How Democrats Sponsored Illegal Immigration

Democrats bear a significant share of the blame for the inordinate numbers of illegal aliens who have snuck into America while evading capture at the US-Mexico border. An enlightening historical perspective on Democratic culpability is presented in the article:

How Democrats Sponsored Illegal Immigration
by Michael Bargo Jr.
American Thinker
February 23, 2013

Bargo begins by stating:

That 11 million illegal immigrants are present in the U.S. is taken as proof that the system doesn't work. The immigration system is broken, we are told, and in need of reform. But the truth is, those 11 million illegal immigrants did not enter through the system, they violated U.S. law when they bypassed standard immigration procedures. It's important to note that they were not encouraged by business to cross the border; they were aggressively supported by government officials...

Mass immigration - particularly mass illegal immigration - is most assuredly a government-sponsored activity.

It should be noted, however, that Bargo failed to do his homework and as a result stumbled into the trap of regurgitating the stale, unvarying, and fundamentally contrived government figure of 11 million illegal aliens. There are likely 20 to 40 million illegal aliens living in the United States, as CAIRCO has noted. Thus, the problem is much more serious than even Bargo believes.

The articles continues to clarify the historical connection, stating that:

While the Constitution gives Congress the exclusive power to establish a uniform set of rules for naturalization, in reality government entities at all levels have been directly involved in the enablement and promotion of illegal immigration...

The article describes historical government programs which ultimately induced unconstrained masses to migrate into the United States:

The first official act that bypassed Congress's power to control immigration was the Bracero program, a guest worker program started under FDR in 1942. This program was not voted into law by Congress, it was an agreement made between the U.S. Ambassador in Mexico City and the Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Bracero program had much success and lasted until 1964, when it was canceled by President Johnson just months before he announced the creation of the Great Society programs of Federal benefits.

Yet those benefits, while purportedly going to needy Americans, actually targeted illegal aliens. Bargo observes that:

In his Great Society speech delivered at the U. of Michigan in Ann Arbor, President Johnson revealed the policy direction that was to result in the emigration of Hispanic undocumented immigrants [illegal aliens] to the U.S...

In reality the "National Capital" to which LBJ referred was a group of benefits that would soon be made available to illegal immigrants, particularly "migrants." Before that happened, however, the "wink" had to be given for illegal immigrants to enter American cities. That started in 1979 when the Los Angeles Police Dept. issued Special Order 40, which mandated that, "officers not initiate contact solely for the purpose of establishing a person's immigration status."

This effectively made Los Angeles a sanctuary city for illegal aliens. As a result, today's Los Angeles looks like a city in a third world country and is virtually unrecognizable from the Los Angeles of LBJ's "Great Society" era.

The article goes on to point out that:

LBJ's "Great Society" programs created a number of benefits targeted toward the poor and underprivileged. The next step needed was to make those entitlements available to illegal immigrants. This link (the nod) was established in 1985, by Chicago's Mayor Harold Washington through his Executive Order 85-1...

And while the 1996 immigration act makes it illegal to be a sanctuary city or support illegal immigration, no one has been cited for violating those provisions of the 1996 law...

As an aside, it should be noted that the city of Denver was also the victim of similar sanctuary city policy. Yet during the 2006 Colorado Legislative session, the Democratic State Legislature passed SB 90, which requires law enforcement officials to report suspected illegal aliens when they are arrested to federal immigration officials, except in cases of domestic violence and minor traffic violations. It prohibits state and local governments from enacting policies that stop cooperation with immigration officials, thus making sanctuary cities illegal.

However, SB90 was passed as a result of the pressure brought to bear by the Defend Colorado Now initiative to deny taxpayer-paid benefits to illegal aliens. It remains to be seen how long Democrats will let stand this bill which represents the very antithesis of their redistributive agenda.

The article relates past and present Democratic policy to our present demographic predicament, stating:

Since FDR's New Deal, when Democrats seized political control of most of the large cities of the United States, they have been focused on maintaining their political support through patronage jobs and the distribution of Federal entitlement program dollars. Illegal immigration... was enabled and promoted to maintain this political control...

The trend toward high-level administrative corruption is apparent in the improper actions taken by President Obama. He is violating the boundaries of his office. For example, he issues executive orders overreaching his authority, decides what laws he will enforce and which he will not, such as the work requirement of welfare, and refuses to respect the established rules of order and work with Congress on legislation...

When the history of this period of U.S. history is written, not only will the excessive budget deficits of President Obama be noted, but the administrative corruption that enabled and supported illegal immigration will be seen as the result of improper and unconstitutional actions by the president.

This point was affirmed in another recent article:

Immigrants like Democrats over 'economics' - Expert: Newcomers 'leave countries with big government and then try to re-create that here'
by Albert Thompson
WorldNetDaily.com
February 23, 2013
(Video interview included with full article)

Hispanic immigrants like the Democratic Party because of the vast governmental programs that hand out assistance, aid, benefits and subsidies, according to Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies.

He told WND that the Democrats' argument that Republican President Ronald Reagan pushed a 1980s amnesty program isn't entirely accurate.

"It is important to note that although Reagan did sign that amnesty, he was not the primary person pushing it. It was mostly Democrats in Congress, with some Republican allies," Camarota said...

He noted immigration "is the most important issue when it comes to role of government, because immigration creates new voters."

"Immigrants are people and they vote, and the political system has to represent their views," he said.

He said some of the conflict comes because immigrants try to reproduce the country they left.

"Why do immigrants leave countries with big government and then try to re-create that here? Because it's what they're used to, they're used to the idea of an activist government," he said.

He said that's changing America in more than one way.

"Between two thirds and three fourths of the growth in the... people without health insurance in the United States is new immigrants and then the children they've had once they got here, over the last decade... It's transforming society in ways to make Democratic arguments heard much more sympathetically," he said.

“A much larger fraction, all the research shows, of white voters will vote on social policy like abortion, like gay marriage. But that's just not true of Hispanics; they are attracted to the Democratic Party mainly through those economic policies, and the social conservative stuff just doesn't matter to them,” he said...

“The leadership of the Republican Party for decades has gone along with the idea of making more Democratic voters and transforming society in ways makes Democratic arguments heard more sympathetically. In effect we are electing a new people. If you want limited government immigration is probably the most important issue, because it changes what the American people want because it changes who the American people are,” he said.

Yet the question remains: why would Democrats want to cultivate policy magnets that bring in millions of illegal aliens into the United States, undermining the very fabric of society while causing our population to double within the lifetimes of children born today? Aren't Democrats concerned for the future they will bequeath to their children and grandchildren? Are they not concerned with overcrowding, diminishing water supplies, and diminishing petroleum supplies?

The answer, it seems, lies in the machinations of political power. Democrats want an unending stream of "undocumented democrats". They know that illegal aliens who are amnestied and gain a pathway to citizenship unvaryingly support the political party that gives them the most freebies - the Democratic party.

This was most succinctly stated by then Colorado Representative Mark Udall (now a Senator) in a Boulder Townhall meeting a few years ago. A number of concerned citizens in the audience questioned why he wanted to bring in an unending stream of illegal aliens into an already overpopulated country. Udall's reply was quite simply, "we're going to need them."