History Repeats Itself: Once Again, Big Labor Puts a Bull’s-Eye on Immigration Reform

After Google’s decision to honor the leftist labor leader Cesar Chavez on Easter Sunday instead of Jesus Christ, I began to draw parallels from Chavez’s time to the present.  I was talking with Rusty Humphries on his radio program when it hit me.  With President Obama’s help, big labor is once again trying to stick it to the America and the immigrant community.

In my last article I set the record straight on Cesar Chavez.  I reminded people that he did help improve working conditions on America’s farms for legal and illegal folks.  In that regard, he was a decent labor leader.  But the white-washers of history have forgotten that Chavez was severely anti-illegal immigrant. He helped end a guest worker program called the Bracero Program.  He led a march to the Mexican border, with a Democrat U.S. Senator in tow, calling it the “wet line”.  He inspired hit squads to kick the crap out of illegals crossing the border to work.  And Chavez dehumanized the illegals by referring to them as “human contraband” in Congressional testimony.  Cesar Chavez did all of this because those illegals threatened the power of his union.  In the current debate over illegal immigration, big labor is once again plotting to scuttle reform, and this time they have help at the top.

In a recent interview with Univision, President Obama introduced a so-called poisoned pill into the illegal immigration debate.  He told Univision that he didn’t want to tie a pathway to citizenship for illegals to border security because the border, “is never going to be 110% perfect.”  It’s not the first time he’s done this.   Obama was blasted by the GOP and some Democrats for “leaking” his illegal and legal immigration plan, a plan devoid of border security, to the press.  It was a move that was seen as unproductive from all concerned.  Still, the White House talking points on sabotaging reform are already out.  Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is resisting any meaningful border security measures by refusing to come up with a metric to measure border security. But anyone who’s at all familiar with the reform debate knows that border security is the number one priority of well-meaning conservatives.  Most sane Americans are willing to back a path to legalization and perhaps citizenship, once they are assured that we won’t be back in this same spot twenty years from now.  Once Americans are assured that illegal immigration is slowed to a trickle, and not the raging river it has been in the past, they’ll buy in.  Obama and his allies in Big Labor know this.  So, in an effort to protect a key constituency of his base, Obama is willing to torpedo the reform effort by introducing measure he knows will be unacceptable by the GOP and conservatives.  This way, he can blame Republicans, knowing the compliant press would be all-to-willing to help.  Just one problem with that plan Mr. Obama: Many of us don’t get our news from NBC, and we’re all paying attention.

Just like back in the 60s and 70s, big labor is attacking the immigrant community in an effort to protect its power. The AFL-CIO is solidly against a guest worker program in any reform deal.  The unions, in particular public employee unions, get their economic strength from exorbitant wages, gold-plated benefits packages and the dues they rake in from their members.  In turn those dues, some of them tax payer funded, go to Democrat candidates.  Once again President Obama and his party are solidly in Big Labor’s camp.  And once again they’re willing to throw America under the bus by not allowing a fix to the nation’s broken illegal and legal immigration systems.  But, I offer a word of caution to our esteemed president and Democrats.  The Latino demographic is the fastest growing in the U.S.  Thankfully, union influence is at historic lows and continuing to fall.  Liberals might want to choose sides carefully.  I can assure you, we’re watching.