Undocumented and legal immigration is weakening the United States, according to controversial conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. On his radio program last week the notorious ‘shock jock’ claimed that while immigration had strengthened America in the past, what is happening today is having the opposite effect.
Limbaugh says that a combination of US visa programs supposedly intended to attract high-skilled workers and a calculated move by the Democratic Party to reinvigorate the influx of undocumented immigrants into the country is responsible for the nation’s growing woes. “The Democrats … need a permanent underclass,” Limbaugh claims. “They need a never ending group of people … that will forever be proud, subservient dependents of the federal government. And hence here comes illegal immigration.”
Limbaugh points out that immigration to the United States virtually ceased between 1924 to 1965 and that former immigrants had the chance to assimilate to American culture as the result of the Immigration Act of 1924, which limited the amount of immigrants allowed to enter the country via a quota relating to national origins. The act was revised by Congress in 1952 and 13 years later, in 1965, the quota was abolished by the Immigration and Naturalization Act.
Limbaugh claims that the H-IB visa program, which is sold as bringing in educated, tech-literate engineers, is secretly replacing rather than supplementing American employees, as immigrants are willing to work for a lot less money. “This kind of immigration that we got going on now is not strengthening the country – it’s weakening it,” he insists.