Unearthed Troy Jackson Op-eds Highlight Immigration Flip-Flop

A bombshell new report highlighted Troy Jackson’s extreme shift in immigration stance – using his own written words.

With a series of unearthed opinion articles and letters written by Jackson, The Maine Wire exposed how Troy Jackson rose to power railing against migrant labor, only to flip-flop to an Abolish ICE radical when it became politically convenient.  

“Troy Jackson is a con man who will do anything to gain power. Jackson rode the anti-migrant labor movement straight into public life and abandoned it as soon as it became politically inconvenient, like so many of his previous positions. This is a man of no convictions that Mainers will soundly reject in November.”  – RNC Spokesperson Kristen Cianci  

THEN: Blamed migrant workers for falling wages saying, “immigration law says foreign labor cannot have adverse effect on American workers or working conditions…foreign labor was voting for contracts that were below state prevailing wage rates” and that he “did exactly the same job in 1986 and I was paid $165 an acre, had to bring my own car but I got travel pay…now they're doing it for $75 an acre, they buy their own saw and don't have any benefits.”

NOW: Says it’s “despicable” when “politicians...blame” immigrants “for the real challenges Mainers are facing” and claims only “powerful bigots” would blame immigrants for their “problems.”

THEN: Called for federal intervention to protect American workers saying, “The Labor Department seems to be more interested in protecting Canadian workers than the Americans they were hired to protect,” and complained that the government wasn’t stepping in to protect American jobs saying, “‘If tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? … if a landowner has a Canadian fell a tree in the forest, no one in Washington or Augusta can hear it.”  

NOW: Wants to “dismantle and abolish” the federal immigration enforcement agency, close detention centers for immigrants who enter illegally, and arrest immigration enforcement officers.

THEN: Complained that American workers "couldn’t compete” with migrant workers saying, “the simple fact was that you couldn’t compete with them when they already had health insurance. They didn’t have to worry about workers’ comp. And they were bringing home a dollar of American money and exchanging it for a dollar fifty of Canadian.”

NOW: Advocated for bringing in immigrant labor saying, “having immigrants come to Maine I think is a good thing…trying to bring immigrants in, trying to get immigrants the training programs and things like that that they needed”

As a reminder, Troy Jackson previously came under fire for his inconsistent positions, including extreme policy flip-flops and admitting he’d run as any party – even a communist – to gain power.

You can read Troy Jackson’s own words here, here, and here.