Love this Texas Tribune interview with Texas Land Commissioner and Lt. Gov. candidate Jerry Patterson on immigration.
Finally someone in the Lt. Gov. race talking sense instead of kowtowing to a specific group of primary voters.
Best line in the interview was when Evan Smith tells Patterson that he can get booed if he supports certain immigration policies:
I don’t care if I’m getting booed
Cool. I wish he and the other candidates would say that more often. We need leaders, not poll followers.
Yes, we need those dry wall hangers because that’s a job an American won’t do. BS.
As http://www.vdare.com/articles/national-data-by-edwin-s-rubenstein-74 clearly shows, there is no dearth of American workers — just wages and working conditions that sink lower with each immigrant wave. And as http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_3_immigrants_economy.html notes, “Although open-borders advocates say that these workers are simply taking jobs Americans don’t want, studies show that the immigrants drive down wages of native-born workers and squeeze them out of certain industries. Harvard economists George Borjas and Lawrence Katz, for instance, estimate that low-wage immigration cuts the wages for the average native-born high school dropout by some 8 percent, or more than $1,200 a year. Other economists find that the new workers also push down wages significantly for immigrants already here and native-born Hispanics.”
The first erroneous implication Patterson makes is that this is a “Hispanic” issue. Of course, big business, some of the politicians and the media would have us all believe that lie. 65{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the illegal alien population is from Mexico or Central American, there are illegal aliens in the US from 100+ countries. The remaining illegal alien population hail from some countries that are sponsors of terrorism like Somalia, Iran, Jordan, Pakistan. Boston has roughly 30,000 illegal alien Irish. Does anyone believe that, with the exception of some of the illegal alien Irish, Somalis, Iranians, Jordanians and Pakistanis hang dry wall, wash dishes or mow yards? With 20 million Americans out of work and with even more facing possible lay-offs and reduction in work hours due to Obamacare kicking in, how in the world can Patterson or any other politician say with a straight face that we need more low skilled dry wall hangers? If anyone takes the time to read the Immigration Reform & Control Act of 1986 (also known the Simpson-Mazzoli Act), you’ll find that virtually everything that is being proposed now was enacted in 1986. One of the exceptions being e-verify (which by the way, neither big business nor the politicians want). What you’ll also find is that all we got was amnesty – not border security, which of course was the intent, just as it is now. What IRCA also did was legalize 2.7 million illegal aliens between 1986-1996 and the last IRCA application was processed in 2009. And the fees and fines that were supposed to fully fun implementation of IRCA? It ultimately cost the American taxpayer $78.7 billion. It also opened up the flood gates for more illegal immigration and we now have 20-30 million illegal aliens in the US.
Guest worker programs are not a good idea because they cast workers into a second-class citizen status and put their fate into their employers’ hands, creating an opportunity to exploit them. It also encourages employers to turn full-time jobs into temporary ones at reduced wages and diminished working conditions — something we’re already seeing as a result of Obamacare.
To see why guest worker programs are not a good idea, we need look no further than the example set by Germany, the fourth best economy in the world. In response to a labor shortage prompted by economic recovery, Germany signed a series of bilateral recruitment agreements, first with Italy in 1955, then with Spain (1960), Greece (1960), Turkey (1961), Portugal (1964), and Yugoslavia (1968). The core of these agreements included the recruitment of Gastarbeiter (guest workers), almost exclusively in the industrial sector, for jobs that required few qualifications. Under the so-called rotation principle, mostly male migrants entered Germany for a period of one to two years and were then required to return home to make room for other guest workers. This policy had a double rationale: preventing settlement and exposing to industrial work the largest possible number of workers from sending countries.
Guest workers, unlike ordinary immigrants, were admitted under special jobs programs, and at least under the original plans, had no prospects of becoming citizens or permanent residents. Germany, like other European countries, at first refused even to allow them to bring families, hoping to discourage them from trying to put down roots. Later, Germany granted work stays of up to five years, and permitted wives and children to come along. Legal workers were followed by waves of family members and illegal immigrants. Sound familiar?
For decades, there were no efforts to integrate the newcomers. They were entitled to social benefits, but not citizenship. Their children could attend schools, but little effort was made to give them language skills. Many of the first generation of workers bought houses or established small businesses, although usually confining themselves to immigrant enclaves. Their German-born children were registered as “foreigners.” They often spend years or even decades resolving their legal status. And, while Germany (and many other European governments) failed to seriously pursue integration, many immigrants were equally unwilling to shed their own languages and national identities. Sound familiar?
Many of the original guest workers are now retired, enjoying the comfortable pensions that are the pride of Europe. But their children and their grandchildren are trapped between two worlds, too Europeanized ever to return to the Middle East or North Africa, but lacking the language skills and education to forge ahead in their new countries. The parents took jobs that Germans didn’t want — and most of that first generation did all right. But the young people today don’t even get the bad jobs. How are they to climb the social ladder when they can’t even grab the bottom rung?
Excellent previous comments.
From the video, I see snark and arrogance from Patterson as he belittles the simple, basic tenets of Staples’ program such as border security and documenting the aliens.
And of course, he references his Marine background to infer that anyone who has not served in the military is stupid, or at the least, not comparable to his exalted military position as an in-air tin can driver.
Ego, ego, ego.
How’s that lawsuit from the Gulf Coast Rod, Reel and Gun Club going, Jerry? I see you’ve got Ryan Dennard parroting your tired threats of funds withholding for Bolivar Peninsula if the owners of Rollover Pass keep upholding their right to their own private property.
I see how this all ties in — the workers (mostly undocumented aliens, I bet) at the construction company which is bugging you to get the project going, are the ones you’re so concerned about, right? Those potential voters?
Makes perfect sense, David.
The latest in this wretched abuse of power and money:
GLO ALTERS DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED TO ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS.
“…documents contained in the files of the Corps of Engineers revealed that TxBLEND, the official State of Texas computer model for Galveston Bay, had been modified by a consultant to the General Land Office in a manner that eliminated all sources of freshwater inflow into East Bay.”
Link: http://www.guidrynews.com/story.aspx?id=1000057732
Jerry Patterson, Commissioner, Texas General Land Office, has overseen and approved the documents in those files.
Jim Blackburn, attorney for plaintiffs Gulf Coast Rod, Reel and Gun Club and Gilchrist Community Association, has more information in his Coastal Update 2013 (Rollover Pass section).
Link: http://www.crystalbeachlocalnews.com/coastal-update-2013-rollover-pass/
Getting more sensible by the day, ain’t it!
Pictures worth 1000 words: Jerry Patterson, Ryan Dennard, and Mark Henry star in this Rollover Pass video, provided by the Gilchrist Community Association.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tTrXB8WZ2lI
Our neighbors on the coast fighting for what’s right for all of Texas. Pay close attention, this is in your own backyard.
And one more. This shows the damage to the shores of the entire Intracoastal Waterway from the barges themselves. Rollover Pass can’t be.blamed for that.
http://www.pendeco.org/icw-shoreline.aspx
Making too much sense.