The Immigration Debate: Globalists vs. NationalistsMerrill Cook

The Immigration Debate: Globalists vs. NationalistsMerrill Cook

Much of the local reporting regarding the immigration debate has focused on immigration rights groups, like La Raza versus illegal immigration opposition groups, like the Minuteman Project. While this has been a colorful, interesting - and, indeed - important conflict, the more significant battle underlying the immigration debate is between corporate America and America's middle class, or rather, between the globalists and the nationalists.

The current Senate Bush-Kennedy-McCain amnesty bill for 12 to 20 million illegal aliens is little more than an attempt to reward mass criminality. The provision in the bill for enhanced border security is "a spoonful of enforcement to make the amnesty go down." No one is surprised by Sen. Kennedy's commitment to amnesty.

The important question is: Why would the president of the United States and a number of leading Republicans in the Congress be so willing to stomp all over the conservatives and tear the Republican Party apart in their rush to be the architects of this so-called "Grand Immigration Compromise?" The answer lies in the ongoing fight between corporate America and America's middle class workers. This battle can also be characterized as a fight between those whose priority is globalization (the globalists) versus those whose priority is American sovereignty (the nationalists). The political action committees (PACs) of America's largest companies, especially the multi-nationals, provide the bulk of the money to both political parties and particularly to the campaigns of members of Congress. The No. 1 priority of big business today is to have an endless supply of cheap immigrant labor and to avoid penalties for hiring illegal aliens in violation of current U.S. law.

The next most important (and related) priority of big business is to enable its labor force to move just as freely across national boundaries as trade and capital do. In concert with America's political and economic elite, big business wants a world without borders. Corporate America's fight to legalize America's 12 to 20 million illegal aliens is directly related to its desire to unify Canada, the U.S., and Mexico into a North American Union similar to the European Union. The ultimate goal is global governance and the withering away of national sovereignty. With the vastly lower cost of labor inherent in both of these big business priorities, corporate profits will soar, at least in the short term.

America's workers strongly opposed NAFTA and China's Permanent Most Favored Nation status. Both were promoted by corporate America particularly the multi-nationals. A trade surplus with Mexico at the time NAFTA was enacted has turned into a $1 billion per week trade deficit. The Permanent Most Favored Trade status for China enacted in 2000 has resulted in a $1 billion per day trade deficit! Even the most conservative estimates indicate a loss of at least 6 million American manufacturing jobs from these two pieces of legislation. These corporations in the words of Pat Buchanan, "Want to be rid of their American workers, but keep their American consumers."

America's current political leadership, in crafting the "Immigration Grand Compromise" currently in the Senate in return for campaign contributions from corporate America PAC, has exposed itself as a facilitator in the effort to sell America's middle class down the river. It's up to the people to rise up and stop it.

Merrill Cook is a former member of Congress. He resides in Salt Lake City.