Could it be that “comprehensive immigration reform” isn’t even needed, because the population of illegals in the United States already has won the fight?
There are experts in the field who suggest President Obama already may have taken action that, essentially, has ended the controversy.
“As distasteful as pardoning lawbreakers is, the problem with amnesty has never been amnesty itself. Rather, it’s the certainty that amnesty will be followed by yet another wave of illegal aliens permitted to settle here owing to elite indifference to immigration law,” wrote Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian in a recent editorial.
“The Obama administration and its pro-amnesty allies (including Lindsey Graham, Jeb Bush, Ed Gillespie, Al Cardenas, Grover Norquist, and others) would have us believe that after the amnesty is completed, then the administration will get serious about enforcing the immigration law. Then it will restore immigration partnerships with local law enforcement. Then it will act against foreign countries that don’t take back their citizens. Then it will ferret out immigration-related fraud and identity theft and tax evasion,” he said.
“If you believe that, I have some Solyndra stock here for you.”
Eight members of the U.S. Senate who describe themselves as a “gang” yesterday proposed a series of moves to address the population, such as a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens already in the U.S.
Obama today took a trip from Washington, D.C., to Las Vegas to deliver a similar statement.
But Krikorian, writing about the illegal population in the U.S. that is estimated anywhere from 10 million to 20 million, earlier this month cited several actions already taken by the Obama administration.
First was the release of 8,500 illegal alien criminals over the past four years who committed “vicious crimes” and were supposed to be deported. The Boston Globe reported in December that the detainees – convicted of murder, rape and other crimes – were released mainly because their home countries would not take them back.
Then were was a “quasi-amnesty” that Obama implemented through his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which gives special privileges to illegal aliens under 30. One of the applicants for help was Luis Abrahan Sanchez Zavaleta, an illegal-alien registered sex offender found to have been working for New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, Krikorian noted.
And there’s the decision by the Obama administration to dismantle its partnerships with local law enforcement.
“Congress created the 287(g) program in 1996 specifically to promote such cooperation, but ICE has just canceled 32 such partnerships, saying that these congressionally created programs were not ‘appropriate.'” Krikorian said. “On top of that, new rules issued by ICE in a pre-Christmas news dump prohibit agents from taking into custody any illegal alien held by local law enforcement whose only offenses involve immigration violations.”
That’s even as the newest numbers from the U.S. Border Patrol show the flow of illegal aliens across the nation’s border with Mexico has increased. The Washington Times reported the Border Patrol made 356,873 arrests along the Texas and Arizona borders in 2012, up from 327,577 the year before.
Many mainstream reports cite a figure of 11 million illegal aliens in the U.S., which the Federation for American Immigration Reform believes is close to accurate.
The group’s statistics indicate the illegal alien population as of 2010 was 11.9 million.
The organization warns that even at that number, granting amnesty “would come at a serious cost” for Social Security. Also, the criminal element provides “a growing threat to public safety and national security,” and it’s a hit on the economy, because “there are nearly 8.5 million jobs taken by illegal aliens.”
Former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, who worked diligently on the issue of illegal aliens during his time in Congress, told WND there’s nothing complicated about the issue.
“Fool me once, shame on me,” he responded in a request for his opinion on the current proposals.
He was referring to a similar amnesty plan passed nearly 30 years ago, when the government’s position was that the illegal aliens already in the U.S. needed to be granted formal status, and then a crackdown on border incursions would eliminate future problems.
The result of that decision, which was estimated to affect about 1 million illegals but actually impacted about 3 million, is today’s illegal immigrant population of at least 10 million to 12 million and possibly has high as 20 million.
William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC goes for the higher figure.
He warned that the current proposals, without a strong border enforcement mechanism, could result in a massive illegal alien population in a few years.
“If they pass this amnesty for 12 million to 20 million, in 15 years time, it will get us 40 million illegal aliens,” he said.
The expected rise in illegal aliens would be sufficient to kill future border security efforts, he warned.
“What it will do within 10 years is turn many of the states as dark blue for Democrats as California is,” he said. “When an alien voting bloc begins to dominate American politics, there’s no stopping whatever they want to do. There are no borders.”
Numbers USA said both the Senate proposal and Obama’s plan are short on enforcement and long on amnesty.
“By rejecting more enforcement, the president makes it harder for fence-sitting Republicans and Democrats to vote for legalization and citizenship,” the organization said.
“Critics of legalization have long warned that insufficient immigration enforcement would produce more illegal crossings as the economy improved,” Numbers USA said.
However, in a radio interview with Rush Limbaugh, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said the conservative wing of Congress is not opposed to immigration reform.
“On the contrary, we are pro-legal immigration. And we recognize that our legal immigration system needs to be reformed,” Rubio said. “We also recognize, because conservatism’s always been about common sense, that we do have an existing problem that needs to be dealt with in the best way possible. Now, it was dealt with in 1986 in a way that was counterproductive. Well-intentioned, but counterproductive because, A, they granted a blanket amnesty to three million people at the time, or that was the estimate, and, B, they didn’t do any of the enforcement mechanisms. And so our point is if we’re gonna deal with this, let’s deal with it once and for all and in a way that this never, ever, happens again.”
Limbaugh pointed out that President Reagan agreed to the 1986 amnesty because he was promised border security, which never happened, and now today’s plans are using the same language.
Rubio said essential elements include border security, workplace enforcement and a visa tracking system.
“If, in fact, this bill does not have real triggers in there, if there is not language in this bill that guarantees that nothing else will happen unless these enforcement mechanisms are in place, I won’t support it. But the principles clearly call for that. Now, obviously, we have to make sure the law does, too,” Rubio said.
Regarding an influx of new citizens who will back the Democrat political machine, he said he doesn’t worry.
“It’s easier to sell cotton candy than it is to sell broccoli to somebody, but the broccoli is better for you, and the same thing with a limited government. Yeah, it’s a lot easier for a politician to sell people on how a big government program is gonna make their life better, but I think ours, once we sell it, is more enduring and more permanent and better for the country,” he said.
He also noted Obama won’t be president forever, and he’s seeking a more reasonable solution in that light.
“As long as these next four years may seem, he won’t be president forever. We’ll have another president one day, and we have to write laws with that in mind as well. And the other point I’d make to you, Rush, is I know this is a tough issue. I do. I know why people are uncomfortable about it. It doesn’t feel right, in some instances, to allow people who have come here undocumented to be able to stay. I know some people are uncomfortable with that notion. This is a tough issue to work through. But I would just say this to you, if this country goes downhill, there’s nowhere else in the world. I mean there’s nothing else, there’s no replacement for it.”