Mike Scruggs
The official title of the Schumer-Rubio U.S.
Senate bill, S.744, sponsored by the “Gang-of-Eight” is “The Border
Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization
Act.” Like most dangerous and enormously costly legislation its title
is misleading. It is clearly an amnesty and special interest benefits
act designed to legalize as many illegal immigrants as possible and
maximize the legal availability of more and more cheap imported labor
to its special interest users.
Its claims of tough border
security are largely a façade, with an implementation goal too late
to prevent a massive influx of more illegal immigrants, while opening
the doors wide for millions of new foreign workers. The only economic
opportunity will be for the foreign workers and more profits for special
interests. American workers will get crushed as their real wages are
driven lower by massively increased competition from cheaper imported
labor. Many will be forced to join the unemployment or welfare rolls.
As far as modernization, it fails to address substantial
problems of immigration explosion created by the extended family preference
system
Under this act any illegal immigrant
who has not been convicted of a felony or three misdemeanors and can
offer some proof of being in the U.S. since December 31, 2011, and meets
a few other nominal process requirements is
IMMEDIATELY eligible for a status adjustment from “unauthorized”
to
Registered
Provisional Immigrant (RPI) Status for six years, renewable for
another six years. The Registration Fee is a $500 fine. Except for the
technicality of registration fees called fines, this is by any reasonable
definition
Amnesty
for between 11 and 18 million people. This amnesty only requires the
HSD Secretary to notify Congress that a strategic plan to secure the
border has commenced—just a paper plan without any actual progress.
Technically, they will not be eligible for U.S. welfare and healthcare
benefits. The Democrats will probably try to remedy that when the dust
settles a little.
RPIs may be upgraded to
Lawful Permanent Resident
Status (Green Card) in 5 to 10 years depending on several qualifying
factors. Why 10 years? Because the Congressional Budget Office is only
required to estimate costs for the first 10 years. This is an
accounting trick
that Senator Sessions (R, AL) is protesting, asking the CBO for a full
estimate of costs. However, the Heritage Foundation is already in the
process of updating its cost estimate for the attempted McCain-Kennedy-Bush
2006 amnesty. The cost should be
at least $2.7 trillion including only Social Security, Medicare,
and additional Obamacare liabilities. We already have a national debt
of $16.5 trillion, so what’s a few more $trillion. RPIs can qualify
for U.S. citizenship and voting in between 5 and just over13 years,
depending on several qualifying factors. Drumming up public, media,
and Congressional sympathy and tears for shortening the time required
for citizenship can be reliably expected to occur quicker than the ink
can dry on S.744 if passed. Another clean-up amnesty just like the six
that followed the 1986 Amnesty could be expected soon thereafter.
There is a Border Security
Trigger for commencing Green Card status and health and welfare benefits.
Just like the 1986 enforcement measures that have never been implemented,
they sound tough—90 percent border effectiveness, etc. But no one
outside of a madhouse believes Barack Obama or Charles Schumer will
actually permit any enforcement. It might interfere with their massive
import of future Democrats. That is also why the act allows five years
to phase in the Employee Verification program.
Border security is overblown as prevention for illegal
immigration. Half of illegal immigrants enter on a legal visa and then
go illegal. These will not have to worry about apprehension unless they
commit a felony and could confidently expect additional amnesties following
the post 1986 amnesty pattern.
Besides the massive amnesty,
the bill calls for legal immigration to increase from 1.1 million per
year to 2.6 million per year. Before the 1986 amnesty, legal immigration
was about 300, 000 per year. In addition, there are other programs that
will run legal immigration to a total of around 3.0 million per year.
In sharp disagreement with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Gang-of-Eight
believes the U.S. has a labor shortage. Tell that to the 20 million
Americans who want a full time job and cannot find one! Excess labor
supply will, of course, also drive down wage rates for American workers.
According to Harvard
Professor George Borjas, probably the most respected labor economist
in the U.S, the annual dent in American wages from competition from
imported cheap labor since 1980 is already $402 billion per year, about
$2,800 annually per working American. Besides the immigrants themselves,
special interest users of imported labor benefit by $437 billion per
year. That is why they spend about $300 million per year lobbing Congress—reaping
a very profitable return on investment.
This bill is about special
interest profits and building an overwhelming base of solid big-government
and socially liberal Democrat voters. The hope of converting socially
conservative Hispanics to Republicans is based on much-loved misinformation.
The truth is that Hispanics favor the Democrats by about 3 to 1 because
they prefer big-government social welfare programs, most notably Obamacare.
They are also significantly less socially conservative than the myth,
having out-of-wedlock children and abortions at about twice the rate
of non-Hispanic whites.
The mainstream media, however,
is trying to panic Republicans into joining the amnesty bandwagon. Recent
research and polls, however, indicate that Republicans will gain no
Hispanic votes for backing amnesty and stand to lose a considerable
share of their conservative base by caving in to amnesty and open borders.
As amnesties begin reaping overwhelming numbers of Democrat voters,
the Republican Party will become a powerless, dwindling minority. Grassroots
Republican conservatives are already seriously concerned about the national
party’s lack of courage and increasingly politically correct abandonment
of social issues. Republicans must defeat Schumer-Rubio or face ignominious
extinction.