Talk about trying to focus on keeping the coffee creamy! A Republican Senator from Massachusetts has decided to push through legislation that would allow 10,500 Irish nationals to come to the US to work each year.
Forget the millions of Latino, Caribbean, African and other migrants working here already in the most back breaking of jobs; let’s bring in the Irish.
Let me be clear – I have nothing against Irish nationals or against the 40 million Americans who identify themselves as being of Irish descent. That is not the issue here. The matter that has me hopping is the hypocrisy of Republicans like Senator Scott Brown.
It’s ok to say the brown and black migrants slaving in fields, restaurant kitchens and super markets are taking away jobs from Americans and should be deported, but it’s fine to bring in over 10,000 Irish – pardon me – European migrants – each year to a country that has a high unemployment rate, has 12 million immigrants who need to come out of the shadows and whose economy is in tatters. So much for the FAIR argument that we should stop immigration all together due to over population; let’s bring in more white migrants to ensure the coffee stays creamy!
Brown’s bill would make Irish nationals eligible for a special visa program created in 2005 to allow up to 10,500 high-skilled Australians to come to the United States on temporary work visas known as E-3 visas. The program grew out of a trade pact with Australia, but it was also seen as a reward for a country that supported US military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The program allows skilled workers with job offers from US employers to get a two-year work visa that can be renewed indefinitely. Workers with an E-3 visa can bring their spouses and children with them. Their spouses also can work legally in the United States.
From where I sit, this is a blatant political and racist move. One is to whiten the population of the US, where the minority is fast becoming the majority, and the other is to build a base for the Republicans so they can continue ensuring that their all-Caucasian voting bloc remains secured.
Suddenly, we are being fed Kool-Aid that says the bill is simply to help reverse discrimination against Irish nationals that was inadvertently created by a 1965 overhaul of the U.S. immigration system. Really?
That’s almost half a century ago!
Sadly, we have Democrats like New York Senator Chuck Schumer drinking the Kool-Aid and buying into the Brown crap.
It is utter hypocrisy, especially since Brown opposes any measure that would provide a pathway to citizenship for the nearly 12 million undocumented immigrants already in the United States and is against the Dream Act, which would provide legal status to children of illegal immigrant parents if the children enroll in college or serve in the U.S. military.
Brown’s spokesman has dismissed criticisms over the bill, insisting that the senator cares about all immigrants and supports a bipartisan House-passed immigration bill that would remove the current limit on the number of legal permanent residents who may be admitted to the US in any given year from a single country.
What about a bill that would allow the immigrants living undocumented in the US and their spouses and children who pay taxes, learn English and have jobs to remains here on a work visa indefinitely? That is the solution to the issue of illegal immigration – plain and simple.
“Politicians don’t agree on much, but even less so during an election year. But this year, they think they found an immigration issue that everyone can agree on; allowing more Irish immigrants into the US … Bottom line? This is discrimination. There isn’t any other way to describe it,” said Rifkin & Fox-Isicoff, PA, an immigration law firm with offices in Miami and Orlando, Florida.
“Which is it? Equal access to the ability to obtain citizenship or selective access to the ability to get citizenship status? It ‘looks’ like selective access, and as a nation, we should have a problem with that. As immigration attorneys, we do have a problem with that, for good reasons.”
We all should have a problem with this. Discrimination is illegal last time I checked and discriminating against immigrants, simply because some are lighter than others is completely unacceptable. Brown and his bi-partisan supporters should be ashamed of themselves.
The writer is founder of NewsAmericasNow, CaribPR Wire and Hard Beat Communications.
