President Donald Trump has been making progress on funding his desired border wall, with the most recent development being nearly $4 billion diverted from the Pentagon to fund the project. Trump also recently waived 10 federal laws to expedite the construction of 177 miles of border.
Once complete entirely, the wall will put a band aid on the problem by helping slow the flow of illegal immigrants into the country, but for those already here, some GOP senators are already waiving the white flag (or simply don’t care).
According to Conservative Review’s Daniel Horowitz: Two GOP staffers have informed me that Sen. Thom Tillis, along with Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), began working this Wednesday on an effort to get Trump’s support for a mass amnesty bill that passed the House last year. Rosemary Jenks, government relations director of Numbers USA, which is opposing the bill, confirmed to me that those are the three leaders of the potential bill in the Senate. Conservative HQ, a publication run by legendary conservative Richard Viguerie, reports that Tillis is expected to be the lead Senate sponsor and that Vice President Pence’s PAC is rumored to be supporting this bill. I’ve heard the same from my sources in the Senate as well.
Tillis has already publicly praised the bill, and according to my sources, has met with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, along with several other GOP senators, to plan support for the bill. Notably, nobody from the DHS was present at the meeting to offer the border security perspective on the bill.
On December 11, House Democrats passed the Orwellian-named Farm Workforce Modernization Act (H.R. 5038). In plain English, it grants amnesty to every illegal alien in this country who claims to have worked at least part-time for agriculture and creates an unlimited agriculture guest worker program for the future to bring in millions of low-skilled workers.
As we know from history however, amnesty isn’t a permanent solution. It’s a “solution” that only begets more illegal immigration, and eventually more amnesty.
We already know what amnesty will do to rates of illegal immigration because in 1986 Congress passed (and Ronald Reagan signed) so-called comprehensive immigration reform (that couldn’t have been all that comprehensive because politicians are still calling for the “comprehensive reform” today). That reform included legalizing most illegal immigrants that had been in the U.S. prior to 1982. The newly legalized immigrants were at least prevented from receiving most types of federal welfare and were eligible for citizenship after five years of lawful permanent residency.
Resulting from the amnesty, 2.7 million illegal immigrants (of 3.2 million total) were given lawful permanent resident status. The overall illegal immigrant population has since ballooned to an incredible 15+ million today, or nearly five times the 1986 peak, despite eventually legalizing 84% of illegals that were in the country at the time as a result of the amnesty. If we were to legalize all current illegals, we’d be debating another amnesty in another couple of decades. It’s truly a paradox created by the Left (and in this case, aided by some Republicans) that guarantees the problem will never be solved.
That’s even visible in the case of the 1986 amnesty before it could take effect, as apprehensions on the southern border (a proxy for illegal crossings) increased until hitting a record high in 1986, which had only been eclipsed in one year since. In other words, illegals began rushing the border ahead of the 1986 amnesty’s passage, even though it would only apply to illegals who entered the country prior to 1982. Even they were smart enough to know our government wasn’t capable of enforcing the criteria they created.
Beginning in 1993, those illegals turned “lawful residents” could begin applying for citizenship. The Clinton administration launched “Citizenship USA” in 1995 to speed up the processing of applications for legal status for illegals, and a 2000 review by the Inspector General of the Department of Justice found the program “rife with fraud.” One sample of 7,000 applicants found evidence of fraud in 462, or 6.6% of applications. To quote the report; “evidence of fraud was not adequately explored and, in some instances, was completely disregarded.”
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) also failed to provide background checks for nearly a fifth of immigrants and didn’t enforce the English-language requirement for citizenship. Interviews to determine whether illegals had good moral character lasted about five minutes per applicant.
So, that was a trainwreck, and that “only” applied to 2.7 million illegal immigrants. Can you imagine the disaster if they tried with fifteen million?
Hopefully we won’t have to.
