Missouri House panel’s Democrats refuse to sign conclusions

By TIM HOOVER

The Kansas City Star

JEFFERSON CITY | A report from a Republican-led Missouri House committee argues that illegal immigration is partly the result of abortion and a “welfare culture,” findings that Democrats called ridiculous.

The six Democrats on the House Special Committee on Immigration Reform refused to sign the panel’s final report, which was signed by the 10 Republican members. In a letter to Rep. Ed Emery, the Lamar Republican who heads the committee, the Democrats said the report included things the panel never discussed and other comments that were “inappropriate.”

One of those comments was listed in the report’s recommendations section, Democrats said.

“The lack of a traditional work ethic, combined with the effects of 30 years of abortion and expanding liberal social welfare policies have produced a shortage of workers and a lack of incentive for those who can work,” the report said. “Today’s growing affinity for government dependency has created a class of potential employees who are not eager to work.”

Other sections of the report supporting this argument said that “the entitlement and government welfare culture that has emerged over the last 50 years” had caused a shortage of workers, and “many Americans prefer a subsistence income from the public treasury rather than earning a similar or better income as a reward for hard work.”

The result is that 50 years of “counterproductive social policies” makes it hard for employers to find legal workers, concluded the report, which was completed late last month.

National immigration expert Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research in New York, dismissed the connections between abortion, welfare and immigration.

She called them “silly arguments” that have been embraced only by the far-right wing.

Emery said that he had inserted the language on abortion into the report.

“It is certainly my opinion,” he said. “I don’t know that we heard committee members express that as their critical concern.”

Emery said, though, that the language on social programs reflected the majority view of the panel.

Rep. Trent Skaggs, a North Kansas City Democrat, said the sections on abortion and “liberal social welfare policies” sucked all credibility out of the report.

“It’s delusional and not really owning up to what the problems are,” Skaggs said of the report.

Rep. Ed Wildberger, a St. Joseph Democrat on the committee, agreed and called Emery’s arguments “ridiculous.”

Jacoby said a prominent cause for the rise in immigration is Americans’ rising education.

For example, half of American men dropped out of high school and pursued unskilled work in 1960; today that figure is 10 percent, she said. Unskilled jobs still must be filled; immigrants are hired for many of them.

Welfare isn’t a good explanation for immigration, she said, because the overhaul of welfare in the mid-1990s imposed limits on how long people can depend on welfare for their livelihood.

Emery’s comments in the report include a section on the history of immigration in America, immigration law and the importance of English as a national language.

“Our culture is worth protecting,” Emery wrote. “It does not treat women like Muslim nations do. It does not kill newborn daughters like Communist China. … Cultures are not equal. Ours needs to be protected from being diluted by those who disrespect our laws and come only to exploit our successes.”

Skaggs and Wildberger said the report paid virtually no attention to Democrats’ chief concern — that the first priority should be to crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants.

A point in the report’s executive summary of recommendations mentions “increased penalties and enforcement to stop hiring of those without lawful presence,” but there is no elaboration. Wildberger said it was difficult to get even that snippet of vague language in the report because Republicans were reluctant to penalize employers who often complained they unknowingly hired illegal immigrants.

“I did express more than once that one of my personal goals was that we not punish the innocent to get to the guilty — that we didn’t create an anti-business climate,” Emery said.

Other recommendations included making English the language of official proceedings, imposing greater restrictions on admitting illegal immigrants to public higher education institutions, restricting taxpayer-funded services for illegal immigrants, giving the Highway Patrol a role in enforcing immigration law and abolishing income taxes in favor of sales taxes.