by Steve Levy
Democrats and their allies in the media are telling you how wonderful the Senate compromise is on the illegal immigration crisis we face in America.
But anyone spouting this nonsense is either lying or hasn’t read the bill.
It is absurd to claim that this will reduce illegal immigration when it will actually codify it and allow for 18 million more illegal immigrants over the next decade.
That might surprise you, since there were a number of Senate Republicans who signed on to this trash bill. The only response to that is that they sold out for the sake of getting money for Israel and Ukraine.
Some of these Republicans have always been soft on illegal immigration. They’ve been part of the Wall Street Journal crowd who have ignored illegal immigrants flowing over the border the last several decades because it provided their corporate benefactors cheap labor.
In the meantime, Democrats promoted the border surge because these new arrivals will one day vote and get counted in the Census. These are the same elected officials who would otherwise have their districts drawn out by the adjusted redistricting required by the updated Census.
Blue states continue to lose population as their citizens flee to cheaper red states. The solution to keeping their jeopardized seats is to import replacements for these fleeing citizens. Those replacements are illegal aliens, who, despite their illegal status, are counterintuitively counted in the Census. https://www.heritage.org/immigration/commentary/stop-allowing-noncitizens-determine-congressional-and-presidential
Why is this bill so awful?
IT INCENTIVIZES MORE ILLEGAL CROSSINGS
First, the bill would incentivize more illegal immigration by providing work permits to many of those crossing without authorization and codify President Obama’s illegal executive order granting work permits to youngsters here illegally. https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/06/politics/border-security-bill-senate-explained-cec/index.html
IT DOESN’T END CATCH AND RELEASE; IT CODIFIES IT
Secondly, it’s claimed that it will end catch and release. However, it is exactly the opposite. The present law requires those coming over the border seeking asylum to be detained. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10343
But Biden has refused to enforce that law, and, instead, has improperly granted wide-scale parole to over one million illegal border crossers when parole is supposed to be reserved for very specific case-by-case instances. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigration-parole-biden-administration-1-million-migrants/. Nothing in this bill changes that.
Thirdly, Biden has ruled that, instead of keeping these asylum-seekers detained, he will release them into the mainland, and simply ask them to come to a hearing that may not occur for a decade or more.
Many state governors are suing Biden over what they consider to be these illegal executive orders. Instead of waiting for a court to prove these governors right, this horrible Senate bill would codify Biden’s ability to keep in place this catch-and-release system, thereby avoiding detention and expedited review.
Proponents of this so-called compromise laughably claim that catch and release is being ended because they are providing $1.3 billion to liberal not for profits — which are historically illegal immigration sympathizers — to place an app on the cell phone that they give to the illegals. They then will release the illegal immigrant into American society and claim they have them under detention because they can follow them on an app.
How utterly ridiculous! https://cis.org/Feere/Latest-Immigration-Bill-Spends-129-billion-Ineffective-ATD-Program
THE BILL ALLOWS FOR 18 MILLION NEW ILLEGALS OVER NEXT DECADE
Fourthly, this awful bill will prevent future presidents from exercising authority to close down the border immediately, as they can do right now.
Amazingly, the bill doesn’t kick in their restrictions until the first 4,000 illegal immigrants have entered daily and does not require the president to do anything until the first 5,000 per day on average have crossed.
That’s like telling a prosecutor who won’t prosecute murderers that we won’t force him to do so until the first 5,000 murderers get off scot-free.
Why in the world would Republican senators agree to this horrible language?
Five thousand illegal immigrants a day adds up to 1.8 million annually and 18 million over a decade. What’s worse is, you are now giving them some semblance of legality, where at least before you had the chance to deport them.
We don’t need more money for non-governmental agencies.
We don’t need more border agents.
We just need to return to the border agents the authority they once had to turn back those who are coming here illegally.
We just need to reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy that requires asylum seekers to stay outside the country as their application is being considered.
These policies were put into place by the prior administration without any acts of Congress and they worked. The reason we have a crisis now is that the present administration reversed all these policies.
This horrible Senate bill is not a compromise. It is a legalization of illegal immigration.
Steve Levy is President of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as a NYS Assemblyman, and host of “The Steve Levy Radio Show.” He is the author of “Solutions to America’s Problems” and “Bias in the Media.” www.SteveLevy.info, Twitter @SteveLevyNY, steve@commonsensestrategies.com