GOP Voters vs. Bush Republican Pols On Immigration

Republican elected officials do not often give Republican voters what they want. Immigration policy is just one example.

 Most of the Republican voter base wants a border wall, no illegal immigration, and less legal immigration. In fact, a recent Gallup poll found that nearly 70% of Republican voters want less immigration to the US, and about half of Republicans view immigration as a bad thing. A recent Rasmussen survey reported that over 50% of Republicans want current legal immigration levels cut in half.

In contrast, we have seen Republicans politicians give their voters exact opposite of what they want. Up until President Trump’s rise, the Republican party under “Bush Republicanism” was the party of Big Business and Mass immigration.

Here are just some of the immigration blunders under Republicans in recent decades: Amnesty in the 1980s, mass legal immigration in the 1990s, and record-level of refugee resettlement in the 2000s—all of which happened over Republican Presidents. What’s more, many Republicans in 2018 have supported giving American jobs to foreign tech workers by expanding the H1B visa program.

The Republican party of old (“Bush Republicanism”) supported Amnesty, mass immigration, large-scale refugee resettlement, and massive visa worker programs. Those positions are not conservative and did not benefit the American people, but those facts did not stop Republicans of yesteryear from supporting America-last policies.

I could go on and on, but Republican leaders have not been beholden to Republican voters for decades on the issue of immigration.

Only a few America First Republicans in the last 30 years—such as Pat Buchanan, President Trump, and Congressman Paul Gosar—have made meaningful strides to enact America First immigration policies.

So if Republican voters historically did not control the Republican party’s policy agenda, then who has?

The answer is simple: Corporate America and Billionaire donors. Globalist Corporations and Republican Billionaires  spend countless dollars lobbying Republican politicians—besides funding their campaigns—to support mass immigration. Mass immigration keeps wages down for American workers when tens of millions of laborers are added to the American economy (read George Borjas’s book Heaven’s Door to learn about the economic effects of immigration).

Let’s look at two of the largest donors to the Republican party: Sheldon Adelson (who passed away in 2021) and Paul Singer.

Both of these billionaires have donated tens of millions of dollars to Republican candidates for decades, and both of these men supported amnesty and mass immigration to the United States.

You may ask: why did Adelson and Singer support amnesty? The answer: money.

For decades, Adelson and Singer have profited off of the cheap labor coming to the United States. During his life, Adelson was the owner of the Las Vegas Sands casino and resort. So, he was more than happy to use cheap labor to work at his resort property.

On the other hand, Paul Signer is a vulture capitalist and founder of the infamous hedge fund Elliot Management. Just a few years ago, Singer single-handedly decimated a small-town in Nebraska by forcing an unnecessary merger of Cabela’s with Bass Pro shop. This merger cost 2,000 Nebraskans their jobs—all for a quick buck. Clearly, Signer does not care about the American people, so it shouldn’t surprise that he has supported amnesty.

Besides Adelson and Singer, the Koch Brothers and their affiliated organizations—such as Americans for Prosperity—have lobbied Republican lawmakers to support amnesty for years.

For years, Sheldon Adelson, Paul Signer, the Koch Brothers, and many Globalist Corporations set the agenda when it came to the Republican party’s position on immigration. Finally, we are starting to see some change on that front.

In the past several years, we are have started to see a new class of America First conservatives who want to limit immigration to America. Current Congressional Republicans have Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene have led the way in terms of promoting an America First immigration policy–such as a zero-net immigration moratorium.

In the 2022 cycle, we have seen more Republican candidates who are following the Republican electorate’s desire to reduce immigration to the United States. Blake Masters and JD Vance are the two exemplary Republican candidates for Senate who proudly bear the label of America First when it comes to immigration policy.

Let’s hope that the GOP continues to move toward becoming the party of the America First agenda rather than the party of Globalist Billionaires and Woke Corporations.

If the Republican party does not fix our nation’s current immigration catastrophe, then we might as well as say “Goodbye” to the America we grew up in.