"The 'Gang of Eight' bill is not immigration reform. It is big government dysfunction. It is an immigration Obamacare. All advocates of true immigration reform — on the left and the right — should oppose it." -- Mike Lee
”On every major front, this legislation fails to deliver on its core promises. It delivers only for the special-interest groups who helped write it. Should it pass, it would represent the ultimate triumph of the Washington elite over the everyday citizen to whom Congress properly owes its loyalty.” -- Jeff Sessions
At a time when the Obama Administration is imploding under the weight of its own scandals and the GOP's odds of taking back the Senate in 2014 are rising almost by the day, it's incredibly ironic that the Republican Party is working with the Democrats on an amnesty bill that will depress the conservative base in 2014, permanently cement in a Democrat majority in America and give Barack Obama almost everything he wants in return for absolutely nothing of consequence.
It's at moments like these when you realize that Republicans really richly deserve to be called "the stupid party."
1) The bill legalizes illegal aliens before security measures are put in place: The entire history of immigration reform in this country over the last thirty years has consisted of the government promising to improve security and then not living up to those promises. Reagan signed on to a "one time" amnesty in return for security measures that were never put in place. Under Clinton, programs like Operation Vanguard were stopped BECAUSE THEY WERE EFFECTIVE at driving illegals out of the meat packing industry. Under George W. Bush, the fence the law says we shall build on the southern border was never completed. Under Barack Obama, an illegal DREAM ACT that never passed Congress was put in place, his administration essentially stopped deporting illegals without felonies on their records and thousands of already detained illegal immigrants were released. Claiming that we'll give legal status to the illegals that are already here and then put security measures in place later isn't even a good faith argument; it's an attempt to deceive the American people by sleazy politicians whose only concern is amnesty for illegals at any cost.
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2) Most of the key security measures in the bill are left up to the discretion of the Obama Administration: After the Obama Administration has shown little appetite for enforcing immigration law and the IRS has politically targeted conservative groups on Obama's watch, it's almost unimaginable that there would be Republicans who are essentially willing to say, "We'll just take Obama's word for it on security." Yet, that's exactly what this bill does time after time, in clause after clause. If the Obama Administration says we've met a security standard, then we've met it. Here's what Mark Krikorian from National Review and the Center for Immigration Studies has to say about that.
Almost every requirement in this bill can be waived by Janet Napolitano: for instance, the time limits on when people can be legalized, the requirements on criminal activity or even the enforcement triggers. Those basically don’t mean anything if any of them is held up in court, still. …The litigation over the 1986 bill didn’t end until just a few years ago. The ACLU has been quite clear that it intends to sue to stop mandatory e-verify and probably sue to stop a bunch of other things. If, for instance, mandatory use of electronic verification is still in the courts 10 years after the bill passes, it’s entirely possible the Secretary of Homeland Security can just give everybody Green Cards on her own — and there are hundreds of other examples of that kind of discretion.
It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that this 1,000 page bill after all of the amendments could be boiled down to, “We trust you, Obama; just do the right thing.”
3) This bill allows illegal immigrants to have American citizenship: Simply put, nobody who is in this country illegally should be given the privilege of applying for American citizenship. Truthfully, illegal immigrants don't deserve to even be allowed to be part of a guest worker program, but let's say theoretically as a huge compromise, the bill had gone that way.
That would have taken worries about massive chain migration off the table, it would alleviate concerns that the Democrats would be adding huge numbers of new voters, it would mean the retirement of poor, manual laborers would be an issue for their home country, not us and it would "get them out of the shadows."
It's better for America in almost every single way except one: It wouldn't add millions of new voters for the Democrat Party. It might not be admirable that the Democrats would hold out for a provision that's horrible for the country, but good for the Democrat Party, but it's at least understandable. Why any Republican would try to demographically flood conservatism out of existence, put Americans out of jobs and hurt the country to get amnesty at any cost is a question voters should ask them the next time they're up for reelection.
4) Illegal immigrants won't be forced to pay back taxes: Illegals are able to "do jobs Americans just won't do" because they are allowed to "do things Americans just can't do." You could work for a lot less per hour yourself if you didn't have car insurance or health insurance and could cheat on your taxes with impunity. Illegals broke the law to be here and they committed document fraud to work and both of those should be disqualifiers far as American citizenship goes, but even if you ignore that, they should at least have to pay their taxes just like Americans do. Isn't that the least we could ask? Not according to Marco Rubio, John McCain, Kelly Ayotte and the other Republicans who support this bill.
Under the proposal as offered, immigrants would not have to prove a tax history. There would be no obligation to show evidence of prior filings or payments. It’s basically a simplified version of tax amnesty: there is no responsibility for settling up back taxes. The only exception to the rule involves a situation in which the Internal Revenue Service already has a taxpayer in their crosshairs; if you have an outstanding liability in your name, you’ll be obligated to pay up. Interestingly, this is a change from the current rules for applying for residency or citizenship status which makes tax compliance a criteria for legal entry.
On its face, the rule makes sense. It would be a near impossibility to require previously undocumented persons to show that they had filed and paid taxes. There are simply no records: we call them undocumented workers for a reason.
In a world where Tea Party groups are being politically targeted by the IRS and you have to pay your taxes or go to jail, the people who support this bill believe that illegal aliens shouldn't have to pay the taxes they already owe. That's not just wrong; it's an offensive double standard.
5) Provisions in the bill could add as many as 30 million new immigrants: When massive numbers of Americans can't find a job, how much sense does it make to import 30 million new workers?
The sponsors promised that the bill would not significantly increase legal immigration. However, it will grant legal status to at least 30 million immigrants over the next 10 years if you add up the proposed surge in legal arrivals, approval of 4.5 million previous green card applicants, plus work authorization and legal residency for an estimated 11 million here unlawfully today. The number grows higher if you take into account the removal of annual caps on migration for immediate family members.
Keep in mind that the vast majority of these people won't be highly educated, won't be highly paid and will cost more in government services than they pay out over the course of their lifetimes. A Heritage Foundation study put the cost to taxpayers at 6.3 trillion dollars over time.
Of course, advocates of amnesty hotly dispute Heritage's claim and say that making illegal aliens citizens would be a huge financial boon to the country. Maybe if this were 100 years ago before America became a welfare state that was heavily reliant on highly skilled labor, that might even be true. But today, as Mark Krikorian has noted, the idea that making illegal aliens into citizens could benefit the nation economically is ridiculous.
Nobody would be saying, “Let’s close some high schools because we want to have more people with only a sixth grade education. That really benefits America.” It’s a joke. The very fact that they can say this with a straight face without being laughed off the stage is more a testament to the media’s gullibility than anything else. I mean, you expect politicians to engage in brazen lying, but the problem is too many people swallow this stuff and believe it.
What it all comes down to is that if you want amnesty at any price, this is the bill for you. However, this bill won't secure the border, get an E-Verify system in place, stop future illegal immigration, fix our broken immigration system, build a fence or do anything but set us up for the next "one time amnesty" ten or twenty years down the road. Passing this bill will practically guarantee that we won't take any serious measures to secure the border for the foreseeable future. In fact, just enforcing the laws we have on the books would do considerably more to secure the border and stop illegal immigration than this bill ever could. This bill would be a disaster for the country, a nightmare for conservatism and the end of any hope of getting border security in the next decade. There is nothing you can do to help your country right now that's more important than speaking out against this bill, calling your senator and doing whatever it takes to stop this amnesty from becoming law.
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