How CPAC Stacked the Deck on the Amnesty Panel

Here’s a handy rule of thumb: If two of the four members of an immigration panel have Hispanic surnames you can bet it’s an amnesty panel in disguise. That was certainly the case at CPAC’s ‘Can There Be Meaningful Immigration Reform Without Citizenship?’

(This phenomenon is evidently peculiar to Hispanics. If two people named Schmidt and Kruger were on a panel it would be unfair to assume they enthusiastically support bomb damage reparations from WWII.)

Alfonso Aguilar and the Rev. Luis Cortes were joined by moderator Mercy Schlapp — a veteran of the Bush White House that was pushing amnesty until 9/11. The anti–amnesty speaker was Derrick Morgan of the Heritage Foundation and the afternoon’s advocate for the feudal system was Helen Krieble.

Schlapp set the tone when she remarked on the favor illegals were doing the economy by being here. Much like burglars boost an area’s GDP when they make the rounds of pawn shops.

Sbe was followed by Kreible, president of the Vernon K. Kreible Foundation, who said the debate should be about American principles: Equal treatment under the law, individual freedom and personal responsibility. So far so good, but then she reduced our choices to a false binary: Grant amnesty or do nothing.

The realistic option is removing the job incentive for illegals. But that is not a choice Kreible will ever entertain, because that would mean business can’t import serfs. She claims it’s wrong to set “artificial” limits on the number of workers you can hire. It’s Kreible’s belief that borders are a government matter, but workers are a business matter. In practice this means the federal government can keep Mohamed Atta out, unless he plans to mow your lawn.

What Kreible objects to is that ‘citizen’ word. She wants to implement a “red card” program that puts citizens in the penalty box. She would import workers without conveying citizenship or the right to remain after the job is over. This is similar to the wildly successful Turkish guest worker program the Germans had. Only problem is the Turks are still in Germany.

And while individuals should be “responsible,” American business is exempt. Right now if a US business thinks US workers want too much money, the business is free to open a subsidiary in Mexico and hire all the Mexicans it wants. But that’s a problem for agribusiness corporations, because shipping Alabama to Chihuahua would be a logistical nightmare. What’s more, sometimes the Mexican government seizes private business, you can’t trust the cops, ‘mordida’ cuts into profit margins and there’s always that decapitation problem.

So for Kreible the business solution is to flood the labor market by bringing Mexico here and let taxpayers deal with social costs.

Unfortunately for her there is no moral, ethical or conservative justification for bringing in foreign labor when unemployment in the US is over 7 percent and labor participation rates are at an all time low.

Alfonso Aguilar, director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, evidently believes the word ‘conservative’ is a verbal spice you sprinkle on leftist policies to make them more palatable for genuine conservatives. He wants conservatives to “own” the immigration issue by out–pandering the Democrats.

Aguilar contends the entire illegal problem is a result of “big government” setting quotas and holding the quaint notion that US jobs should go to US citizens. He recycles every lame, reverse racist amnesty cliché he could find, beginning with illegals are doing the jobs Americans won’t do.

After that howler he became incoherent. Aguilar says illegals taking jobs here “creates jobs for working class Americans.” He claims that illegals did not disregard the rule of law because they didn’t come here voluntarily. Instead business brought them here. This was genuine news to me. Who would have thought coyotes were members of the Chamber of Commerce?

Aguilar also introduced the concept of “circular immigration.” Letting illegals come here and return to their home country as many times as they and Greyhound wished. Although something tells me the circle would stop abruptly in the US when it came time to collect Social Security.

He was followed by the Rev. Luis Cortes who is the president of Esperanza. The organization’s website motto is: “Strengthening our Hispanic community” meaning it’s La Raza with a Bible. Cortes’ solution is to make citizens of anyone who ranks Cinco de Mayo ahead of the 4^th of July. Otherwise, “it gives Democrats an issue.” And afterwards Democrats won’t need an issue because with 9 million or so new voters they’ll never lose another presidential election.

The most insulting aspect of the panel was how the pro–amnesty participants evidently believed using the word ‘conservative’ to describe leftist policies would somehow convince a gullible audience.

A conservative immigration reform would be built on trying something new: Enhancing the law we have now. Make it a felony to hire an employee that failed an E–Verify check or hire an employee without checking E–Verify. And strictly enforce the prohibition against illegals enrolling in any welfare or social programs.

Drying up the job market will accomplish two goals. First many of the illegals will self–deport. Second it will raise wages for US workers and lower the unemployment rate. Right now many jobs go unfilled by citizens because they aren’t willing to accept the prevailing wage scale in Juarez because they don’t live in Juarez. If employers were forced to pay wages high enough to attract US citizens, more citizens would work.

That’s a conservative, free market solution that’s good for the country and preserves the rule of law. Unfortunately the ‘C’ in CPAC now appears to stand for ‘capitulation.’