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S.744 Would NOT Secure the Borders

May 13, 2013 By 8 Comments

Says who?

Chuck Schumer, that’s who.

During last week’s Judiciary Committee mark-up of S.744, the Gang of Eight amnesty bill, Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley offered an amendment that would have required that our borders be secure for six months before the amnesty process could begin.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), one of the Gang of Eight, took exception to Grassley’s amendment, arguing that the “amendment would set a standard that basically would delay, probably forever, any legalization, bringing people out of the shadows.”

Grassley’s amendment was defeated 12-6, with Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), the two Republican members of the Gang of Eight who sit on the Judiciary Committee, voting against it. With that vote, and Schumer’s frank admission, went any pretense that S.744 is about preventing future illegal immigration.

Under S.744, amnesty would begin six months from the day the president signs the bill. Border security would begin six months from never.

Filed Under: Amnesty 2013, Border, Law, Politics, Population, Society

Grassley – Amnesty Bill Delegates Too Much to DHS (Video)

May 10, 2013 By 7 Comments

During yesterday’s markup of S. 744, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said the bill was just like Obamacare – which contained 1,600 delegations of Congressional authority. S. 744 allows the DHS secretary to waive rules over 400 times, including in cases where criminals attempt to get amnesty. Watch the video of his remarks about delegation below.

In addition, the border security provisions of the bill are too dependent on the DHS secretary self-certifying that DHS is doing a good job of enforcing the border. Instead, Congress should be the one to make the final judgment on whether the border is secure. Despite these common-sense arguments, however, the Republican members of the Gang of Eight voted against common-sense fixes to the bill yesterday.

Filed Under: Amnesty 2013, Border, In the Spotlight, Law, Politics, Population, Society

Work Document Verification; Tilting at Windmills

May 10, 2013 By 3 Comments

An article in Politico on May 9 focused on the Gang of 8’s proposal to expand verification of employment identity documents. Opposition was noted among proponents of the legislation as well as opponents. Libertarians are concerned that the bill will create a national database of all workers, employers are concerned that the system would be unwieldy especially for small businesses, and advocates for effective reforms are concerned that the Gang of 8 bill bends over backwards to weaken the effectiveness of the system.

The concern about a national database of workers is absurd because that system already exists in the requirement for all workers to be registered with the Social Security Administration (SSA). In fact, work eligibility verification relies on accessing the SSA database. The real concern with the bill should be that it discards the current E-Verify system in favor of some new, undefined system. The current system has been improved over the years since it was established under a 1996 legislative mandate. Opponents of the system – both employers who are potentially exposed as knowingly hiring illegal workers, and illegal alien defenders who don’t want job opportunities to be denied to their community – criticize it for having an “error” rate of one or two percent. But, what is termed an error is someone legally entitled to work who is initially not verified by the E-Verify check. Virtually all of these “errors” result from name changes at marriage or misspellings in the SSA database. They are not errors – they simply require correcting the database, which has to be done at some point before the worker can receive retirement benefits.

Rather than focusing on false issues of privacy or error rates, persons who want to see effective protection of jobs for legal workers should focus on the fact that S.744 is aiming to discard a working, effective system to be replaced with an undefined system that will be created by an administration that identifies with the defenders of illegal aliens.

Filed Under: Amnesty 2013, Jobs, Law, Population, Society

Video: Schumer Refuses To Estimate Future Immigration Flow Under Gang Of Eight Proposal

May 9, 2013 By 10 Comments

Fresh from today’s Senate Judiciary Committee mark-up process on the Gang of Eight amnesty bill (with special thanks to the office of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama)).

One of the most controversial and unanswered questions pertaining to the Gang of Eight immigration bill is how many immigrants will be legalized and brought into the country under their plan.

Based on bipartisan estimates, the number could be 30 million or higher–11 million who are here illegally who will immediately be allowed to work and compete with Americans for jobs; 4.5 million due to clearing out the so-called “backlog” of applications; and 15 million future legal immigrants over the next decade, which represents a 50 percent increase above current projections.

Although Sen. Schumer disputed the 30 million figure, he repeatedly refused to offer his own estimate, making it very difficult to determine how other components of the legislation (fees and taxes, for example) would actually work.

See the video of the exchange below….

Filed Under: Amnesty 2013, Law, Politics

The Other Big Winners in Gang of Eight Immigration Bill: Lawyers, Lobbyists and Advocacy Groups

May 9, 2013 By 5 Comments

Some of the interests that stand to gain the most from the Senate Gang of Eight immigration bill, S. 744, are obvious.
Within six months of enactment of the bill, millions of illegal aliens would be eligible for Registered Provisional Immigrant (RPI) status – the first and most important step in the amnesty process. They would be granted permission to remain and work in the United States while they wait for green cards and eventual citizenship.

Also obvious winners in the 844-page bill are business interests that would gain easier access to foreign labor. S. 744 provides for significant increases in guest workers who would be made available to businesses, as well as new flows of low-skilled and skilled permanent immigrants.

But there are still others who would hit the jackpot if S. 744 were to become law: lawyers and an array of groups that advocate on behalf of illegal aliens. Click here to read my full op-ed in today’s Townhall.com.

Filed Under: Amnesty 2013, Law, Politics, Population, Society

Rubio is Wrong

May 9, 2013 By 15 Comments

Sen. Marco Rubio yesterday attacked the estimate by the Heritage Foundation that adoption of the Senate’s amnesty bill negotiated by the Gang of Eight would cost U.S. taxpayers $6.3 TRILLION over the next 50 years after subtracting tax receipts. He told the Tampa Bay Times that the flaw was Heritage’s assumption that “these people are disproportionately poor because they have no education, and they will be poor for the rest of their lives in the U.S. Quite frankly that’s not the immigration experience in the U.S.”

Rubio is wrong. A survey of beneficiaries of the 1986 amnesty, five years after gaining legal status, found that on average they had not gained in income any more than other workers, and most had actually lost ground economically. That survey was the only one of its kind, and it did not include the agricultural worker amnesty recipients who were the least likely to have benefited from the amnesty.

Most of the arguments that adoption of the amnesty would be an economic benefit – like Sen. Rubio’s – are based on the assumption that newly legalized workers will get better jobs and move out of poverty. The experience with the beneficiaries of the 1986 amnesty proves that assumption is naïve – at best – or deliberately misleading.

Filed Under: Amnesty 2013, Law, Politics, Population, Society
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