I've never been more proud to work at The Heritage Foundation than I was this past Monday.
I was seated at a conference table with 31 of the brightest, most analytical and highly principled people I've ever known as we dissected and analyzed various ripple effects of the Senate’s devastating immigration-reform proposal. After spending an entire weekend digging through a document that had remained secret for so long, Heritage was further scrutinizing it -- and doing what many in the U.S. Senate refused to do: Reveal the truth.
Heritage received the “secret” text -- one that would fundamentally change the American landscape -- around two o’clock in the morning on Saturday. Within hours it was posted online at heritage.org for all to read. The next day, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., mentioned this on the Senate floor:
“For the sake of open deliberation and public education, The Heritage Foundation, which got a copy of the bill somehow, is making this legislation, in draft form, publicly available to encourage widespread debate and discussion. Thank goodness they did make it public … It’s an opportunity, really, for the American people to know what's involved.”
The document had been developed behind closed doors -- away from public scrutiny. It was crafted far from the eyes of ordinary Americans. Once Heritage experts read the drafts, it became painfully clear that our government is considering a measure that would provide amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants and create multiple problems for how we deal with those pouring over the border in the future.
Heritage experts crunched numbers throughout the weekend, weighing the cost both in dollars and in what it would mean to sacrifice the rule of law. We provided analysis through blogging on heritage.org and through columns to sites such as National Review Online, where Heritage constitutional scholar Matthew Spalding built a devastating case for why the measure amounted to amnesty. Again, Heritage did what the Senate failed to do: Inform the public.
But Heritage didn’t stop there. My colleagues continued to scrutinize every line of the bill, researched past proposals, discussed alternative measures, churned out documents on the many problems of the legislation and how to solve them. Granting amnesty to illegal immigrants will eventually make them eligible for welfare, Social Security, Medicare and other government benefits. Senior research fellow Robert Rector gave a preliminary estimate of the cost of amnesty to the taxpayer -- a whopping $400,000 per person over the average lifespan and age of entry for the illegal immigrant. Rector called the bill “a blank check to illegal immigrants written at taxpayer expense.” Again, Heritage did something the Senate refused to do: Think critically.
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