The U.S. Senate immigration reform bill, introduced by the Gang of Eight (Go8), ended up a monster of stitching, pasting, and craven deception, much like Dr. Frankenstein’s doomed creation.
The Senate bill is a rehash of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). It is partly a charade of border enforcement, partly a citizenship give-away, partly a mismatch of make-believe financial requirements (such as requiring illegal aliens to pay back taxes and penalties), and partly a surrender of national sovereignty. The Senate passed one monster of a bill.
If the Senate bill were to pass the House, it would present the nation with the same IRCA problems: increased illegal immigration with lax enforcement of border control; no actual employer verification to assure that only legal immigrants are hired; a costly rise in education, healthcare, and welfare entitlements for non-citizens; and continued illegal immigration.
Recently, employee unions at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have written Congress opposing the Senate bill as unworkable because of its weak border-security provisions and ineffective enforcement language. Senate Democrats promise enhanced border security and enforcement (just as they did with IRCA), but it is a ruse.
The old saying, Past is Prologue, applies to this immigration reform bill — too big, too loaded with discretion for political appointees and bureaucrats, and pieced together with non-immigration pork. The Senate bill would grant so much authority via waivers and discretion to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano that no significant border enforcement could occur. Why? Because President Barack Obama wants a porous border. The president, acting through Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has orchestrated the tenor of the bill.
Any immigration bill must define all aspects of reform, leaving no room for interpretation by politicians and bureaucrats. Take a close look at the current federal government; it increasingly resembles Dr. Frankenstein’s pieced-together monster.
- At the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the inmates are running the asylum, as two high-ranking IRS officials invoke their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent before a congressional committee. Most mainstream news coverage also remained silent.
- At the National Security Agency (NSA), with the president’s tacit approval, bureaucrats illegally and immorally invade the privacy of U.S. citizens.
- At the Department of Justice, the U.S. attorney general makes dubious statements and provides duncical answers to congressional inquiries.
- The director of national intelligence gives false answers to a U.S. Senate committee.
- The duplicitous conduct of the Obama administration leaves unresolved the deaths of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya.
On the immigration front, a close read of the Senate immigration reform bill shows that it would facilitate immediate legalization of millions of illegal aliens, far more than the much-touted 11 million. The Senate bill (monstrous at more than 1,000 pages) would be just as unmanageable as the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and promises a larger debacle than IRCA.
A major hang-up in the Senate reform bill remains border security. In response, the Senate tacked on an amendment providing for 20,000 more Border Patrol agents, more fencing, better implementation of E-Verify, better enforcement of entry and exit visas, and exclusion of visa applicants from welfare and healthcare entitlements.
More fencing has been promised but not delivered by the Obama administration. E-Verify, introduced by IRCA, has been around for decades to no effect. Immigrant entry and exit data collection has been dismissed by the Obama administration.
Although the Senate bill would deny healthcare and welfare entitlements to undocumented aliens, history shows that the bureaucrats who write legislative rules tend to grant these benefits to foreign nationals. Some Republicans appear to be falling for the liberal ploy that Hispanics will never vote Republican unless illegal aliens are given carte-blanche entry into the United States.
Legal immigrants currently are required to obtain a form signed by a medical doctor authorized by the U.S. Department of State (DOS) establishing that the immigrant has no serious medical problems. The Senate immigration reform bill fails to address this crucial public health matter, but requires that undocumented-alien applicants must register and undergo national security and criminal background checks. They also must pay back taxes and penalties, learn English, and go to the back of the line of those foreign nationals who follow the rules in applying for U.S. visas.
For reasons unknown, the Senate immigration reform bill would provide non-immigration monies to certain senators; legislative pork lives on. As with IRCA, the Senate bill would leave implementation up to the discretion of political appointees and bureaucrats. Who determined how the immigration requirements in this monstrous bill would be met? Who spoiled the proposed Go8 bill, and will the House of Representatives have the courage to write the immigration reform bill the nation so badly needs?
James H. Walsh was associate general counsel with the U.S. Department of Justice Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1983 to 1994. Read more reports from James Walsh — Click Here Now.
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