Establishment Republican Gov. Mike DeWine (OH) and socialist New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani are both ignoring the interests of American citizens as they lobby President Donald Trump to stop the return of Haitian migrants back to their island home.
“American citizenship doesn’t confer any priority… in the views of these business lobbyists and certainly the left,” responded Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies. He added:
Business on ostensibly the right and the progressives on the left are joined at the hip on immigration … [because they believe] immigrants are just better than Americans… That’s really what it boils down to.
DeWine’s August 10 appeal to Trump was posted by the New York Times, and was focused on business’ preference for more human resources — consumers, renters, and workers, without regard to the interests of Ohio’s taken-for-granted American citizens.
“In our state, very simply, we need people,” DeWine said, adding:
In Springfield, Ohio, Haitian nationals have played a major role in the city’s economic comeback. They’ve filled jobs, repaired homes, paid taxes, started businesses and supported their families. But the administration has ended their Temporary Protected Status, a move I have vocally opposed.
…Among the reforms [Trump] should consider supporting: Establishing new pathways to extend the legal status of foreign students who graduate with advanced STEM degrees, essentially stapling a green card to their diplomas; reworking the H-1B visa program to better prioritize workers whose skills and experience are essential to American businesses; and equipping employers with modern, reliable tools to verify work eligibility.
Mamdani’s August 7 statement similarly ignored citizens and citizenship while touting the economy and the migrants critical to his Red/Green political machine:
The Haitian community is an indispensable part of New York City. Many of these TPS holders have lived here for decades. They fled earthquakes, famine, war, and political violence. They arrived in New York and built lives, raised families, and started small businesses. Their contributions to the health care, construction, and hospitality industries, among so many others, help drive our economic strength. Their art, food, culture, and families help make ours the greatest city on earth.
“The President should exercise his authority to benefit all New Yorkers and protect our economy and provide certainty for employers and communities,” he added, notably omitting any reference to American citizens.
“The goal of both the left and the DeWine people is… to blur the difference between someone who’s an American citizen and someone who isn’t,” said Krikorian. “That should be a bright-line difference.”
“In a democracy, the only reason the government exists is to promote the interests of citizens,” Krikorian said, adding:
We’re talking about self-government by the American people through their constitutional processes. They are the ones, in the end, who decide what’s going to happen with their country … But more and more of [governance] is essentially taken out of the hands of the people. You’re not self-governing if illegal immigrants have some kind of overarching right into your country, which is the case the left makes and also the case the more ideological corporate side also makes.
“Respect for foreigners is good — it’s just that you need to establish a priority,” Krikorian added.
“Migration policy — legal, illegal, temporary, everything — should center the question of, ‘How does this benefit Americans?’” said Mike Howell, president of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. He added:
The fact that Mike DeWine is speaking in those [pro-Haitian] terms out loud tells you everything you need to know that this has become normalized in this country, that the corruption is endemic.
It is time that Americans start treating this [pro-migrant policy] as corruption, and start viewing these members of Congress, governors — and others who are doing the bidding for quasi-slave labor lobbies — as a corrupt exercise, which has no place in our constitutional Republic.
“America is for Americans… There are times when [immigration] is needed, and times when it’s not,” he added.
Apart from President Donald Trump, many establishment politicians and activists on the right and left champion migrants over citizens.
The decades-long elite push to downgrade citizenship has shaped public opinion.
An August poll by YouTube asked Americans, “How important do you think each of the following is for being truly American?”
Only 43 percent of Democrats said citizenship is “very important” to being “truly American.” In comparison, 86 percent of GOP supporters said citizenship is “very important.”
Just 59 percent of Democrats said it is very important “to respect American political institutions and laws,” compared to 88 percent of GOP supporters.
In a question about diversity, 75 percent of Democrats say a society is stronger “when its culture evolves over time.” Just 31 percent of GOP voters agreed. The polling company noted that Democrats are uninterested in assimilation, saying:
Assimilation is almost exclusively mentioned by Republicans. Learning English and adopting American customs and laws appear regularly in Republican answers and almost never in Democratic ones — the same divide the survey finds when it asks directly what it takes to be truly American.
Small-scale business executives are less ideological than elite groups about using migration to weaken the power of citizenship, Krikorian said. “Most businessmen, especially at the small business level, are just thinking about the next payroll,” he said.
But many CEOs complain that Americans won’t work tough jobs, Krikorian said, adding:
They have a grain of truth in their message that can resonate with people — look, there are a lot of Americans who are frankly pretty lazy, and there are a lot of immigrants who are not just better workers… just more constructive members of society than a lot of Americans. I mean, that’s just true.
But if that’s where your discussion ends, then you’re saying the American government doesn’t owe its own citizens anything more than it owes foreigners everywhere in the world.
Is it that the immigrants are better workers than the Americans who are not working and available for businesses to try to hire? Or do the many Americans who have their shit together already have jobs and don’t want to do gut work at minimum wage?
The shift against citizenship and sovereignty is recent, Krikorian said:
There used to be the patriotic left when it was focused on economic issues, you know, the old AFL-CIO. There were patriotic businessmen as well, and there still are… [These days] sovereignty is the shared enemy of corporations and the left.
Now each one thinks it’s pulling something over on the other, or some businesses kind of chortle at the dopeyness of the left. But I think the left is right in assessing that in the long run they will be able to change politics enough — partly through immigration — that they can then put their current business allies up against the wall.
The anti-citizen claims are driven by the particular priorities of major investors, libertarians, progressives, and migrants. But Krikorian did not have a term to describe the political groups that champion the citizens of each country over non-citizens.
“There’s really no good word for it because it’s almost a tautology,” he said, adding:
The only reason countries exist, the only reason governments exist… is to promote the interests of their own people… But I’m fine with nationalism… [or] you could call it citizenism.
“Citizen-centric politicians,” suggested Howell.
Read the full article here