Russell has reasonable approach to immigration
IN a recent column, conservative Jonah Goldberg argued that “reasonable politicians on both sides” need to get involved in the immigration debate, to bring some balance — and perhaps a productive result. U.S. Rep. Steve Russell is doing that, although he didn’t need Goldberg’s invitation.
As was the case in late 2015 when he criticized his colleagues over the decision to heighten screening for refugees from Syria and Iraq, Russell, R-Choctaw, wants members to forgo restrictionist leanings regarding immigration.
“If we use our passions, anger and fear to snuff out liberty’s flame by xenophobic and knee-jerk policies, the enemies of liberty win and what makes America exceptional dies — period,” Russell said on the House floor last week.
His remarks came as the House weighed two immigration bills. Members ultimately defeated both, including a compromise bill this week that would have provided “Dreamers” — immigrants brought here illegally by their parents — with a pathway to citizenship, included funding for President Trump’s border wall, and required that immigrant children be kept with their parents pending deportation decisions. A pathway to citizenship is considered “amnesty” by hard-liners, making it a virtual poison pill. The vote Wednesday on the bill was not close.
Russell included a history lesson in his remarks, noting immigration’s various ebbs and flows since the country’s founding. Today, he said, “Only .32 percent of our population are immigrants arriving annually.”
Policies proposed seek to “restrict already small percentages of our population to even smaller ones, despite the fact that our unemployment numbers are lower than our job openings for the first time in American history,” Russell argued.
He suggested lawmakers should work to secure the border and provide a permanent residency solution for Dreamers. “A bipartisan majority could readily vote for such a clean measure” and then Congress could work on other immigration issues.
Instead, he said, proposed solutions seek to “demonize family migration, accommodate only those with some station in life or those able to pay a million bucks to get a permanent residency and thus end the hopes of those wishing to come here legally with an already reduced system.”
Arguments that “immigrants are taking our jobs” or that chain migration is destroying the American way of life are bogus, Russell said. “Here’s the reality: The percentage of native-born workers to fuel our construction and agricultural economies do not exist. We can either import our workers or we can import our food.”
Traits associated with immigrants from south of the border include “strong in their faith,” “close-knit families” and “small-business entrepreneurs,” Russell noted — things he said he stands for as a conservative and fought for as an Army Ranger.
“Lady Liberty,” he said, “must continue to raise her arm and keep her torch burning brightly rather than exchange it for a stiff arm and a middle finger.”
Russell’s speech was powerful, and his suggestions reasonable. Unfortunately, reason is in short supply where immigration is concerned.