Charlotte Ducos Explains Jacob/Cannon Immigration Debate

I received an email inviting me to post an essay by Charlotte Ducos of Eagle Mountain, the same place John Jacob is from. You can read her entire report which is available as PDF. She concludes her report with her own conclusions about the immigration problem, bringing in her views as the wife of a recently naturalized citizen. She is very persuasive.

We cannot afford to send someone who is starting from scratch in Washington to participate in this debate. At this point I feel a need to also give credit to Mr. Jacob. He does have some good ideas. He took a great deal of time with me to explain his position. He does have well-formed opinions, they are just not opinions I feel I can endorse. I can honestly say that I have studied this issue, and our two candidatesÂ’ stances on the issue very thoroughly, and I give my opinion, without reservation, that Representative Cannon has the strongest position on immigration. Examine the issue, decide for yourself, and then donÂ’t forget to vote Tuesday, June 27.

A few other snippets from the article:

[Jacob] seems to feel, in a nutshell, that the only reason there is an immigration problem in this country is because employers want cheap labor, immigrants will do it cheap, the jobs are there for them, and so they come. His solution is to deport all of the workers, thus forcing employers to raise wages to compete with other industries and then American workers will do the work the immigrants have been doing—problem solved. In fairness, Mr. Jacob does believe in strengthening the borders, but philosophically, he seems to feel that if we remove the jobs, the illegal worker problem will take care of itself.

[Cannon] does not believe it is necessary to deport those who are here illegally in order to penalize them. Our government pays the cost of those deportations, and because of the long lines to enter the country through other existing visas, the most likely path for those who are deported is to sneak back in again illegally. If we instead give them a program that allows them to come out of hiding, to become documented, to pay the penalty for being here illegally and to gain—not citizenship or residency—just the right to work, we can begin to clean up the system.

She asserts,

There are some jobs that most Americans just donÂ’t want to do. This is unfortunate, and could be the subject of a story of its own, but it is a reality. I have a neighbor that owns a landscape company. He raised his wages to attract American workers, but could not get any to come. My father tried very hard to hire local teens and unemployed, but with few exceptions, they would rather go without work than do the jobs he was asking them to do.

It is worth reading her entire essay. The document also includes a completed questionnaire from both candidates on the subject of immigration. Reading the candidates answers on the questionnaire was more useful than the discussions in the debates I've heard.