 Frank Sharry - National Immigration Forum November 21, 1997 |
IMMIGRATION ADVOCATE SAYS ELITES LED US TO TODAY'S IMMIGRATION DISASTER Only public opinion stopped them. Click here for the latest from this left wing Ford Foundation hired gun and his cohorts |
Sharry says Public Opinion Stopped Out of Control Immigration
Frank Sharry's comments -- at the Hispanic Council on International Affairs meeting on U.S. Immigration Policy, Washington, D.C. - November 21, 1997.
We have to recognize, particularly the people in this room, who tend to operate at high levels of policy discussions and academic discussions, that elites are no longer driving this debate as they once did.
In the nineteen eighties, a few policy makers, a few academics and a few interests groups really determined policy for the most part, and public opinion was more of an afterthought.
I think that it's obvious to say now that THE driving force in the immigration debate in the United States is public opinion. It doesn't determine the outcome necessarily but it determines the climate and the context. And it limits what the key actors can propose and achieve in the specific policy making that they are involved in.
Now not surprisingly, looking at 1992 to 1996 when this backlash against immigrants gathered such tremendous momentum in this country, it led to the passage of the legislation that we are talking about now.
I get this question all the time: How can the policy makers end up with this? It doesn't make sense. It is just not what you would do if you sat down and said how do we have a sensible policy.
Now I suggest that this interaction of public opinion and policy-making is a way to explain it and understand it. And I say this and I want to underline it because I think it is important. in terms of where we move now to take advantage of this political moment.
From '92 to '96 a tremendous backlash, restrictionists, both groups and politicians effectively exploited the notion of economic insecurity and disaffection with the federal government, changing demographics,. to really build a tremendous momentum.
And what were the sound bytes that dominated the debate? Illegal immigration, immigrants and welfare, criminal aliens, lax controls, the government doesn't seem to care--resulting in not only Proposition 187, but an immigration law which really manifested those sound bytes.
The policy that were enacted were sprung from those understandings that the restrictionist had so effectively spread throughout the American public that was paying attention.
Now the restrictionists were not able to achieve all of their goals. Cuts in legal immigration and refugee admissions were defeated. Efforts to offer procedural bars to asylum that were so high that people couldn't access the system were diluted. An attempt to introduce an national ID system were deferred. The attempt to bring Proposition 187 into federal legislation by giving states the authority to kick kids out of school because they were undocumented were turned down -- had to be shelved -- in order to pass the legalization that did pass.
My analysis of that is that in the overall climate, the restrictionists had the upper hand, but on those specific issues where the restrictionists weren't able to achieve their agenda, they lost the public debate. Now we're in 1997, clearly a different period.
We see a welfare reform bill that passed in 1996 being revisited with the restoration of SSI benefits for elderly and disabled legal immigrants that no one would have predicted a year ago. Half a million people suddenly getting their $400 checks.
The sound bytes of last year of immigrants and welfare met the human face of people who had played by the rules and had no other source of income. 245 i, the interaction with new restrictions of the new immigration law - the whole debate was about families and workers. The perception is that the federal government does care...and that the federal government is minding the store.
Sharry goes on to say that government is beginning to change public opinion and that now is the time to for the immigration advocates to go for a BIG SOLUTION -- before the economy turns sour or before something else happens to change public opinion.
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Hardbeat
News -- New York -- September 15, 2006 Open-borders zealots slam latest House plan "Seven hundred miles of fencingwill not erase the reality that an estimated 11-12 million [illegal aliens... criminals] already live, work, and raise families here." -- That's the word from Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, a D.C.-based non-profit...  |
 Sharry |
Frank Sharry
-- New America Media [Radical
Left-wing Drool] - January 19, 2006 A Job Only Immigrants Can Do? President Bush was never my kind of President. But shortly after he took office in 2001, he caught my attention with an evident desire to make history on an issue near and dear to my heart. -- For the first time in American history, an American President made Mexico the destination of his first trip out of the country. |
 Waah! Waah! |
Hardbeat
News -- December 7, 2005 Sharry's border-busters slam Sensenbrenner bill A popular Washington-based immigrant advocacy organization has slammed the latest piece of immigration legislation introduced in the U.S. Congress yesterday, saying it only "makes a bad situation worse." -- Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum said Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner's bill demonstrates a breathtaking misunderstanding of the immigration issue. |
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New Standard
News -- May 7, 2004 New Immigration Reform Bill Pleases Rights Groups ..."This bill provides real solutions to the problems that plague our current broken immigration system," said Vibiana Andrade, of MALDEF. -- "This bill will, over time, replace a chaotic, deadly, and illegal flow of exploitable workers and desperate family members with a safe, orderly, and legal flow of workers with full labor rights and family members with legal immigrant visas," said Frank Sharry... |
 D.A. King |
MichNews.com
-- April 15, 2004 Frank Sharry, and "Future Citizens" If you watched "Scarborough Country" on MSNBC Wednesday night [April 14, 2004], you heard Frank Sharry of the National Immigration Forum tell U.S. Congressman Tom Tancredo, Pat Buchanan and a national television audience that we should not refer to illegal aliens as such, but rather "future citizens".... |
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Buchanan and Tancredo Fail to Call Sharry on Mexican Reconquista Meeting
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Just Three Groups Have $78 Million a Year to Keep Borders Open
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