You got that right, Mark. Gingrich was in fact the mystery politician with whom I had this encounter two years ago.
They are clueless about immigration because they can be. As I noted in that piece:
With even illegal immigration a fringe issue, to speak of which with any vigor puts you under suspicion of being a twitchy Birchite nutcase, there is, as professional pols see it, no chance that they will ever have to engage seriously with the topic oflegal immigration. So why study up on it?
Immigration is not a matter of policy, on which different opinions can be expressed in candidate debates, chewed over by commentators, and decided on to the benefit of the nation. It is a hysterical cult that may be addressed only in vapid clichés.
And so we had President Obama boasting in his State of the Union gas-o-rama that: “In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than 3 million jobs.” That’s nice: but with 125,000 work permits being given to foreigners every month, only 8 percent of those 3 million jobs went to American citizens. Where is the sense in that?
Huge numbers of Americans — 43 percent in Gallup’s June 2011 poll — want immigrant numbers decreased. Yet we can’t talk about it; candidates for the presidency know they will not be asked about it; so they don’t bother to inform themselves. Their ignorance is not (well, not always) a consequence of innate stupidity: it’s tactical and practical.
To quote myself again:
Hopeless, therefore, to observe that today’s immigration policy shapes the nation our children will inherit from us; that this should be a matter of consequence to us; and that a sensible nation would debate immigration policy keenly and often in its political forums. Hopeless too, probably, to engage in work like that of the CIS [Center for Immigration Studies], pegging away year after year in the teeth of a hostile commercial, intellectual, and academic establishment whose control of the public discourse is as seamlessly total as Kim Jong Il’s.
Kim Jong Il is no longer with us, but we’re still stuck with the same data-free, cliché-smothered elite consensus on immigration.
Three million new jobs, 92 percent of which went to non-citizens. And we can’t talk about it.
Good points Derb. Not only is Gingrich clueless on illegal (and legal) immigration (e.g., his ridiculous "red card" amnesty scheme), he also was just caught in another lie when he mocked "self-deportation" while pandering, while (as Glenn Beck pointed out this morning) his top adviser praised this (common sense solution) just a couple of months ago.
Gingrich is repulsive on many levels, but his cluelessness and extreme pandering and support of amnesty is another reason why conservatives (and indepedents) cannot trust him.
And regarding legal immigration, you are of course correct that the reporting and groupthink on this issue is pathetic, beyond Orwellian.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWe can't talk about it on account of the flies.
You know, the ones buzzing around the pile of....
You know, the pile of... that our public discourse has become.
Bzzzz.....bzzzzz...
WAD.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Immigration is very good for the economy. That's been empirically proved."
So was World War II. Let's invade Canada.
My personal opinion is that we need to move away from Mr. Gingrinch, for some one was quite right to think he might be a modern day Aaron Burr. Oh, I would love the campaign and all, and he might do some good, but he has too great a felicity for dodging things for my liking.
As far as immigration, I think we just need to tear the country apart over the issue. If the other side doesn't mind doing so to get what they want, then neither do I.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSpeaking of data-free, what data make you think that every legal immigrant has a job - i.e., there are zero non-working dependents, that green card holders never lose their jobs, and that there's zero temporary or permanent emigration from the US?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJohn, as a math enthusiast (I don't know enough about higher mathematics anymore to be a math guy in my own estimation) I'm always suspect when such perfect numbers come up in the real world.
I see that your source is using government statistics however I seriously doubt that 92% of all jobs created in the US are being given to non-citizens and suspect that he is using incompatible data sets. I see that he also cites the CIS, which as I recall said something similar about all jobs created in Texas, which the Texas Public Policy Foundation debunked (found at External Link
). I suspect similar rigor could (and should) be applied to the numbers cited.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere is no evidence that 92% of the jobs created in the last two years went to foreigners. A work permit is not a job. It's possible to get a work permit but not a job. So your argument fails the most basic of logical tests.
Furthermore, jobs are not a zero-sum game. One more job for an immigrant is not necessarily one job less for a citizen. If you believe that, then you believe the following are impossible situations: a.) a store chain hires an immigrant to be store manager. The immigrant turns out to be a good manager, improving sales which allows the store to hire three more clerks, two of which are American Citizens. b.) the fresh food industry reduces its labor costs which allows it to reduce food prices, which allow consumers to use a higher percentage of their disposable income to buy higher value-added products which tend to employ American citizens.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGreat post by John Derbyshire, but even more detailed is his Taki article:
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseExternal Link
Respectfully, F.r.
Mr. Derbyshire stated " That’s nice: but with 125,000 work permits being given to foreigners every month, only 8 percent of those 3 million jobs went to American citizens. Where is the sense in that?"
As he is hectoring politics for being ill-informed, it would behoove Mr. Derbyshire to inform himself and correct the above misleading statement.
The 125,000 work permits given to foreigners per month is the number of green cards given to foreigners every month. That does not mean that every single one of the 125,000 permanent residents immediately got a job. It simply means that every month, the United States adds 125,000 people as permanent residents.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMr. Derbyshire,
If 125,000 work permits are given to foreigners every month, it is in part because companies have not been able to find Americans with the set of skills that they are looking for. Doesn't the government put strict guidelines and requirements to grant a work visa? (company- sponsored). Something like having to prove that the companies weren't able to find suitable American candidates for the job, including posting the vacancies for a number of days in different media and interviewing candidates, etc.
Take for example, engineering PhD's for R&D jobs: have you peeked into an engineering school classroom and seen how many Americans are actually going for a PhD (or masters or even bachelor's) in engineering? And I don't mean trying to profile or guess the students' citizenship, I mean actually asking around. Believe me, I have seen it first hand, I'm an engineer.
The same happened with school teachers (at least in Texas) not too long ago. School districts couldn't find qualified (or willing) Americans to take that job and they had to issue work permits to foreigners to come an teach. Sometimes, a work visa can turn into a green card in a few years (provided that the worker goes through a cumbersome process).
I am no pro-amnesty person or anything remotely close but, as an American citizen, it is hard for me not to justify the companies sponsoring foreigners if they can't find the talent they need here.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMr. Derbyshire,
If 125,000 work permits are given to foreigners every month, it is in part because companies have not been able to find Americans with the set of skills that they are looking for. Doesn't the government put strict guidelines and requirements to grant a work visa? (company- sponsored). Something like having to prove that the companies weren't able to find suitable American candidates for the job, including posting the vacancies for a number of days in different media and interviewing candidates, etc.
Take for example, engineering PhD's for R&D jobs: have you peeked into an engineering school classroom and seen how many Americans are actually going for a PhD (or masters or even bachelors) in engineering? And I don't mean trying to profile or guess the students' citizenship, I mean actually asking around. Believe me, I have seen it first hand, I'm an engineer.
The same happened with school teachers (at least in Texas) not too long ago. School districts couldn't find qualified (or willing) Americans to take that job and they had to issue work permits to foreigners to come an teach. Sometimes, a work visa can turn into a green card in a few years (provided that the worker goes through a cumbersome process).
I am no pro-amnesty person or anything remotely close but, as an American citizen, it is hard for me not to justify the companies sponsoring foreigners if they can't find the talent they need here.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse