Rick Santorum’s grandfather came to America in 1923 as an immigrant but that fact does not deter him from thinking that we have a big problem in this country that’s “almost as bad” as illegal immigration.
The problem, according to Santorum, is LEGAL immigration.
According to Santorum, all those legal immigrants coming into America are taking the jobs meant for “native-born Americans”. They have taken every single one of the over six million jobs that have been created in the past 14 years, he says.
Let’s roll tape (via American Bridge):
Let me ask you a question. Since 2000 there have been a little over six million net new jobs created. What percentage of those net new jobs are held by people not born in this country? Half? Sixty? All of them. There are fewer native-born Americans working today than there was [sic] in 2000, in spite of 17 million more workers in the workforce. So when people tell me the problem is just illegal immigration, they’re wrong. They’re wrong… We are almost at the same level of non-native born in this country they were at in 1920. And in 1920 they realized, wait a minute, it’s affecting our workers. Wages have stagnated, everybody knows that. Why? Part of the reason. Median income is going dowb. Why? Part of the reason is that we’re bringing floods of legal, not illegal, legal immigrants into the country.
These “patriots” are incredible in their hypocrisy. They genuflect before the “Founding Fathers” who came to this country from Europe, displaced the indigenous Americans, and built a new country from scratch. Now that we’ve established our country, only 238 years later people like Rick Santorum want to close the door.
Maybe it’s time to take down the Statue of Liberty and send it back to France. With people like Rick Santorum in charge, we don’t deserve it.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”– New Colossus by Emma Lazarus
UPDATE: It’s worth noting that this effort to blame income inequality – which is at nearly historical American levels – on a “Boogie Man” that’s not corporate America. If they can blame foreigners for the problem, it lets corporate America off the hook for screwing over American workers. That kills two birds with one stone by (1) appealing to the xenophobic Republican base that hates anyone that’s not “American” by their definition and (2) protecting their corporatist benefactors from getting any of the blame tossed in their direction. It’s a pretty impressive sleight of hand when you think about it.
[CC image credit: Linus Henning | Wikimedia Commons]
