Proponents of unchecked immigration have a long history of labeling anyone and everyone who advocates for limits on immigration and for the rule of law. In the early 2000s, it began with the Southern Poverty Law Center labeling just about every organization calling for reducing immigration or enforcing immigration laws as “hate groups.”
Inevitably, when accusations are tossed around indiscriminately, the ugly “hate group” charge begins to lose its impact. People eventually dismissed these scurrilous charges because it was plainly evident that they had no basis in fact. In recent years, the far-left cancel culture machine has adopted a new tactic to marginalize advocates of immigration policies that are, in fact, mainstream.
Suddenly, anyone who speaks about the need to control immigration has become part of a grand white nationalist conspiracy to sell the American public on the idea known as “The Great Replacement Theory.” The far right fringe may have picked it up and run with it in an effort to justify their hateful ideologies, but the Great Replacement Theory was actually conjured up by Democratic Party strategists some 20 years ago who thought that importing lots of immigrants would be their key to long-term electoral success. And just last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, in a news conference on the front steps of the Capitol, articulated his own call for a great replacement.
Flanked by a group of illegal aliens and open-borders colleagues, Sen. Schumer declared his intention to push hard for a sweeping amnesty that would make citizens out of virtually every illegal alien in the country. His rationale for this effort is both erroneous and pernicious. The factually incorrect part of Schumer’s statement is his assertion that, “Now more than ever we are short of workers.” With a population of 330 million, and an anemic labor force participation rate of just 62.2 percent in October, we empirically do not lack for workers in this country.
Economics 101 also tells us that we are not “short of workers.” Wage growth for the past year checked in at 4.4 percent, or about half the rate of inflation. Had there been an actual labor shortage in the United States, the law of supply and demand would have dictated that wages would have at least kept pace with the cost of living, or even outpaced it. That did not happen and shows no sign of happening any time soon.
Then came the pernicious part, where the majority leader tells the American public that we need immigrants – lots and lots of them – to replace us, because we’re apparently not up to that task either. “[W]e have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to. The only way we’re going to have a great future in America is if we welcome and embrace immigrants – the Dreamers and all of them, because our ultimate goal is to help the Dreamers but [also] to get a path to citizenship for all 11 million or however many undocumented there are here.” The sky’s the limit, apparently.
In the words of the most powerful Democrat in Congress, the only way to ensure a bright future for America is to import as many non-Americans as we possibly can – legally, illegally, doesn’t matter – because we are either too lazy to work, or too self-absorbed to procreate a new generation. Or both. To paraphrase another brash New Yorker from back in his reality TV days, “Americans, you’re fired! Clear out your desks and make way for your replacements.”
One might have thought that based on Schumer’s grim assessment of the American people’s ability to fill jobs and compete in a global economy, he might have stood on the Capitol steps, flanked by American schoolchildren, and called for bold measures to improve the quality of public education in America, which is failing American kids at all levels. He might have offered a mea culpa or two for his party’s role in keeping American schools closed for the better part of two years, based on specious science and the behest of the teachers’ unions that wield enormous influence in his party.
But, alas, no. After securing his role as Senate majority leader for another two years, Schumer has made it clear that his most pressing priority – perhaps even during the lame duck session of Congress – is to announce that our “great future” hinges on granting citizenship to tens of millions of illegal aliens.
Did someone say, “Great Replacement Theory”?
Ira Mehlman is Media Director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.