By
Craig
Nelsen
Samuel Gompers, the
founder of the
American Federation of Labor, was a Jewish immigrant
who supported the early 20th-century
immigration cut-off. In a 1924 letter to Congress,
Gompers
wrote that there would always be two powerful forces
hostile to any attempts to restrict immigration to the
United States: corporate employers who want a steady
supply of cheap labor, and racial groups who want to
import more of their own countrymen.
Nearly three generations later, a third powerful
force needs to be added to Gompers' list: immigration
lawyers. Today, perhaps the most insatiable special
interest pushing for mass immigration is the
American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), an
organization of 7500 immigration attorneys.
AILA
lobbies relentlessly in Washington to sabotage every
piece of pro-borders legislation that comes down the
pike. It's no wonder. Immigration law is big business.
According to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, the mean annual wage for
lawyers is $91,320 per year. Multiply that by the
number of AILA members, and we are talking about a
nearly $700 million-a-year industry.
Disgracefully, the media relies heavily on AILA
representatives for information about immigration
policy. In 2001 alone, according to a Lexis-Nexis
search, there were 363
news stories using the phrase "American Immigration
Lawyers Association." However, we could not find a
single instance in which the reporter
citing an AILA
source also noted the financial motives all AILA members
have in promoting mass immigration.
Luckily, you won't have to wait until that happens to
see an AILA representative challenged on the motive
underlying their crusade for open borders. In the
second week of April, Public Television's
"Debate/Debates" will
air
a taped debate on the question: "Do We Take in
Too Many Immigrants?" VDARE.COM’s Peter Brimelow,
Jim Staudenraus of FAIR and myself take on
Daniel Griswold of
CATO Institute,
Hussein Ibish of the Arab-American
Anti-Discrimination Committee, and Ted Ruthizer of AILA
on the other.
The team arguing "no" is nicely representative of the
anti-borders crowd. The CATO Institute's Griswold
stands in for Gompers' "corporate employers" forces,
Hussein Ibish stands in for Gompers' "racial groups,"
and Ted Ruthizer stands in for the new force:
immigration lawyers.
In NYC, the show airs on WNYE. Nationally, the show
airs on over 196 PBS stations - check your local
PBS listing.
Ted didn’t like us questioning his motives. Don’t sit
too near the ringside!
Craig Nelsen is the director of
ProjectUSA
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March 19, 2002
