Defeated Sen. Bennett (R-Utah) — On Immigration, Preferred Corporate Greed Over Patriotic Businesses & Citizens

Sen. Robert Bennett is a prime example of how immigration plays with the Republican Party’s national elite and their preference for the greediest of business lobbyists over regular taxpaying citizens and the majority of business owners who prefer strong immigration enforcement over heavy foreign labor importation.

Utah’s grassroots Republican leaders sent quite a message over the weekend that they don’t think much of their Party’s national elite, as they refused to allow incumbent Sen. Robert Bennett a chance to run for a fourth term.

In three of his nine two-year Congresses, he earned an F-minus for his helping the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to protect a certain flow of illegal foreign workers and to make sure that at least 1 million authorized foreign workers and dependents are admitted to the U.S. each year.

He has been especially harmful to the national interest by protecting the visa lottery (earning an F-minus) and chain migration (earning a D).

And in our category of actions concerning “importing unnecessary workers,” he has earned a career grade of D-minus.

But he hasn’t been an unabashed champion of open borders, often bowing to pressure from his Utah constituents to support border and interior enforcement. In the run up to what he expected would be a tough re-election bid, he has earned a C+ overall grade during this 2009-10 Congress, and has an overall career grade of C-minus.

He was caught between the strongly pro-enforcement voters of Utah and the business/media/political/academic elites of Utah who are among the most rabidly pro-open-borders in the country. His immigration record was the result of him trying to please both sides. It looks like the grassroots Republican leaders didn’t buy that kind of mixed loyalties between the rank and file and the elites. They threw out Bennett as an undependable elite and hoped to find somebody to represent the rank and file in the Senate.

Republican incumbents throughout the nation may want to reconsider whether doing the bidding of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (no matter how much campaign money it directs their way) is worth going against the majority of the voters back home, including what polls show are the majority of business owners who want strong immigration enforcement and oppose increased foreign worker importation.

I hope all of you are fully using all of our tools for activism to challenge the status quo of both Republican and Democratic Members of Congress on immigration matters.

NumbersUSA’s Capitol Hill Team informs me that the Republican elite that is in the pocket of the greediest of business lobbyists is currently in control of the Republican apparatus in both the U.S. House and Senate. That is the reason the Republicans have not mounted an effort to put millions of unemployed Americans back to work by opposing current immigration policies.

Nationally, voters are still left with no choice on the big immigration matters between the leaders of the two major Parties.

Utah grassroots Republican leaders showed that Americans don’t have to put up with that lack of choice.

ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA