Here’s something you would probably never expect to read on FAIR’s blog site: Mother Jones is right!
Here’s something you would probably never expect to read on the pages of Mother Jones: They think FAIR is right about a key element of immigration reform!
Until relatively recently, true progressives supported checks on mass immigration and illegal immigration over concerns about such things as the fate of the environment and American workers. All that has been chucked in recent years in deference to the Far Left’s all-consuming objective of radical multiculturalism and identity politics.
But there are still a few progressives out there who haven’t lost their minds. A few still advocate for limits on immigration to protect both migrants and Americans. Writer Kevin Drum argues, on the Mother Jones’ opinion site, “The best way to do this is to attack the problem at its source. With a few exceptions, the reason that immigrants cross the southern border is economic: they can get better jobs in America than they can in Mexico or Guatemala. So the obvious answer is not a bigger fence or more raids: it’s cutting off the jobs. And the best way to do that is to force employers to follow the law when they hire people, and to apply enough resources to it that they know there’s a good chance of getting caught if they don’t.”
While FAIR does not discount the need for a better border fence, we have long argued that the most effective and most humane way of curtailing illegal immigration is to give prospective illegal aliens a lot of good reasons not to break the law. Making it clear to would-be illegal aliens that they are unlikely to score a job in this country because employers are compelled to use E-Verify, would discourage not only illegal border-crossers but also illegal aliens who overstay their visas.
Drum correctly points a finger at Republican lawmakers for the failure to mandate universal E-Verification. “[S]ocial conservatives think they own the Republican Party, they don’t. Corporations and rich people own the party, and they don’t want ICE agents raiding them.” Many also don’t want the law to require them to use a system that would effectively deny them access to low-wage illegal workers.
Drum could easily have noted the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party, which brands itself as the party of working people in this country, but is now eager to sacrifice the interests of American workers to the god of multiculturalism. He didn’t. But that’s okay – we just did it for him.