Tag Archives: Work Permit

Scott Walker’s immigration plan is more conservative than Bush or Rubio

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker

According to Breitbart News, which took a good look at it.

Excerpt:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a likely 2016 GOP presidential candidate, pledged to protect American workers from the economic effects, not only of illegal immigration but also of a massive increase in legal immigration.

During an interview with Glenn Beck, Walker became the first declared or potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate to stake out a position on immigration fully in line with that of Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest chairman Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL). He also noted that he has been working with Chairman Sessions on the issue to learn more about it.

His view is now secure the border and implement E-Verify for foreign workers:

Walker says he discussed immigration policy in depth with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott when he visited the border a few weeks ago. He said that he doesn’t think he was “directly wrong” before but didn’t have a “full appreciation for what is the risk along our border.”

He continued:

I knew there were people traveling, coming across the border, but really what you have is much greater than that. What you have is international criminal organizations, the drug cartels aren’t just smuggling drugs—they’re smuggling firearms and smuggling not only humans but trafficking and horrific situations. It’s an issue that’s not just about safety or about national security, it’s about sovereignty. If we had this kind of assault along our water based ports, the federal government would be sending in the navy. And yet there is a very minimal force along our land-based borders, be it New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, or California, and so to me it was clearly far bigger than immigration.

We need to have a much bigger investment from the federal government to secure the border, through not only infrastructure but personnel and certainly technology to do that and to make a major shift. If you don’t do that, there’s much greater issues than just immigration. Folks coming in from potentially ISIS-related elements and others around the world, there’s safety issues from the drugs and drug trafficking and gun trafficking and gun things with regard—but to get to immigration you have got to secure the border, because nothing you do on immigration fundamentally works if you don’t secure that border.

Walker also discussed the need for interior enforcement:

Then I think you need to enforce the law and the way you effectively do that is to require every employer in America to use an effective E-Verify system and by effective I mean you need to require particularly small businesses and farmers and ranchers. We got to have a system that works, but then the onus is on the employers and the penalties have to be steep that they’re only hiring people who are here, who are legal to be here. No amnesty, if someone wants to be a citizen, they have to go back to their country of origin and get in line behind everybody else who’s waiting.

This development, perhaps one of if not the biggest of the 2016 presidential campaign so far, comes as Walker has taken a commanding lead in polls in all three of the first GOP primary states: Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

Walker also said in the interview that he would “absolutely” repeal Common Core in Wisconsin. Jeb Bush is, of course, a huge proponent of Common Core.

So, whatever our worries were about Walker on immigration, I think now we can relax. The only trouble now is getting the electorate to care more about accomplishments than charisma. But if the fight is between Walker and Clinton, I have no doubt that Clinton’s “entitled” attitude is going to lose her the election. No matter how much money she has. And remember that Walker is able to speak to any issue in a way that is persuasive to independents – he proved that in Wisconsin. While Hillary is taking about “equal pay” and smashing the glass ceiling, Walker’s going to be cleaning up on the issues middle-class Americans care about.

Chins up, buttercups! Things are looking good for our side.

Related posts

New study finds that immigration costs Canada up to $23 billion a year

Map of Canada
Map of Canada

Story in the National Post. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

Newcomers to the country generally make less money and chip in less in taxes than the national average.And allowing 250,000 immigrants into the country annually is costing us all billions of dollars each and every year, according to a study by the Fraser Institute.

The study, dubbed Immigration and the Canadian Welfare State, sharply criticizes Canada’s current immigration system, using earnings and other figures from the 2005-06 fiscal year reported by 844,476 people in the 2006 Census.

It claims the group as a whole earned on average about $10,000 more and paid about $2,500 more in income taxes annually than those within the sampling who had settled in Canada in the previous 18 years.

The study also found immigrants typically pay a little over $6,000 less in property and sales taxes than the national average.

That means the approximately 3.9 million immigrants who settled in Canada between 1987 and 2004 are shortchanging federal government coffers by between $16.3 billion and $23.6 billion annually, depending on how many of those newcomers have moved back home, emigrated elsewhere or died, the study said.

[…]The study also takes on the notion that immigrants are helping the country by taking menial jobs that most Canadians don’t want.”Immigrants do fill jobs that Canadians don’t want and thus benefit the economy but, in the absence of immigration, these jobs would pay higher wages and would be filled by Canadians or eliminated by the application of labour-saving technology,” the study states.

“Under these conditions, poverty in Canada would be reduced substantially.”

As for changes, the study suggests annual immigration numbers should be increased or decreased, depending largely on “market forces.”

The study also recommends Canada be more selective, allowing only newcomers who have employment lined up, offering them citizenship only if they hang onto their job for a set number of years and deporting those who lose their jobs.

Canada has a welfare state with single-payer health care, public housing, welfare payment and free public schools. So, people who cannot pull their own weight can rely on all of these goodies provided by the working Canadians. Because of these generous benefits, Canada has a lot of people who would like to move there from poor countries. And they can’t possibly take them all in because it is costing the working Canadians billions of dollars. But there is a way for them to allow more immigration – they just have to stop all of their government handouts. If there were no handouts then everyone could come to Canada freely, because they would go home again unless they held on to their job and pulled their own weight. They could even bring their families once they had worked hard enough to support them – but those family members would not be eligible to get money from the government.

So what do we as Americans learn from this? Well, we need to make sure that the people who come here are selected on the basis of their skills, their education, their ability to pay their own way. We need to have a big fence to keep illegal immigrants out, and we need to have a huge gate to allow skilled legal immigrants in. And they can even bring their families with them – as long as they don’t get a dime of taxpayer money in cash or through social programs – they should have to pay for everything they use, including schools and health care. And they should not be eligible for a dime of government money until they get their green cards after years of demonstrated hard work and clean living.

Obama tells Mexico that opponents of amnesty are “demagogues”

Story from CNS News.

Excerpt:

At a joint press conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Guadalajara, Mexico on Monday, President Barack Obama referred to American opponents of amnesty for illegal aliens as “demagogues.”

[…]Obama was asked by a reporter whether “given the fight that you’re having to wage for health care, I wonder if you can tell us what you think the prospects are for immigration reform, for comprehensive immigration reform, which you’ve said is your goal; and whether you think that the blows you’re taking now on health care and that the Democrats are likely to take around the midterm elections will make it hard, if not impossible, to achieve comprehensive immigration reform in this term and what you’ve told President Calderón about that?”

Obama gave a long answer indicating that he believed he could secure an immigration reform package that included a “pathway to citizenship” for illegal immigrants. In his answer, he characterized opponents of this “pathway” as “demagogues.”

“Now, am I going to be able to snap my fingers and get this done? No,” said Obama. “This is going to be difficult; it’s going to require bipartisan cooperation. There are going to be demagogues out there who try to suggest that any form of pathway for legalization for those who are already in the United States is unacceptable. And those are fights that I’d have to have if my poll numbers are at 70 or if my poll numbers are at 40. That’s just the nature of the U.S. immigration debate.

Offering a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens while restricting the legal path to citizenship is unconscionable. We should be encouraging legal immigration of skilled immigrants, who come here legally to work and who respect our laws.