President Barack Obama is excluding people who lack citizenship or residency from his fundraising dinner tables, even though he is also inviting at least 800,000 illegal immigrants to compete against Americans for the few available jobs.
The president’s profiling is found in the fine print of his emailed invites to potential donors. Typically, the solicitations ask people to donate $3 in exchange for a chance to win a dinner with him, Michelle Obama and perhaps some other wealthy donors, such as Vogue editor Anna Wintour.
But his solicitations do not actually require would-be attendees to donate to his campaign, even as they profile would-be entrants to exclude those who might damage Obama’s popularity with critical voting blocs, including blue collar swing-voters and African-Americans.
The dinner table “promotion [is] open only to U.S. citizens, or lawful permanent U.S. residents who are legal residents of 50 United States, District of Columbia and Puerto Rico and 18 or older,” said the legalese in a June 26 solicitation.
That exclusion bars roughly 11 million Hispanics who are in the country illegally, as well as many Asians, Africans and Europeans who do not have residency or citizenship.
Obama is not legally obliged to exclude non-residents — such as tourists and temporary workers — or even illegal immigrants, from sitting at his lunch table.
That’s because his solicitations do not require people to make a political donation. “No purchase, payment, or contribution necessary to enter or win. Contributing will not improve chances of winning,” says the fine print.
In contrast, Obama’s main fundraising webpage seeks to comply with federal law by barring donations from non-citizens and non-residents.
The donations page asks would-be donors to confirm that “I am a United States citizen or a lawfully admitted permanent resident of the United States.”
Obama’s fellow progressives have long argued that any exclusion of illegal immigrants is bigotry.
“It is wrong to run away from immigrant communities … and their right to participate fully in the society they call home,” said Lisa Moore, a spokeswoman for the progressive-led National Domestic Workers Alliance.
The group is part of the progressives’ push for a nationwide amnesty of illegal immigrants.
“People of all immigration statuses are already playing a full role in the nation’s political and cultural life,” despite profiling by opponents, Moore told The Daily Caller.
“We are standing up against the kind of racism that this country has seen in its past and should move way from in the future,” she said.
Obama’s two-track policy prompted derision from critics.
“He wants us to accept [illegal immigration], but not at his fundraisers,” Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio told TheDC.
“It’s politics,” said Arpaio, whose own popularity has remained high because of his vigorous enforcement of state laws, amid much opposition from Obama’s appointees and political allies.
Since 2009, Obama and his deputies have tried to curb enforcement of federal and state laws against illegal immigration. For example, he has sharply cut back federal inspections of worksites where illegal immigrants were working in place of Americans.
On June 25, his deputies in the Department of Homeland Security announced they were cutting back on enforcement in Arizona, and would only deport illegal immigrants who had committed a felony or had recently crossed the border.
On June 15, Obama invited at least 800,000 younger illegal immigrants to apply for work permits that would allow them to compete for jobs against the 23 million unemployed and underemployed Americans. “It’s the right thing to do,” he said June 15 in the Rose Garden.
Critics say more than one million lower-skill illegals are eligible for the de facto amnesty, and that millions more have a huge incentive to submit fraudulent documents in pursuit of a work permit.
Obama issued the 800,000 invitations despite very high unemployment numbers among his base of Latinos and African-Americans. For example, less than half of adult African-Americans in New York City hold jobs, according to a June 22 report by The New York Times.
