As President Donald Trump’s DACA deadline passed on Monday, the putatively conservative Koch Brothers are working overtime to keep the dream alive.
The LIBRE Initiative – a Koch-funded group launched to “empower the U.S. Hispanic community” – has produced ads portraying beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program as “patriots.”
“We love our country, our way of life, and we sacrifice and fight to defend it,” the ad begins, narrated by the voice of a DACA illegal alien. “We work hard, put food on the table, care for our families, and we pledge allegiance to this flag. We are patriots. We are DREAMers.”
While congressional Democrats insist on a sweeping amnesty for illegal aliens, the Kochs are pressuring their bankrolled Republicans to make a deal. But the gauzy DACA story doesn’t wash – and lawmakers know it.
Congressional hearings and the Congressional Budget Office have painted a less-dreamy portrait:
- One in five are projected to end up on food stamps.
- One in seven will be on Medicaid.
This profile of dependency seems at odds with the “free market” Kochs. But strip away the patina of patriotism, and their corporatist agenda of cheap imported labor and immigrant-fueled population growth is exposed.
A DACA amnesty – pairing chain migration and anchor babies — has the potential to legalize 3 million illegal aliens to legally compete against Americans for working- and middle-class jobs.
The Kochs are either willfully ignorant of the negative effects of amnesty, or simply don’t care. They are similarly dismissive of the dangerously weak vetting of DACA applicants. Since President Obama created the program by executive order, more than 2,100 DACA recipients have been removed for criminal acts or gang membership.
No amount of flag waving can nullify these inconvenient facts.
The Kochs’ departure from conservative political principles may do little to enhance their brand, but it should be enough to call their true allegiances into question.
In a March 5 blog, Koched Up on DACA, FAIR incorrectly reported that 71 percent of DACA recipients live in government subsidized housing. That 71 percent figure was incorrectly derived from research by Harvard scholar Roberto G. Gonzales, presented at the Oct. 3, 2017 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, showing that 73 percent of DACA recipients he surveyed live in a low-income household (defined as qualifying for free lunch in high school). No official accounting or estimate of public housing assistance to DACA beneficiaries has been released.
9 Comments
I applaud your efforts. Post-surgery I went to the ER and saw a sea of immigrant faces. Even though I was doubled over the hospital told me it would be a 5 hour wait because the immigrants were in there getting free health care. Not ONE of those “great people here through no fault of their own” got up to offer me a seat. I ended up unable to withstand the pain and left. I almost ended my life. That was when I knew this country was in trouble with immigration.
Thanks I didn’t know what it stood for
We worked when I became disabled. I was denied SSD by a HISPANIC JUDGE after paying into the system since age 16. Yet in the welfare office were dozens of immigrants getting welfare.
My spouse was forced to work 2 jobs and fell asleep at the wheel. It is dangerous what is being done to this country.
Sponsors should pay! Let the Koch brothers feed and fund the ILLEGAL INVADERS at their perpetual expense in perpetuity without one red cent from taxpayers.
The cost of maintaining third world immigrants has started to strangle America. In comparison it is like a magnificent Oak tree that has had an infestation of the Cudzu vine growing up and taking all the nutrients out of the soil around it and all the moisture from is base while cutting all the sunlight from its leafs. it strangles the life slowly from the mighty Oak until it starts dying of malnutrition and lack of air and sunlight. It is death for the Oak and the vine. They cannot survive together no matter how hard they try. They must separate where they can both grow freely. These are the events we see today.
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Once DACA expired, should they be reinstated without legal due process? Just confused why we have so many illegal aliens in the US mainly in one particular country. If the US will eventually grant amnesty to DACA, they should ensure that the number of DACAs granted will be equally afforded to each country, so as not to deprive other countries who desire to have their citizens get a chance to experience coming to the US for greener pastures, meaning, they must be qualified to work here, and have the freedom to go back to their respective countries freely.
Well, yes, I agree that they are Patriots, as in FAKE Patriots! There is absolutely nothing patriotic about them. A true Patriot would bend backwards to use his knowledge of our system and implement it in his motherland. Nope, it won’t be easy, but that’s the ONLY way how to reform shady governments. Sure, cowards won’t be able to pull it off, only dedicated Patriots can measure up to this task.
Let’s not forget that it wasn’t always easy in America. The beginnings were outright treacherous. The founding white European fathers paid heavy price to build the necessary foundation so that we can live our lives the way we live today. Something the FAKE Patriots vehemently refuse to go thru! They are eager to dump their native country to enjoy the benefits others had to sacrifice for! Give a break here!
The immigrantion policy now is a biggest joke. They most fill out the proper paper work and follow our country rules. You just don’t walk into a job and start working or cut in line in front of other people who are doing the right things to coming here because you want to. What if I told my teachers at school that I wasn’t going to my homework or do my test but I want all A’s. That is what they want and the Democratic politicians want. My grandparents were immigrants and they followed the rules and were proud to do so why won’t these people. And they get on government assistance while I’m struggling now and having a rough time getting back on track. They get it. These kinds of people and the Democratic party can go fly a kite and go back to their country. And these politicians can find a new jobs and not the ones they have at the American taxpayers expense.