You can add Rupert Murdoch’s name to the list of billionaires who not only profit from massive legal and illegal immigration, but who advocate for it. In an editorial for the Wall Street Journal, owned by News Corp, of which Murdoch is the Executive Chairman, Murdoch confesses his “heart sank” at the defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor because he thought immigration reform would be thwarted.1
I suggest we get the definitions straight before we go any further. Because, we in the immigration reform movement have been using the term “immigration reform” for over two decades, referring to the porous border and chain migration and hoping that “immigration reform” would mean that we actually, you know, enforce the law.
When people like Murdoch, John McCain, Barack Obama, and Luis Guitierez use the term, they mean amnesty. Murdoch makes a number of mistakes in his Op-Ed. First one is to refer to his “worry about the future of the Republican Party.” It makes one wonder if he is ignorant of the political history of immigration politics, or a corrupt liar.
Rupert Murdoch is in favor of the amnesty for political reasons? If so, he is terribly confused. Because, it won’t result in votes for Republicans. How can I be so sure? Because, it never has.
This issue has been discussed and analyzed by many people, including this writer.
Many in the media get it wrong.
The following statement gets it right.
Passing an amnesty for illegal aliens, most of whom are from Mexico, will do nothing to earn Republicans the Hispanic vote... period. Nothing! Zip, zero, nada!
Polling data of Hispanic voters do not support Murdoch’s claim, which is, if you think about it, not only wrong, but an insult to Hispanic Americans. The head of FOX News is suggesting that the Hispanic vote can be bought by Republicans if they ignore, excuse, and reward lawbreakers who happen to be Hispanic with amnesty.
A quick review:
Let’s look at who won the Hispanic vote in the past nine presidential races and their position on enforcement and amnesty.
• In 1980 and in 1984 Ronald Reagan received 35 percent and 37 percent of the Hispanic vote, respectively.
• In 1986 Reagan signed the IRCA Amnesty,2 which began in 1987 and legalized over 3 million illegal aliens, mostly from Mexico, with 12–15 million additional beneficiaries from chain migration.
Hispanics were
overwhelmingly beneficiaries of the amnesty.
But…
• In 1988, less than two years after the amnesty went into effect, George H.W. Bush, who supported the IRCA as Vice President, got only 30 percent of the Hispanic vote, 7 points fewer than Reagan.
• In 1992 Bush Senior saw his Hispanic vote total decline to 25 percent, a 12-point drop from Reagan’s second election, and he lost the presidency to Bill Clinton.
• In 1996, five weeks before the November election, Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA),3 the toughest immigration enforcement legislation since Eisenhower’s Operation Wetback4 in the 1950s. The result? Hispanics rewarded Clinton with a staggering 71 percent of the vote for his re-election.
• In 2000, George W. Bush received 35 percent of the Hispanic vote. Al Gore, the Vice President at the time of the 1996 IIRIRA, got 62 percent.
• In 2004 George Bush, after making anti-amnesty comments, increased his Hispanic support to 40 percent.
During the 2008 presidential race, Barack Obama said, “I will make sure that the federal government does what it’s supposed to do...a better job of closing our borders and preventing hundreds of thousands of people to pour in.”
• Obama also voted for the secure border fence bill in 2008 and still got 67 percent of the Hispanic vote.
Now, pay attention
• Obama’s opponent in 2008, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), was the first presidential candidate who actually advocated for and wrote an amnesty bill for illegal aliens. Senator McAmnesty got 31 percent of the Hispanic vote to Obama’s 67 percent. McCain didn’t even win a majority of Hispanic votes in Arizona, where everybody knows he supports amnesty.
And, in November 2012;
• Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who endorsed an amnesty on Meet the Press in 2005, won only 27 percent of the Hispanic vote.
• President Obama, whose Department of Homeland Security lied all year long that they deported more illegal aliens than George Bush did, won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote.
Now, in light of these FACTS: as follows does Mr. Murdoch actually believe his own words? Don’t believe for a minute that an amnesty will get the Republicans votes. It will actually cost them votes, as McCain learned.
Pat Buchanan put it succinctly in, The Bell Tolls for the “New Majority,”5 “So what are the Republicans doing? Going back on their word, dishonoring their platform, and enraging their loyal supporters, who gave Mitt 90 percent of his votes, to pander to a segment of the electorate that gave Mitt less than 5 percent of his total votes.Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.”
It has been proven over and over and over again that amnesty, or talk of an amnesty, doesn’t translate into votes for Republicans.
Murdoch also refers to revitalizing the American economy.
The U.S. Census Bureau predicted a decade ago that we were importing two generations of poverty. As each year passes, the generations of the future are repopulated with poverty.
I would suggest that one of the most immediate ways to revitalize our economy would be to pass a tax cut, offer Americans a tax rebate, and adopt the Mack Penny Plan6 for future federal government budgets. That would do nicely, for a start.
But I get what Mr. Murdoch is referring to, because I’ve been saying it for years. He is referring to new customers. Mass legal and illegal immigration brings new customers to America. That’s what this is all about. Yes, it’s about jobs too, but it is what they do with their paychecks, which is the goal of those who want to throw down the borders and let anyone in who can get here.
Certainly business wants as cheap a labor force as they can get. But, cheap labor is a smaller part of the equation.
And, certainly, Democrat strategists want new voters, which illegal aliens could become if they are given amnesty with a pathway to citizenship. No, not because of the amnesty, that is the myth that was demolished above. But, because illegal aliens will be low income wage earners, so will their kids, so that’s two generations in poverty, and low income people, be they Hispanic, black, white, whatever, when they do vote, do not vote for Republicans.
The big one is new customers. As the baby boomers age out of the consuming cycle they need to be replaced, and that is what the desire to let millions of mostly young people into the country, call it amnesty or call it “comprehensive immigration reform,” is all about.
Illegal aliens are perfect new consumers. Be they from Mexico or Central America, they have grown up watching American movies and American TV shows. They know exactly how we live here and they want to come and live like us. And, who can blame them, really? Their own countries are hellholes, dominated by thugs and drug cartels; who wouldn’t want to escape?
When an illegal alien
arrives here they have nothing but the clothes on their back, and a water jug.
They pitch the water jug and hop into the load car and are off to their
new lives in the land of opportunity. And for them, as well as us, it is indeed the land of
opportunity.
That is what Rupert Murdoch is referring to, new customers. Is he hoping that he will attract new viewers to
FOX News Latino? You be the judge.
Endnotes
1. http://online.wsj.com/articles/rupert-murdoch-immigration-reform-cant-wait-1403134311
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control_Act_of_1986
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_Immigration_Reform_and_Immigrant_Responsibility_Act_of_1996
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wetback
5. http://takimag.com/article/the_bell_tolls_for_the_new_majority/page_2#axzz2WPqSwOuQ
6. http://www.conniemack.com/issues/penny-plan/
PEW Hispanic Vote totals for 9 Presidential elections: http://www.pewhispanic.org/files/2012/11/hispanic-2012-11-07-latino-vote-00-01.png