President Obama's choice of Nevada to announce his all encompassing amnesty program is curious. Nevada's 10.2 unemployment rate is the nation's highest. Las Vegas, where Obama spoke, has a 10.4 percent unemployment rate. Nevada unemployment is so acute that more than four and a half years have passed since a single construction worker showed up at the unfinished $4.75 billion Echelon mega resrt.
In a statement earlier this month President Obama's partner in crime, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said that while he's encouraged by Nevada's unemployment drop from last month's 10.8 percent, "We must stay focused on creating jobs and strengthening our state's middle class to maintain this positive momentum."
Platitudes aside, the amnesty that Obama and Reid so covet is a job killer that hurts the American lower and middle classes. Giving work authorization to more than 11 million illegal aliens frees them to compete legally with Americans for increasingly fewer jobs.
To date, only sketchy details have surfaced about the proposed legislation. But the drift is clear: amnesty for all, more non-immigrant worker visas and plenty of unchallenged gobbledygook about the pending legislation's wonderfulness without even a passing reference to its perils. Also thrown in to the mix to appease GOP skeptics and doubting Americans are the bold lies that the administration will provide stronger border security and more internal enforcement through an electronic system. Unmentioned, however, is that Congress blocked a 2011 bill to mandate E-Verify, the Legal American Workforce Act, that would have checked new hires for legal status.
Anyone who buys the idea that enforcement will be increased hasn't been paying much attention. When the Immigration Reform and Control Act passed in 1986, Congress made the same empty promises. Today the nation has more than 11 million illegal aliens.
The federal government has dozens of sound immigration laws that are ignored daily. During the last three years, Obama has voided enforcement through a series of executive orders that have stayed deportation for tens of thousands. In a law suit upheld by a Texas federal district court, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents sued Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE director John Morton for their directive that forced them to release detained aliens. Only a fool would believe that the restrictive portions of new legislation would be obeyed.
In the meantime, the border patrol also has to contend with more outrages that prevent them from carrying out their sworn duty. Officials from the Customs and Border Protection's San Diego sector has promised to look into labor and immigration advocates' complaints that officers are targeting illegal alien day laborers---exactly the job they were hired to perform. In other words, the border patrol is investigating agents who enforcing the law.
Realistically, the battle has just begun. The proposal is no more than a five-page outline. In some congressional corners and throughout grassroots America, resistance is already strong. When the argument begins about whether to include recently amnestied aliens at the cost of billions more in the trillion dollar Affordable Health Care Act, support will dwindle further. The more Americans learn about the radical amnesty proposal, the tougher the fight for its proponents.
Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow whose columns have been syndicated since 1986.