The $6.3 Trillion Cost of Amnesty Insanity

Subsidizing Slave Labor in Liberal Cloud-Cuckoo-Land

Mike Scruggs

     The Heritage Foundation's recently released $6.3 Trillion cost estimate for the Amnesty portion of the Schumer-Rubio or Senate "Gang-of-Eight"  "comprehensive immigration reform" bill, S.744, is only the most visible part of its horrendous potential to bankrupt the U.S. Government   The innocent-sounding official title of S.744 is “The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act.” However, in reality it is a special interest bill giving amnesty to illegal immigrants, more than doubling legal immigration, and increasing guest-worker authorizations by three-fold. It benefits primarily big-business users of cheap foreign labor and those politicians and institutions that thrive on big government and social-welfare oriented voters. The crushing costs of these benefits for big foreign labor users and the political Left will be paid for by American workers and taxpayers. The Heritage report's author, Robert Rector, believes $6.3 Trillion is a conservative minimal estimate of the cost of Amnesty. This will not be the total cost of the Schumer-Rubio bill, however, and the Federal Government is already spending  $1.0 Trillion more per year than its annual tax revenues of $2.52 Trillion. How much more will we have to borrow from the People's Republic of China to finance amnesty?

     Adding $6.3 Trillion to an already dangerous $16.5 Trillion national debt is reason enough for public alarm or for any sane member of Congress to vote against it. But as expensive as it looks on the surface, including the strong possibility of having to borrow much of the future fiscal liabilities from China, underneath the surface the bill contains other substantial costs not included in the $6.3 Trillion.  

     The Senate bill is like an iceberg in that the fiscal costs of massive increases in legal immigration and temporary guest-worker authorizations will not likely be made visible by the mainstream media. 

A large portion of these costs will be borne by state and local government, and like the costs of illegal immigration and amnesty, are essentially a taxpayer paid subsidy to the users of cheap foreign labor. 

Meanwhile, we can look for a well-financed propaganda campaign by big business and cheap foreign labor lobbyists obscuring their financial interests and promoting the whimsical benefits of happy-clappy multiculturalism and stealthily arranged taxpayer-subsidized “free enterprise.” The Left and the mainstream media will serve the usual anecdotal cool-aid about immigration with no mention of the impending suffering of American workers impacted by massive increases in competition from cheaper imported labor. They will not recognize the shadow of slavery. Nor will they think beyond the multikulti glories of liberal cloud-cuckoo-land to impending increases in taxes, borrowing, and debt.

     Besides the fiscal costs, Harvard labor economist George Borjas has shown that although foreign-born labor in the U.S. contributes $1.6 Trillion to the GDP, the net U.S. profit is only $35 billion, tiny and overwhelmed by the huge fiscal debit and social benefit liabilities, which will get much worse with Obamacare. Moreover, there is a gross injustice involved. Special interest users of foreign-born labor profit $437 billion annually at American worker expense, $2,800 per employed person, or $402 billion in total. Special interest lobbyists spend about $300 million per year to maintain this injustice.

     Passage of the bill will bring in the bacon for big-business special interests and authorize an increase in permanent legal immigration from 1.1 million to 2.6 million annually. The pre-1986 amnesty years averaged 300 to 500 thousand. Guest-worker authorizations could increase from the present level of just over 900,000 to 2.7 to 3.0 million. Because the 1965 Immigration Reform Act, with its extended family priorities, will continue to be in effect, most of these could be expected to have relatively low skill levels and similar public cost liabilities to Rector's per person estimate for amnestied illegal immigrants.  

     Rector's estimate does not anticipate the huge multiplier effect of past amnesties, although immigration law enforcement is likely to be negligible, or for show only, as long as Barack Obama or a like-minded liberal Democrat or accommodating Republican holds the office of U.S. President. 

     NumbersUSA recently estimated that 33 million more foreign workers would be coming to the U.S. in the next 10 years, if Schumer-Rubio passes. This includes not only the amnestied immigrants but also the usual chain migration of relatives and millions of others to take advantage of what amounts to a surrender to open-door immigration policies. The Heritage Foundation estimate is very conservative in that it excludes any multiplier effect of the kind that brought two to three more illegal immigrants for every 1986 amnesty.  

     Hence the Heritage Foundation's $6.3 Trillion cost estimate may be far short of the total cost of the near open-door immigration policies proposed by Schumer-Rubio. 

     The total fiscal and economic cost of Schumer-Rubio is beyond estimation and imagination. Such a massive new wave of poorly regulated immigration also increases our vulnerability to terrorism, but Muslim Brotherhood,  Hamas, Hezbollah,  and Al Qaeda terrorist leaders would be hard pressed to come up with a plan that did more fiscal  damage to America than the provisions of Senate bill S.744.    

     With over 21 million Americans wanting a full-time job and unable to find one, flooding the job market with amnestied illegals, millions of their relatives, and millions of new guest-workers seems like a plan straight from the command post of hell.

     In a May 6 blog, Peter Brimelow, Editor of Vdare.com, reminded his readers of other problems associated with massive and poorly regulated immigration that are often neglected for reasons of political correctness and a lack of compassion for ordinary American workers, retirees, taxpayers, and their families.

“But in case anyone has forgotten, the problems include: crime; disease; destroyed schools; destroyed neighborhoods, congestion; racial friction; linguistic displacement; wage depression; welfare costs; political displacement; and, last but of course not least, the abolition of America.”

     Details of the $6.3 Trillion amnesty cost can be found on the Heritage Foundation website.