Alabama Voters Should Consider Immigration in Sessions vs. Tuberville
By Chris Chmielenski | July 13, 2020 | 4:56pm EDT
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions adjusts his glasses as he testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee. (Photo credit: Mark Reinstein/Corbis Via Getty Images)
Republicans in Alabama will vote Tuesday in a primary runoff between former Sen. Jeff Sessions and former football coach Tommy Tuberville, with the winner facing incumbent Sen. Doug Jones in November. But before voting, Alabamans should know how the candidates stand on immigration issues, including ending illegal immigration and giving American workers the first shot at jobs.
President Donald Trump won in 2016 by promising an immigration system that serves the national interest. The White House recently reiterated this commitment: "President Donald J. Trump is continuing to safeguard America's borders from uncontrolled migration, dangerous criminals, and lethal drugs....President Trump wants a merit-based immigration system that protects American workers and serves the national interest."
Examining each candidate’s record on immigration shows a different approach, giving voters valuable information on who is putting the interests of American workers first.
Tuberville supports securing the border, but he’s been quiet on other details that would further discourage future illegal immigration. For example, it is unclear if he supports requiring businesses to use E-Verify to ensure illegal aliens can't get jobs, and Tuberville hasn’t expressed support for a biometric entry/exit system to prevent visa overstays. He also advocates for additional guest worker visas, which undermine American workers by giving jobs to foreign workers that would otherwise go to American workers and place downward pressure on wages.
It’s not easy to fully analyze Tuberville’s positions because, unlike both Sessions and Jones, he doesn’t have a voting history. He says he promises to support President Trump’s immigration policies, but electing someone with a non-existent record can be risky.
Tuberville raised additional questions about his commitment to an America First policy when he said last August: "There are people coming across the border that need jobs…and we want them to come over here….Let 'em come in and become citizens like we all became citizens."
Tuberville has backed away from those remarks. Still, voters are left wondering how he would vote if elected to the Senate.
Unlike Tuberville, Jeff Sessions has a long record which voters can analyze. As attorney general, Sessions did more than any previous officeholder to enforce our immigration laws. He cracked down on sanctuary cities that protect criminal aliens from deportation by ICE, worked to end asylum fraud, and implemented a zero-tolerance policy on illegal border crossings.
His work as attorney general and in the Senate led the ICE union that represents immigration officers to endorse him.
“As a U.S. Senator, Jeff Sessions was the strongest supporter in the U.S. Congress of ICE, its mission, and its employees," the union's president, Chris Crane, said. "We have no doubt that Senator Sessions will pick up right where he left off – standing up for law enforcement and the enforcement of our laws.”
Throughout his career, Sessions has never wavered in his support of American workers. Without his vocal opposition in 2013, it is likely Congress would have granted amnesty to most illegal aliens and massively increased legal immigration. He has consistently fought for and introduced legislation that would end illegal immigration and put American workers first.
Comparing either Sessions or Tuberville to incumbent Sen. Doug Jones exposes vast differences. Sen. Jones opposes President Trump's America First agenda and believes constructing a border wall is a waste of money.
Sen. Jones supports granting amnesty to illegal aliens and expanding legal immigration. Instead of boldly fighting for change, Sen. Jones rejects commonsense reforms and has received a failing grade from NumbersUSA.
As voters decide whom to vote for in the upcoming primary and general election, they should evaluate the candidates' records on immigration. Sessions has been a consistent advocate for President Trump's immigration policies, while Tuberville is on the right track but is unproven, and Sen. Jones has steadfastly opposed stopping illegal immigration and protecting American workers.
Chris Chmielenski is the deputy director for immigration nonprofit NumbersUSA.
HAVE YOU EVEN ONCE HEARD
SOMETHING OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF
THESE CORRUPT POLITICIANS ON
AMERICA'S HOMELESS, THE
HOUSING
CRISIS OR THE JOBS CRISIS?
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.
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.
Democrats’
Top Priority After Victory: Amnesty
13 Jul 2020160
3:11
Democrats believe the top priority
of a Joe Biden administration in 2021 would be passing amnesty for millions of
illegal aliens in the country, according to a new report in The Hill.
Increasingly, the party believes that
it will not only win the White House, but also the Senate, controlling the
entire government for the first time since 2009-2010.
Then, Democrats briefly enjoyed a
filibuster-proof majority. Now, Democrats are considering doing away with the filibuster
altogether, allowing themselves to pass sweeping legislation by simple majority
vote.
And the first priority will be
legalizing the 11-million-plus illegal aliens, providing them a “path to
citizenship” and the right to vote — and permanently reshaping the American
electorate, essentially killing the Republican Party.
Democrats are vowing to move forward
with immigration reform if presumptive nominee Joe Biden is elected
president and the party also takes back the Senate in this fall’s elections.
The prospect would set up a bruising
battle in Congress next year, one that Democrats shied away from in 2009 and
2010, after Barack Obama won the
presidency in 2008 and Democrats expanded their Senate majority and controlled
the House.
…
Durbin noted that Biden and Senate
Minority Leader Charles Schumer (Ill.) have both pledged to make
immigration reform the first issue raised after a successful November.
“They’ve all said it’s first up,”
Durbin said in remarks before the Senate left for the July 4 recess.
In passing amnesty, Democrats would
be picking up where they left off in an ambitious “progressive” agenda first
articulated in 2007 by party strategist and convicted felon Robert Creamer.
Breitbart News revealed in 2009 that
Creamer had written a political manual, Listen to
Your Mother: Stand Up Straight! How Progressives Can Win (Seven
Locks Press, 2007), while serving federal time for a check-kiting scheme.
Creamer, well-connected in Chicago
politics, joined the Obama campaign upon his release. His work provided the
“blueprint” for the Obama agenda.
The plan was to use “universal” health
care as a battering ram to force open the gates of Congress to radical
legislation.
Then, immigration reform was to
follow, along with other steps to transform the United States — permanently.
Immigration hawks have warned for
years that legalizing those currently in the country would mean the end of the
GOP, turning the U.S. into a larger version of California, which is essentially
a one-party state with little hope of future political opposition.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior
Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on
Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7
p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert
Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
This Recession Is a Bigger Housing
Crisis Than 2008
Listen to the
wall. Photo:
Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images
The wealthiest
country in human history has trouble keeping its people housed, even in good
times. In 2017, the United States boasted one of the strongest economies in the
world, and nearly half of its
tenants were rent burdened. A majority of
households in the bottom quintile of our nation’s income distribution give more than 40 percent of their disposable income to landlords each month. Only three
other developed countries force their poor to shoulder heavier housing costs.
Graphic: United Nations
In times of crisis,
the unaffordability of American housing is exacerbated by our “just in time”
socioeconomic model: Steady GDP growth is the duct tape holding together this
jerry-rigged social order in which low-income Americans have little to no emergency
savings, many basic welfare benefits are
contingent on employment, and the threadbare safety is patchy by design. This top-heavy, gold-plated jalopy of a political economy can
pass as road safe in fair weather; try to ride it through a once-in-a-century
epidemiological storm and it starts to break apart.
Between 2006 and 2014, about 10 million Americans lost their homes to the foreclosure
crisis. Today, upwards of 20 million U.S. renters are poised to be evicted
between now and September, according to Emily Benfer, the chair of the American
Bar Association’s Task Force Committee on Eviction.
At present, the
impending flood of evictions is partially dammed by a federal moratorium that
covers one-fourth of all renters, the $600 federal unemployment insurance
bonus, and the recent dispersion of $1,200 coronavirus relief checks. But even
with these protections, a great many renters are being washed out of their
homes while millions more accrue onerous debts. Roughly one-third of U.S.
households have not made their full housing payments for July, according to
a survey by the online retail
platform Apartment List. In New York City,
one-quarter of all renters haven’t paid their landlords since March.
This is in part
because fiscal aid has not reached everyone in need (many state unemployment
insurance systems have failed to keep pace with applications; many workers do
not qualify for federal unemployment benefits; and others were reliant on
informal work), and the federal moratorium on evictions does not cover most
renters. But it is also because the federal moratorium doesn’t actually have an
enforcement mechanism. Fifteen states have passed legislation requiring
landlords to verify that their buildings aren’t covered by the federal ban
before seeking to remove their tenants. In all other states, the obligation lies
with the tenant, which is to say a renter must verify that their building is
covered by the moratorium and prove it in court.
People facing
eviction do not generally have much disposable income available to cover legal
bills; in fact, many struggle to muster the data or internet connection
necessary for attending the videoconference hearings that have taken the place
of eviction courts throughout much of the country. A Washington Post account of one
embattled renter’s attempt to avert eviction illustrates the pathologies of
this process:
Judge Yvonne Williams, glasses snuggled tight to the blue mask
covering most of her face, peered into the camera in her Texas courtroom
recently to press a renter about the more than $4,000 she owed her landlord.
“What do you have toward the rent?” Williams asked.
The renter appeared on another shaky screen from a dark room and
explained that she had been furloughed as the spread of the novel coronavirus shut down much of the U.S. economy. But she had three kids
and nowhere to go, the renter said, and was working to raise the money, which
included more than $1,000 in late fees.
… During the hearing, the judge was asked whether the renter
might be covered by the moratorium, which doesn’t expire until late July. But
Williams shrugged off the question. (The Washington Post viewed the hearing
online.)
“I am not familiar with that, but if someone will show me the
law on that, I will certainly entertain that,” she responded. “Right now, I am
going to give them the eviction … as unfortunate as it is.”
Absent congressional
action, enhanced unemployment benefits will expire at the end of this month,
while the federal eviction moratorium will be lifted in the fall. As of this
writing, congressional Republicans are committed to reducing unemployment
benefits and blocking an extension of existing rental protections.
For their part, House
Democrats have passed legislation establishing a $100 billion rental-assistance
program, while Senator Elizabeth Warren has proposed expanding the number of
households covered by the federal eviction moratorium and extending that ban
into March 2021.
If no action is
taken, up to 28 million Americans could be thrown out of their homes by
October, according to Benfer. The victims of such a catastrophic social failure
will extend well beyond the ranks of the displaced. As Bloomberg’s Noah Smith writes:
When a landlord evicts a tenant, they need someone else to move
in relatively quickly. If no one does, it means a financial loss for the
landlord and an economic loss for the country as a whole because the apartment
is going to waste. The time and expense that the evicted tenant has to spend
moving to a new place results in an additional economic loss…Units whose
tenants are evicted will probably sit empty for many months until the crisis is
past, while the evicted low-income people will either crowd in with family or
become homeless, increasing the risk of coronavirus spread. This is bad from
both an economic and a public-health standpoint.
The fiscal cost of
keeping cash-strapped Americans in their homes — and unburdened by back rent —
may well be lower than that of allowing them to be thrown onto the streets by
the tens of millions. The human costs of the latter, meanwhile, are higher than
any decent society could afford.
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