The Tip of a Nation-destroying Iceberg
Mike Scruggs
President Barack Obama has been giving amnesties by the tens of thousands for the last several months. They were, of course, called by other names. For example, putting an illegal immigrant on effectively indefinite “deferred status” as to potential deportation is in effect an amnesty. But as Shakespeare said, “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” The reverse of Shakespeare also works: That which we call a skunk by any other name would smell as foul.
Having gotten away with relatively small amnesties with only scattered or token political opposition and little media attention, the President has now openly declared that he intends to go around Congress and give amnesties by executive order in much larger numbers. Since what President Obama is doing is clearly an unconstitutional usurpation of power from Congress and the people, I think the skunk analogy is a mild one. He is moving from President to Dictator.
The public is largely unaware of the magnitude or the consequences of what he is doing. What they are hearing from Obama and his admirers in the liberal press is wrapped in the usual tear-jerking anecdotes of compassion and the “American Dream,” but it is in fact, tyranny leading to hardship and injustice to millions of American workers and their families. It will also be hard on the taxpayers.
The liberal press is citing an amnesty figure of 800,000 young people. However, this figure is based on the Dream Act, thrice defeated in Congress, which included only college graduates age 30 or less. Obama’s amnesty does not require a college degree, so the likely number of recipients is well over 2,000,000. But don’t bet on the number being that small. It is only the tip of the iceberg. Past amnesties have been characterized by widespread fraud and constantly expanding criteria with minimal verification. At least 25 percent of the amnesties granted in the 1986 Amnesty were awarded on the basis of fraudulent documents and claims. Ronald Reagan was persuaded to sign that amnesty, although he had considerable reservations. His gut feeling and reservations proved correct. He later said that the 1986 amnesty was the biggest mistake of his presidency. What was supposed to have been an amnesty for about 1.0 million turned into an amnesty for 2.7 million, and the amnesty ball kept on rolling after that.
One thing that was confirmed by studies of the 1986 amnesty and the years following is that every amnesty results in two to three more illegal immigrants within 10-20 years. Giving amnesty for illegal acts always undermines respect for law and encourages more illegal behavior. Do the math. Giving two million amnesties (maybe many more) will result in four to six million more illegal immigrants.
According to the May 2012 Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report, there are 23 million Americans who want a full time job and cannot find one. This is according to the U-6 definition, which in addition to the 12 million unemployed in the standard U-3 definition, also includes several million long-term discouraged workers who have given up finding a job and those forced to part-time. There are many others who are underemployed—about half of new college graduates. Obama’s amnesty is not going to be good news for the 23 million Americans in the U-6 employment status category. Several million formerly illegal immigrants will soon be able to compete more openly with them for jobs.
Look at the outrageous injustice here—there are 8.1 million illegal immigrants in the United States who have jobs and 23 million Americans who want a full time job and cannot find one. Now Obama is going to make this unjust situation worse. This is not compassion; it is callous indifference to the suffering of American workers and their families. This is vote-buying demagoguery. When Obama spoke before the radical Latino group, La Raza, in California, they almost brought the house down with cheers, when he suggested he might ignore Congress and grant executive amnesties.
Obama’s game plan has always been to give amnesty to all but a few of the 12 million illegal immigrants now in the U.S. Amnesty will have a disastrous impact on American workers and taxpayers, but with the increase of new welfare-hungry Democrat voters, it will mean an ever more left-leaning electorate and permanent power for Obama and the Left.
The Islamists use immigration as a form of Jihad to take over Western countries. Marxists have always done the same, even deporting large portions of native populations to be replaced with new immigrants, as the Soviet Union did in the Baltic States after World War II. New Russian immigrants flooded into Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; and hundreds of thousands of the natives were forced out. Just a few years ago, European Union leaders were encouraging Muslim immigration to minimize the political impact of native cultural and ethnic identities and nationalism.
Obama’s objective is a new electorate dominated by social-welfare ideology and Marxist leadership. Amnesty will give it to him quickly. Accommodating amnesty is Republican suicide.
Republican leaders need to break the spell of political correctness that has prevented them from taking a strong unified stand against any form of amnesty by whatever name. If they let Obama get away with this Constitutional tyranny and outrageous demographic manipulation to form a new socialist electorate, the handwriting for Republican political impotence will soon be on the wall. Victory and future relevance is going to require some backbone. Without courage, no other virtues or freedom can long survive.
