Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a likely 2016 GOP presidential candidate, is marching forward with his bold new pro-American worker immigration policy. He’s not afraid to push for a legal immigration system that doesn’t box out American workers with a massive influx of inexpensive foreign labor.
After first rolling out his new ideas on Glenn Beck’s radio program on Monday, Walker appeared on Fox News’ Megyn Kelly’s show to further elaborate on how he hopes to protect Americans economically from special interests pushing for a massive influx in cheap foreign labor from around the world.
“When it comes to immigration, as a governor I don’t have any direct role in that—but having talked to border state governors and having talked to other people, seeing how screwed up immigration has become under this president, it was clear to me talking to them and listening on this issue, traveling to the border actually going there with the governor of Texas Gov. Abbott, seeing the problems there, yeah from my standpoint going forward we need to secure the border, we need to enforce the laws that we currently have with an e-verify system,” Walker said.
“You’re pretty much in line with the other Republican candidates on this,” Kelly asked as a follow-up.
“Well the one thing they’re not saying is we need to make sure as part of that any future legal immigration system that goes forward has to account for American citizens and the workers of this country and their wages to make sure that even with legal immigration in this country we respond to it in a way that doesn’t take jobs away from hardworking Americans,” Walker added, separating himself from the rest of the 2016 field.
Since Walker has moved forward with this new strong pro-American worker position on immigration, he’s been berated by strongholds of the liberal establishment including MSNBC, Mother Jones magazine and the Huffington Post.
The Huffington Post attacked Walker in a blaring headline on Monday night: “Scott Walker Tacks Far Right On Immigration.”
In the piece, written by Igor Bobic, the Huffington Post argues that Walker “may be hoping to placate conservatives wary over his previous support for a pathway to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants.”
Walker’s strategy is somewhat reminiscent of then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who, faced with similar questions over his devotion to the conservative cause in 2011, memorably tacked far right of his GOP rivals by endorsing “self-deportation.”
Yet not even Romney, who lost the Latino vote to Obama by more than 40 percentage points in November 2012, supported curbing legal immigration, a concept at the core of what it means to be American. Walker’s pivot to the general election, if he makes it that far, could prove difficult, given that he will need to seek the votes of many Americans who immigrated here themselves — or whose parents or grandparents did so.
There are several things wrong with what Bobic wrote, but for starters, what Walker is proposing is an immigration policy that ensures American workers and legal immigrants already here have jobs before new foreign workers are brought into the country to compete for scarce employment opportunities.
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Poster Comment:
Lies, damned lies, and pandering.
Walker was the only GOP wannabe so far I didn't hate. Was.