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Default Why The Gutierrez Amnesty Bill Is So Bad

Why The Gutierrez Amnesty Bill Is So Bad—And Why It Might Pass Anyway

By Washington Watcher

"Twenty-five million Americans are out of work. New Census figures show that one out of every six “American” workers is foreign-born. It’s obviously the perfect time to gut enforcement, give amnesty to illegals aliens, and import millions additional legal immigrants!


At least it is for Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Solomon Ortiz (D-TX)
who just introduced HR 4321: the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for
America's Security and Prosperity Act of 2009—or “CIR ASAP”, as they
like to call it.

I haven’t had a chance to read the whole bill, which is 645 of pages,
but Guitierrez’s office sent out a 12 page detailed summary. It is
worth noting that these bills always include hidden clauses that will
provide loopholes to the minimal enforcement and preconditions for
amnesty as well as millions of dollars in subsidies to La Raza and
ACORN that are not listed in the summary, so the bill is no doubt
worse than what I am about to lay out. But don’t worry, what’s in the
summary is alarming enough. Potentially, the bill—

Reduces Border Security: CIR ASAP’s section on border security makes
no mention of creating physical barriers or adding additional agents.
Quite the opposite, it explicitly “prohibits military involvement in
non-emergency border enforcement” and establishes “the US-Mexico
Border Enforcement Commission and a Border Communities Liaison Office
to foster and institutionalize community consultation.”

These will be nothing but a new avenue for the Mexican government and
majority-Hispanic towns in the US to obstruct border enforcement.

Abolishes all local and state level immigration enforcement: CIR ASAP
repeals the successful 287 (g) program that allows states to partner
with federal officials to crack down on criminal aliens. It also
"preempts any state or local law that discriminates against an
individual based on immigration status or imposes sanctions on any
individual or entity based on the immigration status of its clients,
employees, or tenants”—effectively nullifying successful and popular
laws in states like Oklahoma, Georgia, and Arizona and localities like
Prince William County, Virginia.

Weakens Federal Enforcement: In addition to completely banning any
state level enforcement, the bill will bar any immigration raids at
churches, schools, and designated “community” locations. It also
practically prohibits any detention of illegal aliens if it will
“separate families.”

Additionally, it creates an ICE Ombudsman—as if it is not easy enough
for the ACLU or MALDEF to complain and for illegals to avoid
deportation.

Ends E-Verify: The bill creates a “new” employment verification
system, that “shall be the technological basis for a secure cross-
agency, cross-platform electronic system that is a cost-effective,
efficient, fully integrated means to share immigration and Social
Security information necessary to confirm the employment eligibility
of all individuals seeking employment while protecting individual
privacy.”

We already have that. It’s called E-Verify. The only possible reason
to create a new system is to make it ineffective.

Amnesty for Everyone, No Strings Attached: CIR ASAP makes no pretenses
of limiting the number of people who would be eligible for amnesty. It
applies to everyone who is present in the U.S. the day the bill is
signed. So, even more so than other bills that purport to only apply
to people here for a certain number of years, it will encourage
illegal immigration while it is being debated.

An October Zogby survey of Mexicans found that “56 percent, thought
giving legal status to illegal immigrants in the United States would
make it more likely that people they know would go to the United
States illegally. Just 17 percent thought it would make Mexicans less
likely to go illegally.” [Public Opinion in Mexico on U.S.
Immigration: Zogby Poll Examines Attitudes, by Steve Camarota, Center
for Immigration Studies, October 2009.]

The only requirements for the CIR ASAP amnesty is that the illegal
have a job or be in school, pass a criminal background check, and pay
500 dollars, and supposedly learn English. Of course, they’ll be
plenty of loopholes for them to avoid even these flimsy conditions.

Increases Legal Immigration: The bill "permits the recapture of unused
employment based visas" from 1992-2008. The “recapture” scheme is
premised on the idea that if the number of visas issued in a certain
category was below the cap anytime in the last 16 years, we should
take these. Besides the fact that the caps are not meant to be
minimums, we already “recapture” them every year when unused work
visas get transferred to the family reunification category and vice
versa.

When the usual suspects floated this idea around in 2008, the State
Department estimated it would lead to an increase of 550,000 foreign
workers annually—as if the 1.5 million we have is not enough.

There is a lot of talk about reducing the “back log” for green cards
in the CIR ASAP summary. While some of this back log is actually
bureaucratic, for the most part it is simply people on the waiting
list because the million we issue each year still does not accommodate
the 36% of all Mexicans who said they would move to the US if they had
the opportunity. So reducing the “back log” will dramatically increase
legal immigration until (and if) the “back log” is cleared.
Incidentally, there is a proposed $500 dollar fee to expedite removal
from the backlog, which is the same as the proposed fine for amnesty.

Additionally, there is vague language about strengthening the family
reunification. A close reading of the bill will certainly find
significant increases to that category as well.

The bill gets a little interesting when it creates a "Commission on
Immigration and Labor Markets" to make recommendations to Congress
about the proper levels of employment based immigrations. Depending on
who is in power when they appoint this commission, it could make good
or bad recommendations, and Congress could choose to enact or ignore
them. I’m sure it will be stacked to make the Commission argue for
more visas. Nonetheless, this does show that the writers of this bill
are not automatically conceding long term increases in work-based
immigration. Their concern is to get more Hispanics, not workers as
such. I’ll return to this later.

Until these recommendations are made and implemented, however, the
bill will create 100,000 new visas every year to “prevent unauthorized
migration”—given specifically to countries that send high levels of
illegal immigration via lottery, until this new system is enacted. The
three top countries sending illegal immigrants are Mexico, El
Salvador, and Guatemala. So virtually all of these new visas will go
to Hispanics.

The bill further increases legal immigration specifically to Hispanics
by increasing maximum percentage of employment and family visas issued
to specific countries by 42%. This specifically benefits countries
such as Mexico that use up all of their allotted visas.

The only potentially good thing in the bill is that it includes some
reforms to the H1B, H2B, and L1 visas. These are no doubt concessions
to the labor unions who, at least in theory, worry about exposing
their members to more completion. (More on that soon.)

Notwithstanding this incredibly thin silver lining, this CIR ASAP
amnesty is much worse than the ones proposed in 2006 and 2007. At
least those amnesties pretended to increase border security, step up
interior enforcement, and make preconditions for legalization. CIR
ASAP explicitly goes in the opposite direction.

Should we be worried?

I recently spoke with a former Republican Congressman who helped lead
the fight against amnesty in 2006 about its prospects in 2010. He was
pessimistic, arguing that as long as the Democrats could get a few
Republicans on board, this would make the legislation “bipartisan” and
give cover to all the Democrats who voted for it.

Personally, I am more optimistic about holding onto the Blue Dog
Democrats. Right now this is a purely Democratic bill. Of the 91 co-
sponsors not one is a Republican. Even the members of the Republican
Hispanic Conference and folks like Jeff Flake are not signed on.

The unity of the Republicans against the Obama agenda is no doubt part
of the reason. But it is very clear that this amnesty is designed to
cater to unions and the Hispanic lobby rather than to Republican
business interests. Thus Tamar Jacoby’s Immigration Works USA [a
"national federation of employers working to advance better
immigration law."] complained that the bill

“provides no answer for one of the three essential questions at the
heart of immigration reform [the other two being enforcement and
amnesty]: how to provide a legal supply of the foreign labor we’ll
need in the future to help the economy recover and grow. And some
provisions, including the proposed changes to existing worker-visa
programs, could hinder U.S. economic growth.” [CIR ASAP – Only Part of
the Fix That’s Needed, Immigration Works USA, December 16, 2009]

Similarly, the Chamber of Commerce whined about CIR ASAP in a press
release:

“We look forward to reviewing the actual legislation, but we are
concerned with the bill’s approach for temporary and seasonal worker
programs outlined in the draft summary released today. Allowing an
additional 100,000 unemployed immigrants a year to enter the country
permanently through a lottery, as proposed in this bill, disregards
the current needs of the economy. Immigration should be a demand-based
system that permits employers to hire, as needed, when the economy
recovers fully, igniting job growth.” [U.S. Chamber Criticizes
Immigration Reform Legislation, Chamber of Commerce, December 15,
2009]

Assuming the amnesty makes it onto the table, there will be a fight
between the labor unions and business lobbies. The former will not be
able to justify the legislation in this economy if it explicitly
increases especially temporary workers, which the unions have always
been preoccupied with, probably because they are so hard to unionize.
While the latter should be happy with the increases in total legal
immigration, they are financially dependent on lobbies focused on
certain types of temporary visas. No matter how many total visas are
added, the H2B Workforce Coalition will not support a bill that cuts
H2B visas. This inevitable schism could potentially sink the bill.

Funny things happen to legislation. For example, I am still not sure
whether or not Congress will pass Obamacare, but I—like most political
observers—was confident it would sail through earlier in the year.

In June, polls showed that the 65% of all Americans believed that
providing healthcare for “every single American” should be the goal of
health care reform, but 80% opposed giving health care to illegal
aliens, and it was a deal breaker for 70% of Americans.

That the Democrats received such a fierce fight for something that
Americans support in theory suggests that something that Americans are
instinctively against will be extremely difficult to pass during an
election year.

Besides the Hispanic Caucus, very few Democrats seem particularly
eager to pass amnesty. Neither Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Assistant
Speaker Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD),
Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC), nor Caucus Chair John Larson (D-CT)
signed on as co-sponsors. Barack Obama hasn’t peeped a word about it.
This could change quickly, but it seems almost inconceivable that
they’d want to be supporting amnesty during an election year with 10%
unemployment.

That being said, many Democrats seem to have swallowed the same
“crucial Hispanic Swing vote” Kool-Aid as the Republicans. They give
an inordinate amount of influence to the 20-member Hispanic Caucus.
(In contrast, there are 100+ members in the Tancredo founded
Immigration Reform Caucus). So it’s not impossible that the Democrats
might in the end decide to push the bill.

The best way to fight amnesty is not to bother with the specifics of
this proposal, but instead go on the offensive by calling for
increased enforcement and a moratorium on legal immigration.

Indeed, if Republicans are smart they would make illegal immigration a
major part of their attacks on the health care plan. Pointing out the
loopholes is important, but they should also note that amnesty is
around the corner—making any restriction of benefits to illegal aliens
moot. Republicans should demand that all the Democrats who claim that
they don’t want to give government health care to illegal aliens state
on the record that they oppose amnesty.

Unfortunately, Republicans are stupid. So immigration patriots out in
Americaland need to start this offensive for them. "

"Washington Watcher" [email him] is an anonymous source Inside The
Beltway.

http://www.vdare.com/washington_watcher/091228_gutierrez_amnesty_bill.htm

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