Kamala's New Flack Apologizes for Urging ICE Enforcement in 2010

Vice President Kamala Harris’s new press secretary is apologizing for having supported enforcement of the nation’s popular immigration laws a decade ago.

New hire Jamal Simmons violated the Democrats’ present sanctification of migration with this 2010 tweet:

Just saw 2 undocumented folks talking on MSNBC. One Law student the other a protester. Can someone explain why ICE is not picking them up?

— Jamal Simmons (@JamalSimmons) November 29, 2010

Simmons apologized shortly after the decade-old tweet was shared via Twitter. Simmons said in his January 7 statement:

As a pundit for much of my career, I have tweeted a lot and spoken out on public issues. Sometimes I have been sarcastic, unclear, or just plainly missed the mark. I sincerely apologize for offending those who care as much as I do about making America the best, multi-ethnic, diverse democracy it can be. I know the role I am taking on is to represent the Biden-Harris administration, and I will do so with humility, sincerity and respect.

Simmons’s instant apology spotlights the current eagerness of many Democrats — including Harris — to elevate the interests of foreign migrants above their own base of working-class Americans, including African-Americans and American Latinos.

1/n White liberal support for increasing immigration levels is up to ~62.5% in the latest ANES 2020 (up from ~36% in 2016). pic.twitter.com/tu0ZVq2axJ

— Zach Goldberg (@ZachG932) March 29, 2021

A tweet from Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a pro-migration advocate at the American Immigration Council who posted Simmons’s tweet, said:

His positions a decade ago were fairly typical of a lot of Democrats; harsh border controls and employer sanctions but a desire to pass some kind of immigration reform. That is still the mainstream position for many.

The Demcorats’ strategic choice to favor migrants over ordinary Americans helps Harris’s allies in the investment and business sector, and it pleases the mostly-white progressive base. But it damages mainstream Democratic priorities and polls.

For example, a polling report by the Democracy Corps polling firms suggests that Democrats drop any mention of migration and instead promise to transfer wealth from investors to ordinary voters.

Simmons has pushed a similar race-and-economics pitch in a December 8 article at Forbes.com:

As the co-pandemics of racial injustice and COVID-19 lay at the feet of Black America, the Democratic party has frequently wavered between fighting for racial equity and pushing forward on an economy-only message. Simmons, a longtime Democratic strategist and former 2008 Obama/Biden campaign advisor, said it’s an unnecessary separation.

“There’s no reason for Democrats to put economic and social policy in different buckets. Building an America strong enough for all of us to benefit and not face discrimination means passing good economic policies, protecting voting rights and ensuring public safety by helping good police and stopping bad police,” said Simmons, a frequent television commentator.

“Meanwhile Trump Republicans hide in the corner afraid to fix anything their extremist base might disagree with,” Simmons added.

The damage is recognized by President Joe Biden’s top aides, who have been pushing radical, pro-migration policy staffers out of the White House.

Some Democrats are standing up for Simmons:

I am from a legal immigrant family. I agree. Thanks Jamal.

— San Diego Pete (@SanDiegoPete1) January 7, 2022

Many polls show that Americans want to like immigrants and immigration. But the bipartisan federal government has exploited that openness since 1990 to extract tens of millions of migrants from poor countries to boost U.S. businesses as workers, consumers, and renters.

That economic strategy is harmful to ordinary Americans: It cuts their career opportunities and their wages while it also raises their housing costs.

The strategy also curbs Americans’ productivity, shrinks their political clout, widens regional wealth gaps, radicalizes their democratic, compromise-promoting civic culture, and allows elites to ignore despairing Americans at the bottom of society.

Unsurprisingly, a wide variety of little-publicized polls do show deep and broad opposition to labor migration and the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.

This opposition is growing, anti-establishment, multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, bipartisan, rational, persistent, and recognizes the solidarity that Americans owe to each other.

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