A History Lesson on the Shifting Political Stances on Illegal Immigration

 In his 1995 State of the Union address, President Bill Clinton said: "All Americans … are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers."

By Walter E. Williams at Intellectual Takeout

"Here are a couple of easy immigration questions—answerable with a simple “yes” or “no”—we might ask any American of any political stripe: Does everyone in the world have a right to live in the U.S.? Do the American people have a right, through their elected representatives, to decide who has the right to immigrate to their country and under what conditions?

"I believe that most Americans, even today’s open-borders people, would answer “no” to the first question and “yes” to the second.

"There’s nothing new about this vision. Americans have held this view throughout our history, during times when immigration laws were very restrictive and when they were more relaxed.

"Tucker Carlson, host of Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” gives us an interesting history lesson about immigration at Prager University. It was prompted by his watching a group of protesters who were denouncing President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. They were waving Mexican flags and shouting, “Si, se puede!” (“Yes, we can!”)

"Unbeknownst to the protesters, the expression “Si, se puede” was a saying of Cesar Chavez’s. When Chavez, the founder of the United Farm Workers union, used the expression “Yes, we can,” he meant something entirely different: “Yes, we can” seal the borders. He hated illegal immigration.

"Chavez explained, “As long as we have a poor country bordering California, it’s going to be very difficult to win strikes.” Why? Farmers are willing to hire low-wage immigrants here illegally. "Chavez had allies in his protest against the hiring of undocumented workers and lax enforcement of immigration laws.

"Included in one of his protest marches were Democratic Sen. Walter Mondale and a longtime Martin Luther King Jr. aide, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy." . . .

 

Now what will the left do with all those street signs that say "Caesar Chavez . . ."?