Roy Beck — Numbers USA

Ted Kennedy’s immigration legacy — and why did he do it?

I was dining in downtown Boston with a long-time acquaintance of Teddy Kennedy at the very time the Senator died a week ago. We had discussed what had caused Kennedy to pursue immigration policies that so fundamentally changed America. I got the news when I awoke the next morning to the Massachusetts TV stations doing their eulogies…

This was a typical comment among the thousands who honored Ted Kennedy this last week:

Senator Kennedy helped change the character of the immigration system, and indeed the country, bringing the United States a step closer to its founding ideals of fairness and opportunity for all.

— Former Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner Doris Meisner

Hmmm, what ideals? Does Meisner think it was fair to drive all those American drywallers out of their jobs? How about all the American meat packer workers who lost their jobs and incomes to Kennedy’s army of immigrant workers? Of course, Meisner was the chief of enforcing immigration laws that she thought were unfair and out of step with our nation’s ideals. She and Kennedy fundamentally believed that our laws limiting immigration are evil or unjust.

But NumbersUSA’s website is full of page after page of information showing that Kennedy’s immigration policies have in fact undermined the ability of the poor to find good-paying jobs and to get on the ladder of opportunity.

The policies have undermined the fight against discrimination by making it easy for businesses to ignore poor American Black job applicants in favor of high-motivated immigrant workers. The plight of the Black underclass seems as intractable today as during the 1960s.

Kennedy’s policies have driven scores of urban school districts backwards through over-crowding and through overwhelming already precarious schools with masses of non-English-speaking students from impoverished homes.

Ted Kennedy’s immigration policies aren’t even good for the immigrants who already are here. There is little opportunity in this nation today for millions of immigrants who must constantly compete with the next decade’s millions upon millions of new foreign workers.

Please read Roy’s blog HERE