A Letter from Texas - the Border - New Dustin Inman Society

I feel helpless as I see our Texas communities devastated

As I watch representatives from Texas, Arizona and other border states beg and plead for a stop to the border “crisis” I am dismayed by the complete lack of empathy demonstrated by the current administration.

Americans were promised “humanity, compassion and transparency”.

Where is the humanity and compassion when a nine year old girl drowns crossing the Rio Grande or a 12 year old boy makes the dangerous trip with a smuggler so he can enter the US alone; or two little girls dropped 14 feet from the top of the border wall?

Where is the humanity and compassion when an overflow of illegal aliens is dropped off in border communities of Arizona like Gila Bend in the middle of nowhere in open desert? (Rep Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.) And where is the humanity and compassion for communities like Hidalgo County (Texas) that already have high poverty rates and do not have resources to accommodate new migrants? This community is still facing high unemployment rates because of the coronavirus.

“Del Rio Mayor, Bruno Lozano pleaded with President Joe Biden to halt the release of migrants into the area. Mayor Lozano said the city does not have the resources available to house and care for illegal migrants flooding across the Texas-Mexico border.” And Democrat US Rep Henry Cuellar released photos showing the conditions of unaccompanied migrant children and families under CBP custody because “it’s important that the public know.”

Yes, the public should know that these children will be in communities across the country soon. Because, although, this “crisis” was created by greed for power – American citizens will be asked to show “humanity and compassion”.

— Maria Silvia Montoya

Editor’s note: Maria Silvia Montoya lives in Sherman, Texas, a former Georgia resident and a member of the Dustin Inman Society advisory board. dak

Image: Georgia Chamber of Commerce.

Note the below opinion piece was written about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. We have had enough experience in Georgia’s state Capitol to know it’s also mostly true for state chambers.

“The Chamber of Commerce exists to keep workers’ wages low”

No, we don’t need to double immigration to stop inflation

Conn Carroll

Washington Examiner

January 14, 2022

Chamber of Commerce President Suzanne Clark, who was paid over $4 million by the Chamber in 2020 , wants to double immigration to the United States, a move she said will help solve the nation’s labor shortage and inflation crisis.

“We must double the number of people legally immigrating to the U.S.,” Clark said during her State of American Business 2022 keynote address . “This workforce shortage is a crisis. It is contributing to supply chain disruptions and rising inflation. It is undermining business growth.”

It is true that there is a near record-high of 10.6 million jobs available, according to the Labor Department’s most recent report . And it is true that legal immigration is down. But legal immigration has been down since President Donald Trump took office , and the labor shortage only materialized after Biden became president .

What did change under Biden is an unprecedented fountain of money going straight to households regardless of their working status . And even President Barack Obama’s top economic advisers have said that it is this flood of money that is the driving force behind inflation. “By March of 2021, it looked very likely that the vaccinations were going to be very effective in bringing COVID down and that the economy was repairing rapidly,” Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman said last November . “So, that last round of checks, I thought at the time, was a mistake.”

If Clark wants to start filling those 10.6 million job openings, the businesses that pay her $4 million salary should start offering to pay their workers more. Just 61.9% of working-age people are in the American labor force. To bring those 10.6 million job openings down to zero, the labor force participation rate would only have to rise to 65.9%, a level last reached in 2008…. please read the rest here.