Amnesty and the Attack on American Workers

By Matthew Vadum

The “dangerous” immigration bill working its way through the U.S. Senate will devastate America’s labor marketplace and “guarantee” the country will have to grant “another amnesty” in the future, says Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama).

“This legislation is not going to work,” Sessions told Breitbart News. He described the measure sponsored by the bipartisan so-called Gang of Eight in the Senate as a “surrender to illegality that will guarantee we’ll be back in this position again.”

“We have no indication whatsoever that this administration will have renewed [its] commitment to follow whatever law is passed,” Sessions said. “This Senate bill is very, very dangerous. It won’t work, and I hope the American people will dig into it and follow the details of it.”

In a time of high unemployment, record food-stamp dependency, and economic stagnation, a minimum of 11 million immigrants will immediately be given Social Security cards that will allow them to compete for government and blue collar jobs. The legislation puts “tremendous pressure” on the job market and makes it harder for workers to find jobs and leave welfare programs.

Although amnesty remains deeply unpopular among the American public at large, the activist Left wants the estimated 11 million illegal aliens present in the U.S. to be processed because they see them as future Democratic voters. In addition, many labor unions, such as SEIU (which has executives focused solely on immigration issues) see today’s illegals as future union members. Business lobbies favor amnesty because they crave the cheap, largely unskilled labor.

The Left’s goal with the current immigration bill, which a Heritage Foundation study found would add $6.3 trillion to the nation’s budget deficits over the coming 50 years, is the same as with most of its major policy initiatives over the past half century: To destroy the American system.

The radicals’ goal is to use immigration to subvert the American system, just as it has been since the 1960s when the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) shepherded reform of that era’s immigration laws through Congress. The concept is simple: Flood America with people who don’t share Americans’ traditional philosophical commitment to the rule of law, limited government, and markets, in order to force changes in society.

An added benefit, from the Left’s perspective, is the proposed mass amnesty would destroy once and for all the Republican Party.

Starry-eyed Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) think that backing the measure will somehow win their party Latino votes. They must hope that if it becomes law the new voters it brings to their party’s fold will more than offset the all-but-certain exodus of fed-up conservatives the legislation will prompt. Among those disgruntled Republican-leaning voters are the same people whose failure to vote in November helped to deprive GOP candidate Mitt Romney of the presidency.

Democrats, on the other hand, know with much greater certainty that the legislation will secure their party more votes. “This legislation is all about the Democrats bringing in new voters who will assure them of a permanent leftist majority,” writes Paul Mirengoff.

Well-heeled radicals like George Soros are eager to push the national GOP over the cliff. One of the more active progressive groups pushing amnesty, National Immigration Forum, has taken a lot of money from Soros. According to tax records, the group has taken $3,807,152 from Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society since 2009 and $1,650,000 from Soros’s Open Society Institute since 1999.

On “Meet the Press” Sunday, Graham made the nonsensical argument that if the GOP doesn’t pander to Latinos it will die.

“If we don’t pass immigration reform, if we don’t get it off the table and in a reasonable, practical way, it doesn’t matter who you run [for president] in 2016,” he said. “We’re in a demographic death spiral as a party. And the only way we can get back in good graces with the Hispanic community, in my view, is pass comprehensive immigration reform. If you don’t do that, it really doesn’t matter who we run in my view.”

Of course, the kind of outreach proposed by Graham is pointless.

Immigration is not an important issue for most Latino voters and Latinos are traditionally staunch, pro-big government Democrats.

“Anyone who believes that they’re going to win over the Latino vote is grossly mistaken,” said Representative Lou Barletta (R-Penn.). “The majority that are here illegally are low-skilled or may not even have a high school diploma. The Republican Party is not going to compete over who can give more social programs out. They will become Democrats because of the social programs they’ll depend on.”

According to Sessions, the legislation provides that an additional 4.5 million illegals will be legalized over the following decade. At that point the nation’s intake of immigrants will grow by at least 50 percent per year over 10 years for a total of 1.5 million immigrants a year being placed on a path to citizenship, or 15 million more for 10 years.

In addition to these 30 million immigrants placed on a path to citizenship, the measure would also double the quantity of temporary workers who could come and stay in the U.S. for three years, Sessions said. The workers would have the option to “re-up” for another three years with their families.

The bill is currently close to 1,100 pages long, reportedly weighing in at 24 pounds. It deals not only with immigration itself, but also with border security, welfare programs, free trade, and a multitude of other issues. Democrats are hoping to force the legislative monstrosity through the Senate before Independence Day.

The foremost champion of the bill, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), has made the laughable claim that the measure contains “the toughest enforcement measures in the history of the United States, potentially in the world.”

Last week the Senate rejected a “border security first” amendment to the Gang of Eight legislation. The amendment, offered by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), would have required the Department of Homeland Security to show that the southern border was secure for six months before illegals would be granted legal status.

One of the recently discovered gems buried deep within the legislation is a provision that would create a small business advocates’ office within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The office would have the power to block enforcement actions and revoke penalties slapped on an employer.

Another provision would give the attorney general the ability to provide a taxpayer-funded defense lawyer to illegal aliens facing deportation. Even U.S. citizens are not entitled to free government attorneys in administrative proceedings. (A deportation hearing is an administrative — not a criminal — proceeding.)

“Illegal aliens fighting deportation would be entitled to see all of the documents in their file, including those obtained by ICE from other law-enforcement agencies, which may be sensitive or even classified,” writes Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “The likely result is that other agencies would decline to provide ICE with these documents if they were worried about their release. And, if ICE refused to release any documents, then the alien could not be removed.”

Incidentally, embattled Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director John Morton said he’s quitting at the end of next month.

Morton became infamous in 2010 when he directed law enforcement to stop enforcing immigration laws. ICE’s union, the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, approved a non-confidence motion against him on a vote of 259 to zero. Morton also released thousands of illegal immigrants from custody, hundreds of whom had violent criminal records.

But amnesty opponents should not lose heart. All is not lost even if the Senate approves the bill.

The measure faces an uncertain future in the House.

“This is President Obama’s number one political agenda item because he knows we will never again have a Republican president, ever, if amnesty goes into effect. We will perpetually have a progressive, liberal president, probably a Democrat, and we will probably see the House of Representatives go into Democrat hands and the Senate will stay in Democrat hands,” Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said.

An analysis by Amy Walter of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report puts the odds of passage in the House somewhere between slim and none.

For House Republicans, “[T]here is little short-term gain to supporting immigration legislation,” Walter says. “It won’t make them any safer in a general election and instead may make them more vulnerable in a primary.”

GOP operatives’ entreaties to House lawmakers to support the bill out of loyalty to the party are likely to fall on deaf ears. “Today, with over 40 percent of the GOP conference elected since 2010, the idea of ‘taking one for the team’ is likely to fall flat,” Walter says. “Most of these members ran to shake up Washington and have pledged to refuse to bow to party bosses.”

“[I]t’s going to take more than just talk of being a ‘good soldier’ to get House GOPers to go along with comprehensive immigration reform,” she says.