Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has once again come under fire from liberals who desperately want to shut him up - but, this time he uses their own words against them.
In this last attempt, the New York Times wrote an attack-editorial in response an op-ed by Sen. Sessions ("America needs to curb immigration flows") that was published by the Washington Post. The Times editorial had the headline “Senator Sessions, Straight Up” - yet it, “like almost all arguments made in favor of large-scale immigration, provides no numbers,” Sessions says.
In his rebuttal, Sessions had no problem with sharing the facts. He noted that the number of foreign-born residents in the U.S. has been surging to frighteningly high levels:
“In 1970, fewer than 1 in 21 United States residents were born abroad. Five years from today, the Census Bureau estimates that more than one in seven United States residents will have been born abroad. Eight years from today, the share of the population that is foreign-born will rise above any level ever before recorded and keep surging.”
He points out that there are business groups who are spending millions of dollars lobbying for the admission of more immigrant workers in order to the lower wages of American workers - including past immigrants:
“It defies reason to argue that the record admission of new foreign workers has no negative effect on the wages of American workers, including the wages of past immigrants hoping to climb into the middle class. Why would many of the largest business groups in the United States spend millions lobbying for the admission of more foreign workers if such policies did not cut labor costs?”
Sen. Sessions then sticks it to the New York Times by quoting them from an editorial they published in 2000, where blamed the widening gap between the wages of high school dropouts and all other workers could be traced to the illegal immigration of unskilled workers.
“The New York Times once plainly acknowledged as much, writing in a 2000 editorial: ‘Between about 1980 and 1995, the gap between the wages of high school dropouts and all other workers widened substantially. Prof. George Borjas of Harvard estimates that almost half of this trend can be traced to immigration of unskilled workers.’”
Sen. Sessions states that, “Since that sentence was published, another 18 million immigrants have arrived in the United States, while the share of Americans in the work force has declined almost five percentage points.”
He then closes his response by sharing a poll from Reuters that states that a large majority of Americans want to see immigration reduced (About 70%). He calls for more communication between voters and those who would serve as the nation’s policy makers.
“Reuters says Americans, by a nearly 3-to-1 margin, wish to see immigration reduced, not increased. Policy makers and voters should be openly discussing this issue of national interest. Efforts to intimidate Americans into silence will no longer work.”
The New York Times hit piece says Sen. Sessions, like the GOP, ignores history and obstinately stands in the way of the “true” uplifting of the lower class. It claims that, “if he truly wanted to lift them up, he would be better off supporting labor unions and women’s rights, higher minimum wages, tougher wage-and-hour enforcement, more access to child-care and reproductive rights.”
According to the New York Times, being a soppy liberal is the only way to support low-income Americans.