Mitch McConnell: Democrats Shut Government to Aid ‘Illegal Immigration’

Senate Majority Sen. Mitch McConnell is blaming the shutdown on the Democrats’ enthusiasm for “illegal immigration,” suggesting that he recognizes the public’s hostility to the Democrats’ no-strings amnesty push.

“Extreme elements of their base want illegal immigration to crowd out every other priority,” McConnell said during an early morning speech in the Senate, January 19. “Apparently, they believe the issue of illegal immigration is more important than everything else — all the government services the American people depend on.”

Voters “will see which Senators vote to shove aside veterans, military families, and vulnerable children to hold the entire country hostage until we pass an immigration bill they have not even written yet,’ McConnell continued. “This is completely unfair and uncompassionate.”

The tougher language suggests that the GOP leaders are willing to include the issue in their 2018 campaigns, despite opposition from business lobbyists and some business-first Senators in their own ranks, including Sen. Cory Gardner, who is the GOP’s campaign manager for the 2018 election.

Not looking good for our great Military or Safety & Security on the very dangerous Southern Border. Dems want a Shutdown in order to help diminish the great success of the Tax Cuts, and what they are doing for our booming economy.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018

The language complements the morning tweet from President Donald Trump, which shows the President also wants to portray the Democrats as favoring illegal immigrants.

Government Funding Bill past last night in the House of Representatives. Now Democrats are needed if it is to pass in the Senate - but they want illegal immigration and weak borders. Shutdown coming? We need more Republican victories in 2018!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 19, 2018

Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer also has polling data which show the Democrats lose if the public blames the shutdown on the Democrats’ push for amnesty. The Washington Post reported January 18:

But the public view shifts if voters think the government is shuttering because of the immigration issue, particularly in five states that Trump won in 2018 by overwhelming margins and where Democratic senators face reelection in November: Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia.

In those five states, voters split the shutdown blame evenly between Trump and Democrats. That result shifts, 48 percent to 39 percent, onto Democratic shoulders if the DACA issue is what led to the shutdown.

On Friday, McConnell slammed Schumer, saying:

Madam President, the deadline to fund the government is nearly upon us. The Senate is now just hours away from an entirely avoidable government shutdown. At midnight tonight, funding for programs that millions of Americans rely on: veteran services, opioid treatment centers, death benefits for the families of the fallen soldiers, and health insurance for nine million vulnerable children would be thrown into chaos, thrown into chaos.

Last night the Senate began consideration of a bill passed by the House, which would erase all of these threats. The bill keeps the federal government open. It extends the state children’s health insurance program which provides coverage for nine million children and low-income families for six years … 

This vote should be a no-brainer. and it would be except the Democratic leader has convinced his members to filibuster any funding bill that doesn’t include legislation they are demanding for people who came into the United States illegally. What has been shoe-horned into this discussion is an insistence that we deal with an illegal-immigration issue. He’s insistent that he won’t support any legislation at all for the American people, no matter how noncontroversial or how bipartisan, unless we pass a bill on illegal immigration first …

If that means shutting down the funding for veterans, military families, opioid treatment centers, and even federal grants to his home state of New York, so be it.

If it means throwing a wrench into the gears of the U.S. economy just as Americans are starting to feel the benefits of historic tax reform, so be it.

If it means failing to renew the children’s health program which the House-passed bill funded for a full six years, apparently that’s just fine with those on the other side.

Nearly every Democrat in the House made the same demand. That’s been their stated position, Nothing for hundreds of millions of Americans and no health care for nine million vulnerable children until we solve a non-imminent issue related to illegal immigration.

Madame President, to even repeat this position out loud is to see how completely ridiculous it is. Now that we’re 13 hours away from a government shutdown that Democrats would initiate and Democrats would own, the craziness of this seems to be dawning on my friend, the Democratic leader …

Now, Madam President, I wish for all of our sakes that the Democratic leader would figure out what he actually wants. I feel bad for his own members. He’s painted them into a corner.

But I especially feel bad for the American people whose government the Democrats are threatening to shut down and the nine million children whose health insurance could be thrown into jeopardy because Senate Democrats cannot get their story straight … [Voters] will see which Senators make the patriotic decision to stand up for the American people and vote for continued government funding.

Polls show that President Donald Trump’s American-first immigration policy is very popular.

For example, a December poll of likely 2018 voters shows two-to-one voter support for Trump’s pro-American immigration policies, and a lopsided four-to-one opposition against the cheap-labor, mass-immigration, economic policy pushed by bipartisan establishment-backed D.C. interest-groups.

Business groups and Democrats tout the misleading, industry-funded “Nation of Immigrants” polls which pressure Americans to say they welcome migrants, including the roughly 670,000 ‘DACA’ illegals and the roughly 3.25 million ‘dreamer’ illegals.

The alternative “priority or fairness” polls—plus the 2016 election—show that voters in the polling booth put a much higher priority on helping their families, neighbors, and fellow nationals get decent jobs in a high-tech, high-immigration, low-wage economy.

Four million Americans turn 18 each year and begin looking for good jobs in the free market.

But the federal government inflates the supply of new labor by annually accepting 1 million new legal immigrants, by providing work-permits to roughly 3 million resident foreigners, and by doing little to block the employment of roughly 8 million illegal immigrants.

The Washington-imposed economic policy of economic growth via mass-immigration floods the market with foreign labor, spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.

The cheap-labor policy has also reduced investment and job creation in many interior states because the coastal cities have a surplus of imported labor. For example, almost 27 percent of zip codes in Missouri had fewer jobs or businesses in 2015 than in 2000, according to a new report by the Economic Innovation Group. In Kansas, almost 29 percent of zip codes had fewer jobs and businesses in 2015 compared to 2000, which was a two-decade period of massive cheap-labor immigration.

Because of the successful cheap-labor strategy, wages for men have remained flat since 1973, and a large percentage of the nation’s annual income has shifted to investors and away from employees.