America’s Voice covered the former, which started out with the Three Amigos Reps. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Elton Gallegly (R-CA), and Steve King (R-IA) trying to state for the record that they are all for "legal" immigration, and only opposed to "illegal" immigration—while not-so-credible groups they called to testify proceeded to spend the next ninety minutes talking about why we should halt even legal immigration.

So, Immigration Subcommittee Republicans: if you didn’t want to pit immigrant workers against the native born, and if you didn’t want to inflame this country’s racial and economic tensions even further, why exactly did you hold a hearing entitled “Jobs in Recession and Recovery: Who Are Getting Them and Who Are Not,” and try to package a xenophobic hatred of all immigrants as an economic recovery proposal?

Not only do Subcommittee leaders have the politics wrong, but they are also wrong on the “facts.” According to Michele Waslin, Senior Policy Analyst with the Immigration Policy Center: Immigrants are not the cause of unemployment in the United States. Today’s hearing ignored overwhelming evidence about the contributions of immigrants. Research shows that not only is there no correlation between immigration and unemployment, but that immigrants actually create jobs.

[Historic NY]

1. New jobs......I'm waiting to see how much they will pay for picking crops...

scrubbing toilets, cleaning hotel rooms, manual landscaping etc...and all those desirable jobs. Can you see all those jobs for teens.

<snip>
How often do we read about the long-term unemployed or the working poor or single mothers with no mention of the serious impact of immigration on their employment, wages, and working conditions? We cannot ignore the adverse impact of mass low-skilled immigration and the lack of enforcement of our immigration laws.
<snip>

Minimum wage jobs just keep poor people poor. They want to imply hundreds or thousands of jobs are loss to immingrants, when in reality they are jobs no one wants.

[Angry Dragon]

2. It is not that no one wants them they don't pay very well

[Historic NY]

3. exactly, & they never will.