Rank and File Left Support Cuts to Immigration

WASHINGTON, June 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A nationwide poll of 600 self-indentified liberals and progressives shows that liberals are concerned about the current levels of immigration into the United States and the harmful effect that current immigration policies are having on U.S. population growth, the environment, and the availability of jobs. The poll was conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC in April 2009.

Key findings of the poll revealed:

Sixty seven percent of liberals and progressives felt the level of population growth caused by immigration negatively impacts the quality of life in the United States.

Fifty eight percent felt that the current levels of immigration are harmful to the environment.

Sixty three percent said that current levels of immigration hurts job prospects for American workers.

With regard to undocumented workers already here, the poll revealed that self-identified liberals are split over whether illegal immigrants should be offered an amnesty. Fifty three percent were in support of a pathway to citizenship and forty five percent were opposed.

"The results of this poll demonstrate what many on the political left have known for some time. Immigration is not a partisan issue. There are many progressives and liberals that are concerned about the unintended consequences that large scale immigration has on the environment, economy, and other issues that many liberals are concerned about," says Leah Durant, Executive Director of Progressives for Immigration Reform. "It is time to take this issue off the back burner. We need to talk frankly about the effects of immigration and find solutions that benefit both Americans and the global community."

For more information about this poll please contact: Leah Durant at (202) 543-5325 or info@progressivesforimmigrationreform.org

Recent Poll by Progressives for Immigration Reform Shows Concern Among Liberals and Progressives Over Current Immigration Levels

This new group for immigration reform, together with Yeh Ling Ling’s diversity coalition for reduced immigration, is a dagger in the hearts of politically correct stereotyping. Ethnics and liberal progressives in America are, at the grass roots level, for the most part, in agreement with us. It is their “spokesmen”, the leadership, which in their name, opposes our goals.

The Southern Poverty Law Centre, among others, likes to portray anti-immigrationists as “right wing” nativists, xenophobes, bigots and white nationalists. This is the straw man which they beat up over and over again in their attempt to shut down debate about population numbers.

One wonders, what would be the results if the supporters of Canada’s NDP, Britain’s New Labour Party or Australia’s Labor party were similarly polled about their feelings about mass immigration? My bet is that the MAJORITY of centre-left voters favour a cut back in immigration and a lower population level for their respective countries. The elites who run those parties, however, will never conduct such a survey. And if the results were as I suspect, their answer would not be to pay it heed and revisit their policies. Oh no, it would instead be a resolution to work even harder at “educating” the masses on their misplaced anxiety about immigration. It would never occur to them that ordinary people might be in possession of wisdom that politicians should follow. This elitist attitude on the left was presaged by the Marxist attitude of a century and a half ago that if the working class didn’t accept the world view of the socialist intelligentsia, they were guilty of “false consciousness”, and their opinions need not be respected.

Tonight I was canvassed once again by an NDP fundraiser on the phone. I let her have it, ventilating my views about her party’s growthist ideology. She fell back on all the old chestnuts. Her primary position was that the poor people of the world have a right to better themselves by moving her. All 80 million of them I suppose, that is the number born every year across the world.

But at the base of it was a fundamental ecological ignorance that argued that if resources were fairly apportioned, there would be enough to go around. And that would solve population issues, which she insisted were only one part of the problem in the third world. Population growth in Canada, though, was no problem at all.

No one can uproot these assumptions more effectively than an immigration reform lobby WITHIN the liberal-left. Wish them luck.

Tim