Kamala Harris doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of “illegal.” The California Democrat is proposing a new bill to allow illegal immigrants protected by Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), known as DREAMers, to get paid work on Capitol Hill.
In a statement defending the bill Wednesday, Harris all but declared that illegal immigrants are U.S. citizens. “Government works best when it reflects the people it represents. Our nation’s DREAMers are some of our best and brightest, and it’s time they had the opportunity to get a job or paid internship on Capitol Hill,” Harris said.
Harris wants DREAMers in government
Harris introduced the bill, called the American Dream Employment Act, alongside Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), and Dick Durbin (D-IL). The bill looks to amend congressional rules that block most non-citizens from working in the federal government. The bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ), where it has 57 co-sponsors.
“The giant sign outside my office says ‘DREAMers Welcome Here’ because we know and value the contributions that these young people have made to their communities,” Harris said. “But right now, those same young people are banned from giving back to their country by working for Congress. That has to change.”
The bill is co-sponsored by all other Senators running for the Democratic nomination for president: Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and has the support of immigrants’ rights groups including United We Dream, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), and the Fair Immigration Reform Movement.
“I’ve been proud to have several Dreamers work in my office as volunteer interns and have seen firsthand how the people of Illinois would benefit if Dreamers could serve as paid employees in my office,” Durbin said.
Dems embrace open borders
While radical, Harris’s bill is not at all out of step with the Democratic Party’s hard lurch to the left during just the last couple years. The view that DREAMers should work in government reflects the burgeoning Democratic dogma that “no person is illegal.” In other words, United States citizenship is a meaningless classification, and immigrants who come into the U.S. illegally deserve the same social services, representation, and rights as citizens.
Harris has been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump and his immigration policy, and has made protecting DREAMers a prominent part of her campaign message. The DACA employment bill shows her jostling with other Democrats running for president who are eager to pander to immigrants, namely Beto O’Rourke, a fluent Spanish speaker who has called for tearing down existing border walls. To counter the El Paso Democrat, Harris campaigned recently in Nevada and Texas, two southwestern states where Latino voters are concentrated.
Indeed, Harris is far from the only Democrat to share sanguine views on illegal immigration. Democrats have made protecting DREAMers a priority. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is pushing a House bill for “immigration reform,” has described DREAMers as “patriots.”
The toll of open borders
That view is reflected across the party line as Democrats have taken to dropping any pretenses of wanting to uphold the rule of law. Democrats have rallied to the support of illegal immigrants at the expense of U.S. citizens, trumpeting overblown rhetoric about “children in cages” — a reference to the detention of illegal immigrant children brought to the United States by their families. While the Democratic Party has embraced open borders in everything but name, the party line is to show token support for “border security” while simultaneously playing down the border crisis.
Underneath the virtue signaling, the Democrats’ bold embrace of lawlessness in the open comes with real costs. Democrats have continually insisted that the border crisis is “manufactured,” even as the number of family units arriving at the southwest border reached an all-time high in February.
That spike is causing a humanitarian crisis on the border that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has likened to a category 5 hurricane. ICE has released thousands of illegal migrants into the interior since December as volunteer organizations in border cities struggle to care for the influx. Meanwhile, Customs and Border Patrol has begun bypassing transferring apprehended migrants to ICE altogether and is simply dropping off migrants on the streets.
The DACA bill is the latest attempt by Democrats to normalize illegal immigration, only further incentivizing waves of migrants like those currently overwhelming the border. Democrats like Harris want to add to the pool of millions of illegal immigrants that is driving down wages, including the hundreds of thousands granted work permits by DACA. President Barack Obama created DACA through an executive order in 2012 to protect undocumented adults who came to the country as children from deportation.
Ironically, leftists are working to advance wealthy corporate interests that have a stake in attracting cheap labor and driving wages down. One of the groups backing Harris’s bill, FWD.us, was founded by wealthy investors like Mark Zuckerburg and Bill Gates.
Meanwhile, America’s working class has been hit hard by automation and the opioid crisis, but Democrats like Harris are more concerned about the welfare of illegal immigrants. How about putting the American people first?
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