Needless to say, CNN’s Dana Bash (above) didn’t ask North Dakota governor and newly declared GOP Presidential aspirant Doug Burgum anything about immigration on Sunday’s State of the Union, sticking instead to MSM chestnuts like Ukraine and abortion [GOP candidate: ’Putin is losing his grip’ on Russia, June 25, 2023]. But Burgum, tellingly, didn’t raise immigration either. Burgum’s name recognition is so low that he may not even make the first debate, which requires him to register one per cent in opinion polls [Poll: 90% of voters don’t know who Doug Burgum is, by Charlene Richards, NBC, June 16, 2023].
But Burgum is still significant for another quality he shares with too many other deep Red State Republicans: He’s an unreconstructed immigration enthusiast, apparently unaware of the last thirty years’ debate, one of many who actually demand more (legal) immigration for their states.
His position, which would be akin to Vermont’s passing a pro-life heartbeat bill, should be anathema to North Dakotan voters. It’s a disturbing sign of how the GOP continues to put economics—more precisely, the interests of business—above the future of the Historic American Nation.
In April, Burgum signed a law creating an Office of Legal Immigration. The legislature, with a GOP supermajority, passed the bill 64-28 in the House and 41-5 in the Senate.
And what does this office do? Let Burgum answer:
The immigration office will develop a pilot program to support businesses pursuing or employing legal immigrants and help communities develop plans and activities to integrate immigrants. The office also may contract with other state agencies and private organizations to develop and administer programs or services related to bringing legal immigrants into the state’s workforce, including those already in the United States. The bill includes authorization and funding for two additional Commerce team members to administer the office.
[Burgum signs bill creating Office of Legal Immigration to help address North Dakota’s workforce challenges, Governor.ND.gov, April 21, 2023]
The office will also provide aid to immigrants with legal, financial, and housing applications to reach the state, as well as encourage more foreign workers to come to North Dakota. A patently crazy separate bill, which the Senate killed, would have given immigrants $160,000 in forgivable loans.
Stupid Party leaders eagerly championed the new agency purely for Chamber of Commerce reasons. State Sen. Doug Larsen said that local businesses can’t expect Americans to meet their labor needs and that lack of immigration restricts their growth. That’s codswallop, of course. Larsen claims to oppose big government, yet has created another bureaucracy to import immigrants, most of whom will be penniless Third World “people of color” [Proposal to create immigration office in North Dakota sails through Senate, by Jeremy Turley, InForum, February 14, 2023].
Burgum claimed the measure will fill empty jobs. “Working with the Legislature, we continue to pursue a comprehensive strategy to address North Dakota’s workforce challenges, and the Office of Legal Immigration will play an important role in those efforts by helping employers recruit and retain legal immigrants,” he said.
Burgum also rubber-stamped funding to support the federal H-2A visa program, a legislative first that will import foreign agricultural workers to America [Governor signs workforce legislation, Minot Daily News, April 14, 2023].
How many immigrants will land in North Dakota is unclear. Here’s what is clear: Republicans want more foreigners in the 86 percent white state.
Yet North Dakota already has an immigrant problem. In 2021, a Liberian “migrant”—possibly a “refugee”— brutally murdered 14-year-old Jupiter Paulsen, a white girl, in Fargo. Burgum said nothing.
The state already absorbs large numbers of “refugees,” creating a Liberian enclave in Fargo. Burgum’s zeal to import Africans and other Third World “migrants” is such that he put the state in charge of handling refugees in 2021, after the Lutheran Treason Lobby group that handled resettlement shut down. This meant taxpayers picked up the bill for these resettled aliens [Burgum: State to take over refugee resettlement after LSS, by Dave Kolpack, Associated Press, January 25, 2021].
Sadly, North Dakota isn’t alone. Elected officials in several Red States beg for immigrants, including legislators in 90 percent white Idaho. In March, the Idaho state Senate passed a resolution known as a “memorial” 25-10 that called on the U.S. Congress to support “immigration reform,” including an Amnesty:
The Federal government has failed to meet its responsibility to secure our Nation, at and within its borders, and has failed to provide a guest worker Visa program that can meet the labor demands of domestic business, particularly as relates to year-round agriculture, construction, food processing, manufacturing and hospitality industries. This Memorial expresses the desire of Idaho citizens and business that the Federal immigration system be modernized to secure the border, to provide for a legal workforce of guest workers, and asks that Idaho’s delegation become National leaders on this topic.
[Memorial calling on federal government to address immigration reform passes Senate, by Angela Kerndl, Idaho News, March 17, 2023]
The Idaho measure specifically praises illegal-alien farmworkers who
…have jobs, are hard workers, pay taxes, and are critical to the economic production of domestic business, and further it would be impractical to incarcerate or deport a class of people uniformly and without regard to circumstances.
[Memorial calling on federal government to address immigration reform passes Senate, by Angela Kerndl, Idaho News, March 17, 2023]
As in North Dakota, Idaho’s lawmakers would sell out white Idahoans for cheap labor.
And the Idaho Senate isn’t just asking Congress to legalize illegals. The same body might give Idaho driver’s licenses to illegals. The Transportation Committee sent the measure to the floor earlier this year. Senators returned it to committee in March, which postpones the bill for the year. Advocates claim it will make Idaho roads safer to reward illegals.
Weeks ago, Idaho’s GOP congressman, Mike Simpson, explained why the Third World must come to Idaho:
Failure to act on comprehensive immigration reform, however, continues to leave Idaho’s agriculture, construction, hospitality, medical and countless other industries less secure. The consequences of our broken immigration system are felt every day by Idaho employers who cannot find a legal workforce willing to do the jobs that keep their businesses and our economy running.
[Idaho Industries Pay the Price of Our Broken Immigration System, Simpson.House.gov, June 1, 2023]
The common refrain from these Red State immigration boosters is that our economy depends on mass immigration. Thus in February, two governors, Indiana’s Eric Holcomb and Utah’s Spencer Cox—arguably the worst GOP governor—said so in the Washington Post. Despite governing deep Red States, they sounded more like Blue State Leftists on immigration:
To help us do our jobs as governors, we call on Congress to end its two-decade standoff on setting immigration policy—one of its most basic duties. And, as leaders of states, we pledge to share the accountability. Though border security is a national concern, and a nonnegotiable requirement of national security in a world with drug cartels and terrorists, we believe that states should be able to sponsor whatever immigrants serve the needs of their communities. As it is, the standstill on immigration hobbles both parties and, more seriously, endangers America’s long-term well-being.
[To solve our national immigration crisis, let states sponsor immigrants, February 21, 2023]
The proposed sponsorship program would work like this, the governors explained:
Under such authority, similar to what employers and universities have already, each state could make its own decisions. They could sponsor no visas or many visas each year, up to a limit set by Congress, for the specific sorts of jobs they need to fill.
Immigration sponsorship would give states a dynamic means to attract new residents, both from a pool of new applicants from abroad and from the ranks of current asylum seekers. The policy would also expand the states’ responsibility for the contributions and success of these folks in American life.
They complained about conservatives who “call immigrants a burden, against all the evidence from economics and history,” and even baldly asserted that America “became prosperous because many immigrants saw our beacon and seized the freedoms and opportunities offered here.”
What a pass to which we’ve come when Republicans prefer Business First to America First, even as we face a Camp of the Saints invasion at the southwest border. (To his credit, incongruously, Burgum did tell Fox News that he’s sent North Dakota National Guardsmen to the southern border [Extra Who Is Doug Burgum And Why Is He Running For President, Fox News Rundown Podcast, June 25, 2023]. Maybe he’s just confused.) The only thing these Stupid Party Fat Cats care about are profits and donations. They care nothing about immigration, and even worse, know little about it. Neither do they understand that demography is destiny. They believe human beings are interchangeable cogs in a machine who won’t change at all no matter how many we import, be they Liberians, Uzbeks, or Guatemalans.
Doug Burgum is apparently one of those Republicans. Thankfully, his bid for presidency will likely go nowhere, saving immigration patriots the worry of what he might do in the White House.
Washington Watcher II [Email him] is an anonymous DC insider.
