Powerful billionaires don’t like to take “no” for an answer when they insist upon cheaper labor for their money-making enterprises. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has a net worth of $30 billion, but he still wants to dump capable American workers for cheaper foreign ones. The latest foray is an ad with the usual litany of lies, promising all good stuff with no mention of doubling legal immigration or worsened job competition for US workers.
The billionaires are patient but they see a squishy GOP leadership in the House and mean to take advantage when they can. John Boehner had a meeting with President Obama on February 25 and the Speaker remarked that the topic they agreed most upon was immigration.
It was a signal from the Speaker that he could be bought, er, convinced. Congressman Steve King suggested recently that the GOP leadership may be planning to shove through an amnesty during a lame duck session. Boehner would be crazy to splinter the party with a crucial election coming up, but he would certainly be rewarded by the open-borders billionaires if he made amnesty/legalization with work permits happen.
Facebook-linked group pushes GOP on immigration, Politico, March 3, 2014
The advocacy group linked to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is going after House Republicans with a new ad prodding them to act on immigration reform this year.
The 60-second spot called “Do Nothing,” released Monday, takes a notably tougher tone against the House GOP by putting blame on Republicans for stalling reform in Congress this year. The ad buy from the Council for American Job Growth, an affiliate of the Zuckerberg-backed FWD.us, totals about $500,000 and will run in all 50 states for two weeks, according to a person familiar with the buy.
“No one debates we need to fix our broken immigration system. Republican leaders know it. They’ve even said so time and again,” the ad’s narrator says. “So why are House Republicans cooling, retreating and even privately saying they’d rather do nothing this year?”
The ad argues that inaction on immigration reform “puts jobs on ice” and makes the country lose tax revenue that could be used to fund education and infrastructure projects. It also invokes so-called Dreamers, who were brought to the United States as children and are generally the most sympathetic group of undocumented immigrants.
Doing nothing on reform “sends a message to millions of Dreamers who study hard and want to serve our country: They might as well dream on,” the ad’s narrator says. The spot closes by urging viewers to call House Republicans and pressure them to pass immigration reform.
House Republican leaders unveiled a one-page list of principles for reform in January, but a rewrite of the nation’s immigration laws have largely been put on hold amid protests from conservatives about taking up the politically sensitive issue in an election year. GOP lawmakers also say their deep-rooted distrust of President Barack Obama makes them reticent about passing new immigration laws – a reason that Democrats and other pro-reform advocates have largely dismissed as an excuse.
But leadership hasn’t completely frozen the prospects of immigration reform. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who threw cold water on the prospects of an overhaul last month, told a forum in Piqua, Ohio, over the weekend that he was still committed to solving the issue.
“I didn’t suggest it was going to be easy, I know it’s going to be hard that’s why it’s still hanging around,” Boehner said then, according to a report from Civitas Media. “So for the last 15 months, I’ve been trying to move the ball down the field, only to be tackled by people that just don’t want to deal with it.”
