Sanders and the Hispanic Vote: Good News and Bad News
By Mark Krikorian
The Corner at National Review Online, February 24, 2020
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https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/sanders-and-the-hispanic-vote-good-news-and-bad-news/
Sanders and the Hispanic Vote: Good News and Bad News
Bernie Sanders won 53 percent of the Hispanic vote in the Nevada caucuses over the weekend, which was hailed as his “key to victory.” This is good news and bad news.
The good news is that this wasn’t tribal voting. There was no Hispanic candidate on the ballot, of course, the non-entity Julian Castro having dropped out last month. But of all those remaining, Sanders was perhaps the most “restrictionist,” reinforcing a point lost on the simpler sort of Republican campaign operative: Americans of Hispanic origin aren’t choosing candidates based on their immigration stance, but on broader national issues.
I put restrictionist in quotes because Sanders’s current immigration platform is the same as all the other Democrats’ — a moratorium on deportations, abolish ICE, re-open the borders to fake asylum-seekers, taxpayer-funded health care for illegal aliens, etc.
But until his 2020 run, Sanders may have been the only leading figure remaining on the left who defended the legitimacy of national borders. His 2015 interview with Ezra Klein of Vox has been widely reported. There, he said: “Open borders? No, that’s a Koch brothers proposal.” (He was right about that, of course.) But it’s worth quoting the rest of what he said on the subject, which is applicable to mass low-skilled immigration more generally:
It would make everybody in America poorer — you’re doing away with the concept of a nation state, and I don’t think there’s any country in the world that believes in that. If you believe in a nation state or in a country called the United States or U.K. or Denmark or any other country, you have an obligation in my view to do everything we can to help poor people. What right-wing people in this country would love is an open-border policy. Bring in all kinds of people, work for $2 or $3 an hour, that would be great for them. I don’t believe in that. I think we have to raise wages in this country, I think we have to do everything we can to create millions of jobs.You know what youth unemployment is in the United States of America today? If you’re a white high school graduate, it’s 33 percent, Hispanic 36 percent, African American 51 percent. You think we should open the borders and bring in a lot of low-wage workers, or do you think maybe we should try to get jobs for those kids?I think from a moral responsibility we’ve got to work with the rest of the industrialized world to address the problems of international poverty, but you don’t do that by making people in this country even poorer.
It’s not like this was an obscure comment that went unnoticed. Vox itself at the time slammed his comments as “ugly” and “wrongheaded”. In the current contest, these views have been at the center of every discussion of Sanders and immigration, so much so that immigration expansionists have insisted that “Sanders needs to explain his voting record on immigration”.
That he nonetheless won a majority of the Hispanic vote in a state where the Hispanic population is of much more recent vintage (and for whom immigration policy is therefore more salient) than, say, Cubans or Puerto Ricans, is heartening — they voted as Americans, not necessarily as members of an identity group.
The bad news, of course, is that, in a crowded field, the majority of these American voters backed a Castro-loving, USSR-praising socialist. This is yet more evidence that Hispanics are lopsidedly on the left, disproportionately likely to be hostile to capitalism and favor big government, gun control, environmental regulation, and the like (as exhaustively detailed here).
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The Nevada vote was just the Democratic part of the Hispanic electorate, obviously. But since most Hispanics identify as Democrats, it matters a lot. The political implications for Republicans are clear: Cut back on the future importation of socialists, but at the same time appeal to Hispanic Americans as Americans, rather than the import-more-people-like-me voters that chauvinist groups claim them to be.
Study: More than 7-in-10 California Immigrant
Welfare
More than 7-in-10 households headed by immigrants in the state of California are on taxpayer-funded welfare, a new study reveals.
Welfare
US Customs and Border Patrol
2:45
More than 7-in-10 households headed by immigrants in the state of California are on taxpayer-funded welfare, a new study reveals.
The latest Census Bureau data analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) finds that about 72 percent of households headed by noncitizens and immigrants use one or more forms of taxpayer-funded welfare programs in California — the number one immigrant-receiving state in the U.S.
Meanwhile, only about 35 percent of households headed by native-born Americans use welfare in California.
All four states with the largest foreign-born populations, including California, have extremely high use of welfare by immigrant households. In Texas, for example, nearly 70 percent of households headed by immigrants use taxpayer-funded welfare. Meanwhile, only about 35 percent of native-born households in Texas are on welfare.
In New York and Florida, a majority of households headed by immigrants and noncitizens are on welfare. Overall, about 63 percent of immigrant households use welfare while only 35 percent of native-born households use welfare.
President Trump’s administration is looking to soon implement a policy that protects American taxpayers’ dollars from funding the mass importation of welfare-dependent foreign nationals by enforcing a “public charge” rule whereby legal immigrants would be less likely to secure a permanent residency in the U.S. if they have used any forms of welfare in the past, including using Obamacare, food stamps, and public housing.
The immigration controls would be a boon for American taxpayers in the form of an annual $57.4 billion tax cut — the amount taxpayers spend every year on paying for the welfare, crime, and schooling costs of the country’s mass importation of 1.5 million new, mostly low-skilled legal immigrants.
As Breitbart News reported, the majority of the more than 1.5 million foreign nationals entering the country every year use about 57 percent more food stamps than the average native-born American household. Overall, immigrant households consume 33 percent more cash welfare than American citizen households and 44 percent more in Medicaid dollars. This straining of public services by a booming 44 million foreign-born population translates to the average immigrant household costing American taxpayers $6,234 in federal welfare.
Even worse, 31 percent are simply not interested in U.S. citizenship. But are they interested in U.S. largesse?
In fiscal 2018, Mexico was the top country of origin for naturalization; unfortunately, 35 percent of Mexican green card–holders cite language and other personal barriers for their reason to not apply for citizenship. That corroborates that the best thing we can do for immigrants is help them learn English.
70% OF ILLEGALS GET WELFARE!
“According to the Centers for Immigration Studies, April '11, at least 70% of Mexican illegal alien families receive some type of welfare in the US!!! cis.org”
So when cities across the country declare that they will NOT be sanctuary, guess where ALL the illegals, criminals, gang members fleeing ICE will go???? straight to your welcoming city. So ironically the people fighting for sanctuary city status, may have an unprecedented crime wave to deal with along with the additional expense.
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$17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
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$12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English.
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$22 billion is spent on (AFDC) welfare to illegal aliens each year.
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$2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as (SNAP) food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
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$3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens. Does not include local jails and State Prisons.
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2012 illegal aliens sent home $62 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. This is why Mexico is getting involved in our politics.
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$400 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
Impermanent aliens?
In spite of Justice Sonia Sotomayor's intemperate and injudicious political activism, the Supreme Court voted to remove the last nationwide injunction against the Trump administration's stricter guidelines for immigrants who use public benefits. Under the now judicially augmented "public charge" law, legal aliens will at last become properly vetted. And, after demonstrating their citizenship bona fides, they will no longer be green to America's core principles.
That's a good thing, because it will confine citizenship only to people who want to contribute to the American dream. It might even encourage the best and brightest to apply.
Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services explained, "Through the public charge rule, President Trump's administration is reinforcing the ideals of self-sufficiency and personal responsibility, ensuring that immigrants are able to support themselves and become successful here in America." The updated rule broadens the criteria for "Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds," giving immigration authorities more discretion to ensure that immigrants seeking green cards are able to thrive without loitering around the public coffers.
Now that immigration policies will favor immigrants with skills, including English proficiency, the notion of permanent residence seems alien. We might cajole high-caliber immigrants who aren't a burden to taxpayers to apply for citizenship after proving their American-worthiness. After they've demonstrated a commitment to the unifying principles that bind us as Americans, it's expected that they shall enthusiastically embrace civic responsibility rather than teeter on the periphery as green card–toting permanent aliens.
In effect, the new rule could reduce family-based legal immigration by favoring immigrants with skills — imagine that! My compassionate conservatism hopes there's some room for altruism in our immigration system, but now that we've made America Great Again, why wouldn't we want to encourage the best and brightest immigrants to help Keep America Great?
The naturalization rate among all lawful immigrants in 2015 was 67% — at first glance, not bad, but that still means many millions of legal aliens remain permanently unpledged.
BLOG: MEXICANS HAVE DESTROYED CA's LOWER EDUCATION SYSTEM BECAUSE THEY LOATH LITERACY AND SPEAKING ENGLISH AS SUCH APES THE GRINGO WHOM THEY LOATH ALSO.
IN CA EVERYTHING ON EARTH IS ALSO PRINTED IN SPANISH BECAUSE THEY REFUSE TO SPEAK ENGLISH
In fiscal 2018, Mexico was the top country of origin for naturalization; unfortunately, 35 percent of Mexican green card–holders cite language and other personal barriers for their reason to not apply for citizenship. That corroborates that the best thing we can do for immigrants is help them learn English.
BLOG: MEXICANS HAVE DESTROYED CA's LOWER EDUCATION SYSTEM BECAUSE THEY LOATH LITERACY AND SPEAKING ENGLISH AS SUCH APES THE GRINGO WHOM THEY LOATH ALSO.
IN CA EVERYTHING ON EARTH IS ALSO PRINTED IN SPANISH BECAUSE THEY REFUSE TO SPEAK ENGLISH
In fiscal 2018, Mexico was the top country of origin for naturalization; unfortunately, 35 percent of Mexican green card–holders cite language and other personal barriers for their reason to not apply for citizenship. That corroborates that the best thing we can do for immigrants is help them learn English.
Even worse, 31 percent are simply not interested in U.S. citizenship. But are they interested in U.S. largesse? It just reinforces the importance of ensuring that immigrants don't become a public charge. If productive legal aliens love their chosen country, if they have remained off the dole, and if they respect our core values, then they should stand up and take the oath.
Concomitant with placing more value on American citizenship, we'll want to enhance the citizenship test and provide applicants the opportunity to recite the Pledge of Allegiance by — and with — heart. Learning English, and jumping through a few bureaucratic hoops, will ultimately promote civil engagement. Instilling civic pride might also help intellectually inoculate aliens from the preposterous promises that pandering politicians present to naïve constituents on the fringes. It's worth it — I know.
I may have cause to appreciate my homeland across the pond as much as most expats, but I couldn't stand the hypocrisy of being a permanent alien, so I became a U.S. citizen. I could tote two passports, but I don't — I have but one, and it is emblazoned with the Great Seal of the United States of America. It's beautiful!
The motto adorning our inspirational seal is E Pluribus Unum, so rather than harbor extra allegiances, permanent aliens should show some fidelity after five years of Americanization. Green card–holders now can live here in perpetuity, but why remain a permanent resident alien when naturalized citizenship, after five years of respectable residency, beckons? Eventually, it's time to get off the fence and show some loyalty. If you've been thoroughly vetted, and aren't a "public charge," eventually, integrity impels one to "renounce and abjure" allegiance to foreign potentates. Under the new guidelines, you can now speak English, and you're now not a public charge, ruling out any financial or administrative barriers. The only remaining excuse is lack of interest, which is disrespectful toward America's beneficence. It's also puzzling because choosing one's homeland, and trying to prove worthy of its heritage, is equally impressive to being American by the accident of birth — I know.
Image credit: National Archives, public domain.
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