Letters page
Welcome to the OFIR Letters and Op-Eds section. Here you can read Letters to the Editor and Op-Eds that have been published in various newspapers and news sources.
Last week, culminating five months of effort by hundreds of volunteers, the group Protect Oregon Driver Licenses presented more than 70,000 voters' signatures to the secretary of state's office. What those signatures will do: assure a place on next year's ballot for a referendum measure to repeal Senate Bill 833, the state law passed in May that grants "driver cards" to illegal immigrants.
I am one of the referendum's chief sponsors. Why did my compatriots and I undertake this effort? Because SB833 undercuts federal efforts to regulate immigration, unemployed Oregonians' hopes of finding jobs and police and sheriffs' work to interdict drugs.
Read LaMountain's entire guest opinion about driver cards for illegal aliens.
Oregon Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden have joined the Gang of Eight in supporting Senate Bill 744. The bill, termed comprehensive immigration reform by some and amnesty by others, is unconscionable legislation, considering that the seasonally adjusted number of unemployed U.S. citizens stood at 11.5 million in August — 7.3 percent of the civilian labor force.
According the Pew Hispanic Center’s 2011 report, “Unauthorized Immigrant Population: National and State Trends, 2010,” there are 8 million unauthorized workers in the United States.
With so many American citizens looking for work and 8 million unauthorized workers holding the jobs that many citizens will do, the Senate’s legislation seems oblivious at best to the plight of the unemployed.
Two negative consequences of SB 744 are revealed in a June report by the Congressional Budget Office, which indicates the legislation would cause unemployment to increase through 2020 and average wages to decline through 2025.
A Sept. 20 news release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Regional and State Employment and Unemployment — August,” reveals unemployment rates in the states represented by the Gang of Eight, plus their Oregon sidekicks: Oregon, 8.1 percent; Arizona, 8.3 percent; Colorado, 7 percent; Florida, 7 percent; Illinois, 9.2 percent; New Jersey, 8.5 percent; New York, 7.6 percent; and South Carolina, 8.1 percent. Six of the eight states had unemployment rates higher than the national average.
When Merkley and Wyden returned home from Washington, D.C., this summer, they apparently failed to take a look at the number of unemployed in their state. The Oregon Department of Employment reported 150,259 citizens were unemployed in August; the state ranked 10th, tied with three others, for the percentage of unemployed.
Locally, Lane County’s 13,644 unemployed in August equaled 8 percent of the county’s work force and constituted 9.1 percent of the state’s unemployed.
Twenty-nine of 36 Oregon counties had higher unemployment rates in August than the national average of 7.3 percent, including Lane, Douglas and Coos counties. Twelve of those 29 counties had double-digit unemployment.
Back to the Pew Hispanic Center report, according to which there are an estimated 110,000 unauthorized workers in Oregon. If SB 744 becomes law and those 110,000 unauthorized workers are added to the state’s civilian labor force, the CBO report suggests that the state’s unemployment rate can be expected to increase. That would be a setback for a state still struggling to come out of a severe recession.
The U.S. House of Representatives should take a more incremental approach and first pass stand-alone legislation requiring a federally mandated national employment verification system such as E-Verify, which the federal government currently uses on all its new hires.
With Congress now back in session, Oregon’s 150,259 unemployed U.S. citizens should contact Merkley and Wyden, along with Rep. Peter DeFazio, and tell them that Oregonians never should have to compete for scarce jobs, now or in the future, with persons who are illegally in the country, and furthermore, that a stand-alone federally mandated E-Verify system is the best way to get unemployed people in Oregon and across the country back to full-time work.
David Olen Cross of Salem (docfnc@yahoo.com) writes on immigration issues and foreign national crime.
Today, the group Protect Oregon Driver Licenses will present tens of thousands of voters’ signatures to the Secretary of State’s office. What those signatures will do: assure a place on next year’s ballot for a referendum measure to repeal the recently passed state law granting “driver cards” to illegal immigrants.
Among the referendum’s objectives is to deny illegal immigrants a means by which they can take and keep jobs from working-class Oregonians. But one of the referendum’s chief foes is those Oregonians’ reputed champion — the state branch of the AFL-CIO. In a recent soapbox, branch president Tom Chamberlain pledged his federation to “fight against” the referendum (“Washington County workers face many challenges,” Sept. 12 edition).
To understand the irony of this, let’s examine how illegal immigrants impact Oregon workers.
In August, reported the Oregon Employment Department, more than 150,000 Oregonians were unemployed. A reason for that: according to this year’s estimate of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, some 120,000 illegal immigrants hold Oregon jobs.
These jobs are largely in fields like food services, construction and building maintenance/groundskeeping — fields in which, the Pew Hispanic Center reports, illegal immigrants recently have comprised 12 percent, 17 percent and 19 percent of the workforces. Though labor-intensive, they are jobs that can and do provide valuable work experience, decent livings and upward mobility to young, minority and many other Oregonians. Why, then, does the AFL-CIO want to protect driving privileges for illegal immigrants — privileges that would better enable them to take these jobs from our own people?
Many working Oregonians are parents of teenagers. For years, Oregon teens routinely held part-time and summer employment — positions that gave them the entry-level work experience that Reese Lord of the WorkSystems teen-placement program has called “the foundation for a family-wage job.”
But “in the past 10 years,” reported the Portland Tribune in July, “summer youth employment dropped from 46 percent to 7 percent.” A large part of the reason? Over that same period, FAIR and other sources estimate, Oregon’s illegal-immigrant population roughly doubled — and, writes the Center for Immigration Studies’ Steven A. Camarota, “immigrants and teenagers often do the same kind of work.” By fighting to protect illegal-immigrant driver cards, the AFL-CIO will harm Oregon teens’ chances to find work in their own state.
Last, consider illegal-immigrant jobholders’ impact on the wages of low-skilled, low-income Americans — an impact that has been recognized and documented for decades. In a seminal 2004 study, Harvard professor George Borjas estimated that “between 1980 and 2000, immigration reduced the average annual earnings of... natives without a high-school education... by 7.4 percent” — and that half or more of that reduction was due to competition with illegal immigrants. More recently, write FAIR’s Eric A. Ruark and Matthew Graham, even the liberal Center for American Progress has admitted that “reducing the illegal-alien population in the United States by one-third would raise the income of unskilled workers by $400 a year.” Driver cards would enable illegal immigrants to reach jobs in our state more easily — and to continue their depressive impact on Oregonians’ wages.
In fighting the referendum effort to repeal driver cards, the AFL-CIO betrays its responsibility to the working-class Oregonians it purports to represent — and to add insult to injury, does so with union members’ dues money. AFL-CIO members and other Oregonians should contact Mr. Chamberlain and voice their displeasure — and tell him that next year, they will vote to repeal driver cards for illegal immigrants.
Richard F. LaMountain is vice president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform and a chief petitioner of the referendum effort to repeal illegal-immigrant driver cards. He lives in Cedar Mill.
Regarding recent articles about children of Spanish descent not learning English, why should they learn our language? They don’t have to in school because the classes are either all in Spanish for them or they are bilingual.
I helped with the read-a-thon at Auburn Elementary School a number of years ago and there was a table of books written in Spanish. Why would children even bother to learn English if they aren’t required to?
Do you have any idea how much money would be saved if everyone had to know English (which is our language) upon entering school?
I don’t see anyone catering to the other nationalities, so why to the Spanish-speaking ones? I just don’t get it. And I know that I am not the only one questioning this.
Go to Mexico and see if they will let your child go to school and provide English-speaking teachers. I think not. My husband was there on business and he had to hire an interpreter.
On that same topic, here’s my pet peeve: Why, when I make a phone call, do I have to press “1” to speak English?
Jo-Ann Pittman
Salem
I applaud the ambition of President Obama’s second-term goals, but his pledges to reduce America’s economic inequality and to rein in climate change are undermined by the Senate’s immigration bill. Granted, the proposed comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) offers a political bonanza to Democratic strategists. The resulting population growth, however, will make it much harder to restrain our income gap and greenhouse emissions. In his July 24 speech, Obama deviated from his text to say, “The wealthy are doing better while the middle class is struggling and others are faring worse.” This puts him at odds with the Wall Street crowd, as do his concerns about climate change. On the Whitehouse.gov website, the president calls on Americans to “believe in the overwhelming judgment of science — and act before it’s too late.”
But has Obama consulted the judgment of science about how population growth is increasing America’s carbon output? Scientists know that only increased emissions will result when you add millions more people to a culture stubbornly clinging to a lifestyle framed by acquiring, consuming and emitting.
And then there is the science of economics. At its core stands the power that supply and demand have on wages and the cost of living. Wall Street sings the praises of legislation offering new waves of cheap labor but increasing the labor supply in the midst of the slowest job-market recovery since World War II will not shower affluence upon struggling poor and middle-class families.
It seems Obama views continued U.S. population growth as desirable. A recent report from the president’s Council of Economic Advisers claims, “Immigrants increase the size of the population and thus of the labor force and customer base, making an important contribution to economic growth.” Well, that sounds reasonably scientific, but context matters, and today’s population growth occurs in a context that clearly favors the wealthy.
Perhaps Obama also believes that U.S. population growth is slowing down significantly, a claim put forth by those who see continued growth as helpful to their own interests. While it’s true that demographic increase is slowing in the developed world, the United States is at odds with that trend. Since 1980, the population of the European Union has grown by only 10 percent, while the U.S. population has grown by 40 percent, adding 90 million people. Furthermore, the United States is expected to add another 100 million people by 2060, while the E.U. population remains virtually stable.
This rapid demographic growth resulted from increases in legal immigration passed in 1990 at the behest of business interests who worried that our projected expansion was insufficiently robust. Today, rapid immigration stands as a baseline that CIR would further expand.
Thanks to supply-side analysis since the Reagan administration, continued population growth has attained a mystical halo in policy circles. Many insist that such growth in itself creates sufficient economic energy to bestow prosperity upon current residents and newcomers alike. In the context of today’s economic struggles, this is just a smiley face painted on self-serving policy visions favored by those hoping to further increase their own fortunes.
The current debate about immigration focuses on the status of some 11 million undocumented people and ignores the mathematical horsepower that legal immigration commands in driving our population growth. The Pew Research Center estimated in 2008 that immigrants and their descendents will contribute about 82 percent of the growth in the U.S. population between now and the midpoint of this century. So what we decide about immigration will determine our future population size. We owe it to future generations to expand our national debate to include this neglected facet of immigration policy.
In his July 24 speech, the president also promised to use “whatever executive authority” he has “to help the middle class.” I hope Obama takes a moment to observe the parallel tracks between our nation’s numerical population growth and the decline of the middle class over the past 30 years. And he needs to appreciate that history will judge him less on his legislative achievements today than on the effects of that legislation on the economic equality and climate stability witnessed by future generations.
Whatever is decided about the undocumented, the best approach to reining in America’s growing disparity and its disproportionate greenhouse emissions would be to reduce immigration to a degree consistent with a stable U.S. population.
Mark Powell is co-chairman of the New England Coalition for Sustainable Population and vice president of Vermonters for Sustainable Population.
The oft-repeated phrase “political correctness” has become the death knell for meaningful debate within American society.
The P.C. madness sweeping the nation was exemplified last Tuesday when UCLA’s student government passed a unanimous resolution to ban usage of the term “illegal immigrant.” The resolution refers to the word illegal as the “i-word” and claims its usage “endangers human rights.”
The only concept endangered here is the freedom of speech.
The resolution points out that “racially derogatory language … has historically bolstered the foundation for racially harmful actions including … hate crime and violence.” Before we dash to bash certain phrases on college campuses, let’s take a step back and analyze whether they are in fact racially derogatory, or simply a blatant truth.
The legal and conversational definition of illegal immigrant is, “a non-citizen who has entered the United States without government permission.” Hmm, nothing in that definition seems to sound a battle cry to incite racial violence. Rather the definition seems quite sensible and devoid of any implicit racially demeaning undertones.
So what brought about this student government resolution? Was it widespread negative racial profiling, socially marginalized groups or perhaps violent hate crimes? None of the above, just the enforcement of federal law.
The University of California recently appointed former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano as their President. While Napolitano was the Secretary of Homeland Security, a record number of illegal immigrants were deported. Instead of being regarded as efficient and committed to upholding federal law, she is being demonized by the “politically correct.”
The most disturbing aspect is that the student government at UCLA is supporting undocumented (key phrase there) students who expressed their concerns and fears with the recent appointment of Janet Napolitano. The students in question conveniently managed to document their complaint but not their citizenship. The backwards result of this being a campus resolution forbidding calling an illegal act illegal. If this sounds like utterly absurd logic—it is.
The freedom of speech on a college campus, a place where discussion and educational growth through diversification should be encouraged, is being strategically hushed under the ruse of improving campus safety. Undoubtedly if issues such as the high rates of illegal immigration into the United States could be openly discussed without fear of being politically incorrect, more solutions would be presented to the problem.
America’s focus should be on diminishing the $113 billion a year that illegal immigration is estimated to cost federal and local taxpayers, as reported by the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Instead we prioritize maintaining political correctness so extreme as to forbid merely identifying a demographic by their legal definition. All this is done to avoid offending those who have no qualms about breaking our federal laws. And there the backwards logic rears its ugly head once again.
The same ideology applies to all aspect of American culture. Banning issues from discussion to avoid ruffling feathers is simply putting a muzzle on the freedom of speech. By attempting to portray all cultures and races and beliefs as either one in the same or off limits, we are stifling the diversity that makes this nation great.
In place of passing needless resolutions prohibiting addressing illegal acts for what they are, time should be spent streamlining the citizenship process and other activities that will yield productive results. Encouraging discussions not based off of being political correct, but on respect for differences, an attachment to truth, and accurately addressing the social issues of modern society should be the ideal.
Whitney Greer is a sophomore English major from Medford, Ore.
It’s good to see The Register-Guard recognizes the plight of low-wage workers (“Fast food blues,” Sept. 2). However, the editorial seemed a bit disingenuous given the editors’ strong support of government actions that will or would hurt those same workers.
I refer first to U.S. Senate Bill 744, the immigration “reform” legislation, about which columnist Eugene Robinson said, “Of course it’s amnesty.” SB 744 would allow millions more foreign workers to come to the United States and would effectively legalize the work of the 8 million to 10 million illegal immigrants who are already here. Both Oregon senators voted yes on the bill.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates SB 744 would cause unemployment to increase through 2020 and average wages to decline through 2025.
The editors also strongly supported recent state immigration actions. In Oregon, with nearly 160,000 people out of work, Gov. John Kitzhaber and his Democratic allies passed Senate Bill 833. SB 833 lays out the welcome mat for illegal immigrants by restoring their driving privileges.
All Lane County Democratic legislators voted yes on the bill; a petition drive is under way to refer that decision to the voters (www.protectoregondl.org). The beneficiaries of such actions are corporations that seek to pay the lowest wages possible. The victims are primarily low-wage workers who have already suffered badly from the recession. Who’s standing up for them?
JERRY RITTER
Springfield
Oregon U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden joining the Gang of Eight in the passage of Senate Bill 744, termed comprehensive immigration reform by some, amnesty by others, is unconscionable legislation considering the United States’ seasonally adjusted July number of 12.1 million unemployed citizens; 7.4 percent of the country’s civilian labor force.
According to the “Feb. 1, 2011, Pew Hispanic Center, Unauthorized Immigrant Population: National and State Trends, 2010," there are 8 million unauthorized workers in the U.S.
With so many unemployed American citizens looking for jobs and 8 million unauthorized workers currently holding the jobs many citizens will do, the U.S. Senate’s legislation at best seems oblivious to the plight of the unemployed in this country.
Two of the negative consequences of SB 744 are reveled in a June 2013 Congressional Budget Office report that indicates the legislation will cause unemployment to increase through 2020 and average wages to decline through 2025.
An evaluation of the seasonally adjusted unemployment numbers from a Bureau of Labor Statistics/U.S. Department of Labor news release from Aug. 19 titled “Regional and State Employment and Unemployment — July" reveals unemployment rates in the states represented by the Gang of Eight plus their two Oregonian senatorial sidekicks: Oregon, 8 percent; Arizona, 8 percent; Colorado, 7.1 percent; Florida, 7.1 percent; Illinois, 9.2 percent; New Jersey, 8.6 percent; New York, 7.5 percent; and South Carolina, 8.1 percent. Six of the preceding eight states had a higher percentage of unemployed than the national average.
During the summer congressional recess, when Merkley and Wyden return to Oregon, the senators should take a look at the number of unemployed in the state and unemployment numbers of the individual counties they choose to visit across the state.
The Oregon Department of Employment reported 158,645 citizens were unemployed in July; the state ranked 10th, tied with Arizona for the percentage of unemployed.
Locally, Deschutes County’s 7,240 unemployed in July equated to 10 percent of the county’s work force; 4.6 percent of the state’s unemployed.
Including Deschutes, 28 of 36 Oregon counties (77.8 percent of the state’s counties) in July had a higher unemployment rate than the national average of 7.4 percent: Baker, 9.4 percent; Columbia, 8.2 percent; Coos, 10.2 percent; Crook, 12.6 percent; Curry, 10.6 percent; Douglas, 11 percent; Grant, 12.2 percent; Harney, 12.9 percent; Jackson, 9.8 percent; Jefferson, 10.8 percent; Josephine, 11.3 percent; Klamath, 10.9 percent; Lake, 11.9 percent; Lane, 8 percent; Lincoln, 8.4 percent; Linn, 10 percent; Malheur, 8.7 percent; Marion, 8.6 percent; Morrow, 8.8 percent; Polk, 7.9 percent; Sherman, 7.6 percent; Tillamook, 7.6 percent; Umatilla, 8.4 percent; Union, 8.3 percent; Wallowa, 10 percent; Wasco, 7.5 percent; and Yamhill, 7.7 percent. Thirteen of the preceding counties had double-digit unemployment.
Back to the Pew Hispanic Center report: According to the Pew report, there are an estimated 110,000 unauthorized workers in Oregon.
If SB 744 is passed by both sides of Congress and signed into law by the president, the addition of 110,000 unauthorized workers into the state’s civilian labor force, if the CBO report is right, will likely increase unemployment in Oregon. This would be a setback for a state struggling to recover from a severe recession.
The U.S. House of Representatives will hopefully take a more incremental approach to any type of immigration reform and first pass stand-alone legislation requiring a federally mandated national employment verification system like E-Verify, which the federal government currently uses on all its new hires.
During the congressional recess, Oregon’s 158,645 unemployed U.S. citizens should contact Merkley and Wyden, along with Congressman Greg Walden, and tell them Oregonians should never have to compete for scarce jobs now or in the future with illegal alien workers; and furthermore, the U.S. Congress passing a standalone federally mandated E-Verify system is best way to get those unemployed in the state and across the country back to full-time employment.
— David Olen Cross lives in Salem.
You can help repeal Senate Bill 833 — the new state law granting driver cards to illegal immigrants.
The best part: you can do so right from your home computer.
Since May, a group of Oregonians operating as “Protect Oregon Driver Licenses” — which I serve as a chief sponsor — has been circulating referendum petitions to put Senate Bill 833 to a statewide vote. If we collect the signatures of 58,142 registered voters this summer, a measure to overturn illegal-immigrant driver cards will appear on Oregon’s November 2014 ballot.
Thousands of Oregonians already have signed our petition. And we need your signature as well.
Why? Because if allowed to stand, illegal-immigrant driver cards will:
— Reward the lawbreaking of those who have violated our nation’s immigration statutes;
— Better enable illegal immigrants to take and keep jobs from our fellow citizens; and
— Aid and abet the drug cartels that rely heavily on illegal immigrants to transport their products and cultivate marijuana plantations on Oregon’s public lands.
As well, consider how Senate Bill 833 was passed: It “was rammed through the Legislature so quickly,” notes Oregon Rep. Sal Esquivel, one of my fellow chief sponsors, “that most Oregonians barely got the chance to scrutinize it and weigh in with their opinions.” Our referendum, he says, aims to “provide for a sustained and informative public debate, and include rank-and-file Oregonians directly in the decision-making process.”
It’s easy to get a petition. Go to www.ProtectOregonDL.org, print a single-signature petition sheet, sign it, and mail it to the listed address.
Your signature can help repeal driver cards for illegal immigrants.
Richard F. LaMountain
Portland
Earlier this year, in a Jan. 13 commentary in this newspaper, I argued that granting driving privileges to foreigners here illegally would make our state “a magnet for illegal immigrants competing for work with Oregon’s unemployed, and a virtually unimpeded conduit for Mexican drugs."
But Oregon’s legislators didn’t listen. In this year’s session, they passed a law (Senate Bill 833) granting “driver cards" to illegal immigrants.
Now, a group of Oregonians organized as “Protect Oregon Driver Licenses" — for which I serve as a chief sponsor — is circulating petitions to put SB 833 to a statewide vote. If we collect the signatures of 58,142 registered voters by Oct. 4, a measure to repeal the law will appear on Oregon’s November 2014 ballot.
Thousands of Oregonians already have signed our petition. And we need your signature, too. Go to www.ProtectOregonDL.org, print a single-signature petition, sign it and mail it to the listed address.
Your signature will help repeal driver cards for illegal immigrants.
Richard F. LaMountain
Vice president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform
Portland
