Commentary
Millions upon millions of foreigners have broken U.S. laws to sneak into this country and take advantage of economic and social conditions far superior to those in their own unstable third-world native lands. But once they arrive, so-called Dreamers—many of whom risked their lives to live in the United States and are envied back home for having made it into the land of milk and honey—in the eyes of government and leftist lawyers, are victims living out an American nightmare.
Businesses happy to avail of cheap labor—sometimes illegally cheap thanks to the exploitation of faulty law—are instrumental in keeping a vicious circle in motion: illegal entry followed by irregular or unlawful employment, then protection for illegal immigrants from activist attorneys using charges of mistreatment by employers, and finally the end result of permanent residency in the United States. These businesses have been enabling an invasion of millions, a mass migration that has
increased crime,
driven down wages, and is
changing the political fabric and driving the United States to socialism.
It’s hardly surprising that House Republicans refused to pass another reform featuring amnesty. Immigration/border security is now the
No. 1 political issue for U.S. voters, according to polling; the unpopular President Joe Biden is rated
lower on this than in any other area of governance. And yet somehow it has yet to translate into serious resentment or hostility toward the businesses happy to keep the gates of illegal entry wide open.
Consider that Henry Ford ceased his considerable isolationist activities after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and in 1940, even began construction of the
Willow Run facility in suburban Detroit with a capacity to build one B-24 heavy bomber per hour, long before the U.S. entry into the World War; Sears Roebuck chief and ex-Army Gen. Robert E. Wood
disbanded his anti-war America First Committee, on whose board Ford had served, and became an adviser to the U.S. armed forces, even visiting both the Pacific and European theaters to tackle military supply problems.
Leading business figures such as Ford and Wood knew that neither their customers nor politicians would tolerate even passive support for the enemy, and they swerved their political position by 180 degrees. Today, by comparison, businesses seem convinced that they have nothing to fear from either Washington or at the cash register for utilizing illegal workers to save themselves enough money to fill a bank vault.
Three decades ago, two of President Bill Clinton’s nominees to be the first female U.S. attorney general, corporate attorney Zoe Baird and federal Judge Kimba Wood, went down in flames successively when it was revealed that they had
both employed illegal immigrants as domestic servants—in Judge Wood’s case before the bipartisan 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli immigration act rendered doing so unlawful. At that time, 1993, a far-less-radicalized Democratic Party was considerably less willing to defend illegal crossings and romanticize aliens; Democrat senators were fielding
thousands of phone calls from constituents opposing the nominations.
There was, however, another element fueling opposition. With recession in Americans’ memories, Ms. Baird and her Yale Law School professor husband were making well in excess of $500,000 a year and had not paid their illegal immigrant domestic servants’ Social Security taxes.
Thus, as today, illegal immigrants were found to be an extremely convenient way for the rich and successful to keep for themselves a good deal of pocket change, the demographic and political future of the country be damned.
The tricks applied by companies leading to their use of the cheap labor of illegals—despite the 1986 law written to prevent the practice—include the shell game of enlisting the employees of contractors, thus avoiding blame when it turns out that the workers’ papers are falsified or out of order. In one memorable case some years ago, Target stores were sued for unpaid wages and overtime by the nonprofit, tax-exempt
Equal Justice Center in Austin, representing the employed illegal immigrants working as cleaners. The group runs on tax-deductible contributions from “businesses, law firms, labor organizations, and foundations.”
The contractors can accept fake documents without the law requiring them to verify them, and even subcontract the hiring of the illegal immigrants to other firms, thus diffusing responsibility and legal liability. The result is a massive
black market in cheap labor involving companies whose names are household words, with their risk of being convicted of violating immigration laws minimal.
These same corporate interests flex their muscles along Washington’s K Street.
The Donald Trump-inspired populism that now seems to dictate the Republican Party’s presidential nomination has a handy axis of amnesty that it can point to in regard to corporate financial support for passing yet another immigration reform act that falls short of building the wall that was the centerpiece of President Trump’s successful 2016 campaign: Important figures associated with the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the
BlackRock multinational investment firm (which boasts assets in excess of $9 trillion) run the American Crossroads SuperPAC seeking to elect Republicans more in the mold of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and the late Sen. John McCain, both of whom lost to President Barack Obama.
In BlackRock’s case, its
cozy relationship with communist China places it at odds even with non-Trump elements of the GOP. American Crossroads’ partner Crossroads GPS has fervently
backed amnesty-based immigration reform.
As in the past two presidential nomination contests, Republican voters are making it clear that they want an end to open borders and that they recognize the People’s Republic of China as the United States’ greatest long-term global threat. Businesses that choose cheap illegal labor and assist in Beijing’s economic warfare against the free world likely won’t have to wait long before rank-and-file Republicans make sure that they no longer have a comfortable home in what has long been the traditional political party of business.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
