RUSH: The Republican National Committee has been hit big time by a grassroots donors rebellion over the immigration bill. The Republican National Committee has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors. Ralph Hallow has this today in the Washington Times. ‘Faced with an estimated 40 percent falloff in small-donor contributions and aging phone-bank equipment that the RNC said would cost too much to update.’ The national committee yesterday confirmed the firings that took place more than a week ago, but denied that the move was motivated by declining donor response to phone solicitations. Tracey Schmitt, RNC spokeswoman, said ‘terminating the phone solicitation staff ‘was not an easy decision. The first and primary motivating factor was the state of the phone bank technology, which was outdated and difficult to maintain. The RNC was advised that we would soon need an entire new system to remain viable.”
Well, something doesn’t wash here. Put the system in. You realize how important this is, this is fundraising! The RNC fired the phone bank operators. It’s because they’re not generating revenue. It’s because you people aren’t donating, and I could imagine how these phone calls go. ‘Hi. I’m from the RNC, and I just want to confirm that your donation from last year you want to maintain. Can we put you down for 75…’ ‘No, you can’t put me down for anything.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Well, because of the immigration bill. Why should I continue to give money to people that are going to be reelected and do things that we don’t want them to do?’ ‘That’s not happening. This is the president’s bill.’ ‘There’s a lot of Republicans out there that are supporting this, too. You can take your donation and cram it in your phone bank that you just got rid of.’ You know that’s probably a little microcosm of the conversations going on out there. Fired employees acknowledged that the RNC committee’s phone equipment was outdated, but they said a sharp drop-off in donations probably ‘hastened’ the end of the RNC’s in-house phone bank operations. One fired phone bank solicitor, who asked not to be identified — nobody wants to be identified anymore except on their MySpace page. ”Last year, my solicitations totaled $164,000, and this year the way they were running for the first four months, they would total $100,000 by the end of 2007.’ ‘There has been a sharp decline in contributions from RNC phone solicitations,’ another fired staffer said, ‘reporting that many former donors flatly refused to give more money to the national party if Mr. Bush and the Senate Republicans insist on supporting what these angry contributors call amnesty for illegal aliens.”
Meanwhile, John Derbyshire, National Review Online, has a good little piece here on temporary workers. He says, ‘Dan Griswold, and other enthusiasts for the Senate immigration bill, lay much emphasis on the temporary worker program, as if this was a wonderful new development in U.S. immigration practice. But we have had temporary workers programs for ever. There are currently six categories of visa covering temporary workers, listed on the USCIS website.’ Six categories for temporary worker visas. You have H-1B, which is specialty occupations, Department of Defense workers, and fashion models. I’m not making this up. If you’re a fashion model from overseas, you come in on an H1B visa. The H-1C: Nurses going to work for up to three years in health professional shortage areas. The H-2A: Temporary agricultural worker. We all know who — (laughing) — they are. The H-3 visa is for trainees. The H-4: Spouse or child of H-1, H-2, or H-3.
Derbyshire says, ‘So the right question to ask is not ‘Do we need a temporary worker program?’ but ‘Why do we need another temporary worker program?’ If, for instance, we need more fruit pickers, why doesn’t Congress just up the H-2A quota? And of course, as the immigration wonks have told us till they’re blue in the face, there is nothing temporary about temporary workers. Once you’re in, you’re in. Case in point: me. I came here in October 1985 as a temporary worker, on an H-1B visa — good, in theory, for only six years. I’m still here.’ Nobody’s made a move to force him out. ”Temporary worker program’ is hogwash. There are no temporary workers, only settlers. I’m here to tell you.’
Now, the question, in the case of the illegals doing jobs Americans won’t do, the fruit pickers and the agriculture jobs that come in on the H-2A visa, why don’t we just up the H-2A visa quota? ‘Answer: Because employers don’t want lawful, visa-ed temporary workers. They want illegal immigrants, who are cheaper.’ Somebody sent me a question today, ‘Rush, only you can explain this. Don’t these businesses who know full well that when these people are made legal, they’re going to be unionized inside of 30 days, don’t they understand this? They think they’re getting all this cheap labor, and when the unions get hold of them and subject these businesses to new union contracts, out the door goes cheap labor.’ I said, ‘No, no, no, no, you’re missing the point. I think a lot of people are missing the point. There are still going to be illegal immigrants after we legalize the 12 to 20 million that are here. There is no enforcement mechanism.’ ‘Ah, Rush, you’re wrong about this, increased border security.’
I’m not wrong about it. It’s Ted Kennedy who’s been wrong every time he’s opened his mouth about this for 43 years. It is the illegal immigrants that American businesses want. That’s the cheap labor. After these 12 to 20 are legalized, they are going to be less attractive to American business. They want the illegal immigration, and that’s the low skilled, low wage, and uneducated bunch. There’s nothing to stop that. See, this is the problem with the bill, among many other problems that are too numerous to catalog here. It doesn’t stop further illegals from coming in, in whatever numbers they can get in. So even if we legalize these 12 to 20, we haven’t solved the problem. That’s where the disingenuousness is on the pro-Senate bill side of this.
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Friday, June 01, 2007
Temporary Workers [John Derbyshire]
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