‘Meet the Press’ transcript for June 24, 2007

MR. BUCHANAN:  OK, that means 86 percent of construction workers are American citizens or people here legally whom the illegal aliens are competing with, and they say the Americans won’t do their jobs.  That’s nonsense.  Secondly, the congressman talks about working folks.  In the nonmanagerial, 80 percent of American workers, or something like 93 million, their wages and the Bush boom, so-called, have been arrested.  They are not going up.  Productivity goes up, but wages aren’t going up.  It defies common sense to say you can bring in 36 to 40 million legal immigrants and 12 to 20 million illegal and not have those huge number of uneducated, unschooled folks, who many of whom don’t speak the language not drive down the wages of working Americans.  That is prosperous.  The Wall Street Journal—I don’t know what the editorial is—but The Wall Street Journal has been an open borders, pro-NAFTA, transnational newspaper for a long, long time.

REP. GUTIERREZ:  The fact is that they do jobs.  Every time you go to the grocery store and you get grapes, any agricultural...

MR. BUCHANAN:  Right.

REP. GUTIERREZ:  ...product, we know who is in those pesticide-ridden fields across this country...

MR. BUCHANAN:  Uh-huh.

REP. GUTIERREZ:  ...and, many times, inhumane conditions...

MR. BUCHANAN:  Right.

REP. GUTIERREZ:  ...picking the fruits and the crops that are necessary and vital to our economy, doing the kinds of work that, that truly other Americans won’t do.  The fact is, Pat, we have a society in which we have an older population of workers.  It’s just the truth.  It’s getting older.  I want to go back to this point, and I hope you would let me finish at this time.  There are 144 million workers in our work force.  Seventy-nine million of them are baby boomers.  I just want to reiterate, in 20 years the youngest of that 79 million will be 63.  This population will need to be replaced.  We continue to have a more educated, more sophisticated work force that we create in America.  Someone, as in the past...

MR. BUCHANAN:  Congressman...

REP. GUTIERREZ:  ...is going to have to do those kinds of jobs.

MR. BUCHANAN:  ...you better wake up—you better wake up and smell the coffee here.

REP. GUTIERREZ:  And you want to know something?

MR. BUCHANAN:  Let me—look...

REP. GUTIERREZ:  Here’s the problem, Pat.  I have not interrupted you one time.  I know that you have a position on this issue, but I would like to respond to you...

MR. BUCHANAN:  OK.

REP. GUTIERREZ:  ...and to finish.  Thank you.  And secondly, Pat, we passed welfare reform.

MR. BUCHANAN:  Mm-hmm.

REP. GUTIERREZ:  For you to come to this program to say that immigrants get benefits from our welfare state is just an outright untruth.

MR. BUCHANAN:  Mm-hmm.

REP. GUTIERREZ:  The fact is we passed—all means-tested programs are—immigrants are ineligible for them.

MR. BUCHANAN:  Right.

REP. GUTIERREZ:  But the two most expensive programs, entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare...

MR. BUCHANAN:  Uh-huh.

REP. GUTIERREZ:  ...let me just tell you something.  You have to be a citizen of the United States to get supplemental Social Security...

MR. BUCHANAN:  Right.

REP. GUTIERREZ:  ...and you don’t get Social Security benefits and Medicare...

MR. BUCHANAN:  Two points.  Just two quick points.

REP. GUTIERREZ:  ...until you’ve paid into the system.

MR. BUCHANAN:  Two, two quick points, congressman.  Look, under Plyler v.  Doe, every single state has to give free public education to children who are here illegally.  In D.C., that costs between $12- and $16,000 per child.  Those folks are not paying $12- to $16,000 in taxes.  Secondarily, the folks—grapes were picked in America for a long, long time.  These jobs washing cars were done, mowing lawns were done.  I used to do those jobs, congressman.  Construction jobs, in the ‘50s, were the best job a kid could get out of school.  Your father had to have some contact with the union to get it.  These are good jobs.  They’re for working people.

Let me tell you something.  African-Americans, a sad and tragic figure, African-American and Hispanic-Americans, 50 percent don’t graduate from high school.  And of those who do, the average level of math and English is seventh, eighth, ninth grade.  There are 85 million of those folks; there’s going to be 160 million if we don’t control the border.  What I’m saying is you are risking having two countries.  Let us stop—no amnesty.  Stop this, secure the border, enforce the laws, then we can debate what to do with the folks who illegally—who are not criminals.

REP. GUTIERREZ:  The fact is there is no amnesty in either of the bills.  We say come out of the darkness, come out of the shadows.  We will fingerprint you.  If you’ve been convicted of any felony, you’re out of the program.  Number two, pay fines.  They do exactly what you propose to do, learn English, learn civics...

MR. BUCHANAN:  If they were illegal yesterday, and they’re legal today...

REP. GUTIERREZ:  Let me...

MR. BUCHANAN:  ...isn’t that amnesty?

REP. GUTIERREZ:  But you see, once again, we’re not listening to one another.  We’re not having a discourse here on this program, and that is wrong with what the texture and the tone of the debate that we’re having in America.  Everybody wants to fix—criticize the immigration system, tell us what’s wrong with the immigration system.  But are we ready to meet the challenge of fixing the immigration system so that we can end illegal immigration as we know it...

MR. BUCHANAN:  Congressman, I wrote a book on it.

REP. GUTIERREZ:  Wait, but let me finish something.

MR. BUCHANAN:  Did you read it?

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