With 9.1% unemployment on her watch, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is busy backing the president on immigration, endorsing his views on ethnic favoritism and the group that deserves the administration’s “most favored” label. She has assured Latin American countries that their citizens will not be abused while working in America, and promoted a Labor Department hotline illegal workers can call to turn in their employers (see: Labor Department Assures Migrant Workers of Rights). Secretary Solis adroitly recited the White House’s proclamations on the Latino community, recalling a conversation with the president:
I spent Labor Day with President Obama in Detroit. As we looked ahead to his big speech tonight and discussed his plan to put all Americans back to work, he said to me:
“Hilda… as tough as things have been on Latino workers, I know our economic future depends upon them.”
I couldn’t agree more. … [1]
Sure, it sounds like nonsense, but it has the uncomfortable ring of truth. The future of our nation routine is a stale irritant that, like all Obama era slogans, comes back again and again. Did the bright bulbs in this administration decide that divisiveness is a good thing, and that combining high unemployment with ethnic favoritism makes for good policy?
In recent remarks to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus about his doomed jobs bill, President Obama said that:
The American Jobs Act will help put construction workers who lost their jobs back to work revitalizing schools and our nation’s infrastructure. There were 344,000 fewer Hispanics employed in carpentry or construction labor after the recession.
Ten of the largest school districts with the highest percentage of Hispanic students will receive billions of dollars to revitalize their public school facilities. [2]
The White House added illegal immigrants to the recessionary mix with a new backdoor amnesty policy just before the president pulled the jobs bill out of his trick bag. Taxpayers are being asked to spend tens of billions on teachers’ salaries, and on schools with budgets strained by illegal immigration. The Jobs Act’s infrastructure projects pit illegal immigrants who have been told they can stay, but still have to support themselves, against American citizens and legal residents who need work (see: Opportunity for Illegals, Hard Times for Jobless Americans).
It defies reason and sanity to think that Obama administration officials believe spreading the perception of ethnic favoritism in the White House is a wise move when people are hurting. When did the president decide that this was a country that puts Latinos and Hispanics, or any other group first? This is a country of Americans. Triaging us into campaign-ready segments destined to receive the benefits of federal tax money is a divisive policy that insults everything this country stands for. Immigrants who are citizens, and those who did the right thing and came here legally, probably understand this. Why doesn’t our president?
1..Whitehouse.gov/Blog. The Latino Factor. Secretary Hilda Solis. September 8, 2011. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/09/08/latino-factor, retrieved September 10, 2011.
2..The White House. Office of the Press Secretary. Background on the President’s Remarks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s 34th Annual Awards Gala. September 14, 2011. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/14/background-presidents-remarks-congressional-hispanic-caucus-institutes-3, retrieved September 15, 2011.
