http://donsurber.blogspot.com/2017/08/beat-press_2.html
By Don Surber
August 2, 2017
Sarah Sanders brought in to today's press briefing White House immigration expert Stephen Miller to answer reporter questions about the plan to limit legal immigration.
He pantsed Glenn Thrush of the New York Times and CNN's Jimmy "Olsen" Acosta.
First up, the Thrusher.
THRUSH: First of all, let's have some statistics. There have been a lot of studies out there that don't show a correlation between low-skilled immigration and the loss of jobs for native workers.
Cite for me, if you could, one or two studies with specific numbers that prove the correlation between those two things, because your entire policy is based on that.
And, secondly, I have sources that told me about a month ago that you guys have sort of elbowed infrastructure out of the way to get immigration on the legislative queue. Tell me why this is more important than infrastructure.
MILLER: The latter statement isn't true.
I think the most recent study I will point to is the study from George Borjas that he just did about the Mariel boatlift and he went back and reexamined and opened up the old data and talked about how it actually did reduce wages for workers who were living there at the time.
And Borjas has, of course, done enormous amounts of research on this, as has Peter Kirsanow on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, as has Steve Camarota at the Center for Immigration Studies and so on and so forth.
(CROSSTALK)
MILLER: Right. And their recent study said that as much as $300 billion a year may be lost as a result of our current immigration system in terms of folks drawing more public benefits than they're paying in.
But let's also use common sense here, folks. At the end of the day, why do special interests want to bring in more low-skilled workers?
(CROSSTALK)
MILLER: Maybe we will make a carve-out in the bill that says "The New York Times" can hire all the low-skilled, less paid workers they want from other countries, and see how you feel then about low-wage substitution.
I do believe they already hire the low-skilled, and assign them the White House.
Then came Acosta.
It was an epic meltdown in which Acosta asserted a poem is the law of the land, and did not realize there is a requirement to speak English to become a citizen.
ACOSTA: What you're proposing here, what the president's proposing here does not sound like it's in keeping with American tradition when it comes to immigration.
The Statue of Liberty says, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. It doesn't say anything about speaking English or being able to be a computer programmer.
Aren't you trying to change what it means to be an immigrant coming into this country if you're telling them, you have to speak English? Can't people learn how to speak English when they get here?
MILLER: Well, first of all, right now, it's a requirement that to be naturalized you have to speak English.
So the notion that speaking English wouldn't be a part of immigration systems would be actually very ahistorical. Secondly, I don't want to get off into a whole thing about history here, but the Statue of Liberty is a symbol of liberty and light in the world.
It's a symbol of American liberty lighting the world. The poem that you're referring that was added later is not actually a part of the original Statue of Liberty.
And yet he persisted, yammering on and interrupting Miller.
MILLER: Jim, I appreciate your speech. Jim, I appreciate your speech. So, let's talk about this.
ACOSTA: It was a modest and incremental speech.
MILLER: Jim, let's talk about this.
In 1970, when we let in 300,000 people a year, was that violating or not violating the Statue of Liberty law of the land? In the 1990s, when it was 500,000 a year, was it violating or not violating the Statue of Liberty law of the land?
(CROSSTALK)
MILLER: No, tell me what years -- tell me what years -- tell me what years meet -- tell me what years meet Jim Acosta's definition of the Statue of Liberty poem law of the land. So, you're saying one million a year is the Statue of Liberty number; 900,000 violates it, 900,000 violates it?
ACOSTA: You're sort of bringing a press-one-for-English philosophy here to immigration, and that's never been what the United States has been about, Stephen.
(CROSSTALK)
MILLER: But you're also -- your statement is also shockingly ahistorical in another respect too, which is, if you look at the history of immigration, it's actually ebbed and flowed.We have had periods of very large waves, followed by periods of less immigration and more immigration.
History? History began the day Acosta joined CNN, right?
By the way, we are near a peak on immigration, which is why there is a push to reduce it.
More chatter, and then this exchange:
ACOSTA: The president wants to build a wall, and you want to bring about a sweeping change to immigration.
MILLER: Surely, Jim, you don't actually think that a wall affects green card policy. You couldn't possibly believe that, do you? Actually, the -- the notion that you actually think immigration is at a historic lull, the foreign-born population in the United States today -- Jim, Jim--
(CROSSTALK)
MILLER: Do you really -- I want to be serious, Jim.
Do you really at CNN not know the difference between green card policy and illegal immigration? You really don't know that?
Acosta's ignorance about immigration was astounding.
But it fits my theory about CNN. It hires and promotes stupid people because they are easily manipulated. Wolf "I Lost on Jeopardy, Baby" Blitzer and Don "A Blackhole Swallowed the Plane" Lemon, as well as Chris "Fake News Is the N-Word" Cuomo form a team.
The Just Us Dummies League of America.
At any rate, Miller beat the press today. You have to wonder if other reporters don't roll their eyeballs when Thrush or Acosta take the stage.
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. ~ D.H. Lawrence
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