LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Jobs for Americans first

OPINION:

Watch out whenever a politician says he is focused like a laser on creating jobs. Whether he’s the first biracial president or a member of the bipartisan Gang of Eight, he obviously means jobs for foreign workers, not Americans.

We have more than 20 million unemployed Americans of every race. The unemployment rate for black Americans is a shameful 13.8 percent, with Hispanics following at 9.6 percent.

So the Gang’s solution is to grant immediate work status to 11 million illegal immigrants and increase the legal foreign worker population by 33 million over 10 years? How can they implicitly promise jobs to immigrants when they can’t even provide jobs for their own? Amnesty will hurt everyone, immigrant and citizen alike. The safety net will break when we cannot afford the public benefits necessary to care for somewhere between 11 million and 33 million new, unemployed foreign workers.

Call your senators and tell them to vote against amnesty because, “Whoever does not care for his own relatives, especially his own family members, has turned against the faith and is worse than someone who does not believe in God” (Timothy 5:8).

CHEREE CALABRO

Co-founder, Indiana Federation for Immigration Reform & Enforcement

Valparaiso, Ind.