Say Anything Blog

I never really trust the results of polls, but when the results are this lopsided it’s hard to ignore them as an indicator of the public’s opinion:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 16% of American voters believe illegal immigration will decline if the Senate bill is passed. Seventy-four percent (74%) disagree. That figure includes 41% who believe the Senate bill will actually lead to an increase in illegal immigration.

So if the public at large isn’t interested in the Senate bill, why are our politicians pushing it?  Could it be because a) businesses want access to more cheap labor and b) unions want a new labor poll to unionize and collect dues from thanks to their declining enrollment numbers?  I think both of those are true, as per the support amnesty for illegal immigrants (or a guest worker program or whatever) is being pushed so hard from the left and the right.

As far as the unions go, here’s an interesting article from the Associated Press:

SANGER, Calif. - In the 1960s, farm labor leader Cesar Chavez rallied fieldhands to speak out against a guest worker program that recruited millions of Mexicans to pick crops at low wages.

Today, farmworker advocates are throwing their weight behind a proposal in the current Senate immigration bill that would bring thousands of laborers to the country’s most productive fields but offer them virtually no chance of putting down roots in the U.S.

The United Farm Workers say it is their best shot at improving working conditions in fields nationwide, and especially in California, where 92 percent of workers are foreign-born.

So the unions once opposed guest workers because it brought in low-wage workers to compete with the more highly-paid union workers, but now they support it.  Why?  Because now they can charge these workers union dues.  Forget that these low-wage workers will still compete with union workers.  Since most of the guest workers won’t be on permanent benefits, won’t get retirement plans and will work for lower wages, their existence in the labor pool is going to drive wages lower.

But that doesn’t matter to the unions, as long as they get to take their pound of flesh in the form of membership dues.

For more union double standards on illegal immigration, see the unions’ opposition to letting Mexican truck drivers cross the border.  It’s ok to oppose securing our borders so that we’re left with millions of unchecked, unscreened illegal immigrants entering the country...but letting screened Mexican citizens through the border to conduct valid commercial transactions?

That’s unconscionable.  According to union logic, anyway.