Sen. Jeff Sessions, whom I’ve always liked (insofar as one can ‘like’ any member of Congress), has consistently been on the right side of the immigration issue. He’s got an op-ed in Breitbart (“Pro-Amnesty Elites Treat People as ‘Commodities’“):
Perhaps no issue better illustrates the current divide between everyday citizens and our political and business elites than the issue of immigration. The latter group draws the financial gains from a generous labor supply without considering the perspective of those on the other side of the ledger: the working people who have to worry about being laid off and replaced with lower-wage workers, about the strain placed on their local hospitals and neighborhood resources, or about cartel violence spilling across the border into their own communities…
The United States has the most generous immigration policy in the world. Each year, the US grants permanent legal admission to an additional 1 million immigrants who will be able to apply for citizenship, along with roughly 700,000 guest workers, 200,000 relatives of guest workers, and 500,000 students. These are overwhelmingly not farm workers as activists falsely suggest, but are instead workers brought in to fill jobs in every sector, occupation and industry throughout the US economy…
For too long, the immigration debate has been driven by the needs of politicians, business interests, and immigration activists who fail to appreciate that a nation owes certain obligations to its own citizens.
Consider immigration policy from the viewpoint of a middle-aged unemployed American who has to borrow gas money to drive to a job interview 100 miles away. Imagine how his or her life is affected when the company gives that open job to a temporary guest worker hired from 10,000 miles away. Imagine what any of the 58 million working-age Americans who don’t have jobs might have to say to the lawmakers and activists who claim there is a “labor shortage”.
