How do you make an illegal alien into an American citizen? You pretend there’s no difference between the two.
Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff believes there’s no difference between an illegal alien and an American citizen and that federal authorities need to protect illegals from “exploitation.”
Ossoff made the comments to an audience member who claimed to be a DREAMer — someone who arrived in the United States illegally at a young age, but, thanks to the Obama-era program — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — the government refuses to deport them.
A young woman at a campaign event Sunday identified herself as a “Dreamer,” a beneficiary of the controversial Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The policy allows people who grew up in the U.S. after being brought to the country illegally as children to remain.
The woman told the candidate she lived in fear of being separated from her daughter or deported, then asked him what his plan was for people like her.
“Dreamers, DACA recipients are every bit as American as any of us, and I will have your back in the U.S. Senate,” Ossoff said.
They very well could be as “American as any of us” and that young woman wouldn’t have to live in fear of being deported if she left the United States and applied for reentry legally. It’s harder. It takes longer. It’s inconvenient to deal with the immigration bureaucracy.
But they’d be as legal as any of us and in no danger of being deported. Instead of hiding in the shadows, they could begin to work toward being an American citizen.
That’s how immigrants have done it in the past. It worked pretty well for them and native-born citizens. But politicians like Ossoff figured out long ago that telling illegal aliens they were just like citizens and legal residents was good politics.
Ossoff also seems to think that ICE is part of the Labor Department and polices the working conditions of illegals.
“In Georgia’s agricultural sector, the campesinos (farm workers) who work in the fields, enduring some of the most brutal conditions of labor anywhere in this country to keep America fed, paid less than the minimum wage, [are] often subject to abuse by employers,” he said. “When federal agents arrive at one of these farms it should be to make sure people are being paid the minimum wage, working in humane conditions.”
It’s a novel approach for the immigration enforcement agency. In fact, farmworkers are not paid hourly, but, depending on what they’re harvesting, by the “piece rate.” It might be by the bag or the bushel but it works out that without too much effort, farmworkers can make close to the minimum wage. And if they want to work harder, they get paid more.
But Ossoff isn’t arguing for or against how farmworkers are paid, he’s claiming jurisdiction over labor issues for ICE. ICE probably has enough to do without policing wages for illegals, so it wouldn’t be a good idea.
Senator Perdue should use that video in his campaign commercials to highlight his differences on the issue of who’s an American and who isn’t.
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