In a recent story intended to be serious, the Wall Street Journal identified Eva Longoria as a Washington D.C. “power player.” And all this time, I thought the Journal prided itself on serious journalism. Fooled me!
Longoria, former star of the night time soap opera Desperate Housewives is hobnobbing with President Obama and other Washington elites to push for her favorite cause, amnesty for the 11 million aliens living illegally in the United States.
The Texas-born Longoria’s only political credentials that allow her to access Washington’s inner sanctum are the millions she and her wealthy Hollywood friends donated to President Obama’s re-election campaign. In fact, because of her dubious but often repeated claim to have long ago lived a life as a Mayan princess, Longoria is the type from which a serious person might want to distance himself.
Because of her wealth and high visibility, Longoria has a platform. From it, Longoria preaches that immigration is, to use the words she and other advocates constantly use, “a broken system” that needs to be “fixed.” Furthermore, according to Longoria, the Republicans need to play ball because fixing immigration is their moral and economic imperative.
Longoria’s “fix” is predictable—a sweeping amnesty for everyone regardless of the consequences on 20 million unemployed Americans, including Hispanics.
Consider these daunting Hispanic employment statistics conveniently overlooked by amnesty proponents including Longoria: one in four Hispanics live in poverty, 2 million more than impoverished African-Americans. Hispanic-American’s broad unemployment rate, what the Bureau of Labor Statistics refers to as the U-6 category that includes discouraged workers who have given up looking for jobs and those forced into part-time jobs, is 19 percent.
Amnesty grants work authorization to millions previously unemployable because of their immigration status and would devastate Hispanics here legally. Competition with new immigrants for jobs is most intense for Hispanics under 30 without a college degree. The U-6 unemployment rate is 28 percent for Hispanics with a high school diploma, 40 percent for those without a degree and 45 percent for teens looking for their first job. Adding roughly 11 million new workers into a market already saturated with unemployed Americans of all ages and ethnicities is unconscionable.
I agree with Longoria that the federal immigration policy should be fixed. But here’s how I’d do it. I’d repeal birthright citizenship, the foolish practice that gives American citizenship to every child born in the United States regardless of the circumstances under which the parent is in the country. Most industrial nations ended jus soli, which perpetuates illegal immigration, years ago.
I’d also end chain migration, eliminate the useless Diversity Visa as well as the fraud ridden fiancée, religious and other abused non-immigrant worker visas like the H-1B and J categories. The 1966 Cuban Refugee Adjustment Act is hopelessly outdated and like birthright citizenship should also be repealed.
At the same time, I’d impose real border security and demand mandatory E-Verify to assure that every American worker is legally eligible to hold a job.
Sadly, however, I’m not hearing so much as a peep about my reasonable plan from the White House, Senate Democrats or the ethnic identity lobby in which Longoria plays a prominent role.
Ironically, as it turns out, La Raza activist Longoria isn’t Mexican at all. When Longoria agreed to participate in a DNA test for PBS as part of its Faces of America broadcast, the results showed she is of mostly European ancestry.
The desperate ones in this sad act are not the housewives that Longoria once portrayed but the politicians who don’t want to miss an opportunity to advance their hurtful amnesty agenda by whatever available means.
Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow whose columns have been syndicated since 1986