Steering America Toward Titanic Calamity: The Schumer-Rubio Amnesty & Special Interests Benefit Act

Mike Scruggs

     The official title of the Schumer-Rubio U.S. Senate bill, S.744, sponsored by the “Gang-of-Eight” is “The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act.” Like most dangerous and enormously costly legislation its title is misleading. It is clearly an amnesty and special interest benefits act designed to legalize as many illegal immigrants as possible and maximize the legal availability of more and more cheap imported labor to its special interest users.

     Its claims of tough border security are largely a façade, with an implementation goal too late to prevent a massive influx of more illegal immigrants, while opening the doors wide for millions of new foreign workers. The only economic opportunity will be for the foreign workers and more profits for special interests. American workers will get crushed as their real wages are driven lower by massively increased competition from cheaper imported labor. Many will be forced to join the unemployment or welfare rolls.

As far as modernization, it fails to address substantial problems of immigration explosion created by the extended family preference system 

     Under this act any illegal immigrant who has not been convicted of a felony or three misdemeanors and can offer some proof of being in the U.S. since December 31, 2011, and meets a few other nominal process requirements is IMMEDIATELY eligible for a status adjustment from “unauthorized” to Registered Provisional Immigrant (RPI) Status for six years, renewable for another six years. The Registration Fee is a $500 fine. Except for the technicality of registration fees called fines, this is by any reasonable definition Amnesty for between 11 and 18 million people. This amnesty only requires the HSD Secretary to notify Congress that a strategic plan to secure the border has commenced—just a paper plan without any actual progress. Technically, they will not be eligible for U.S. welfare and healthcare benefits. The Democrats will probably try to remedy that when the dust settles a little.

     RPIs may be upgraded to Lawful Permanent Resident Status (Green Card) in 5 to 10 years depending on several qualifying factors. Why 10 years? Because the Congressional Budget Office is only required to estimate costs for the first 10 years.  This is an accounting trick that Senator Sessions (R, AL) is protesting, asking the CBO for a full estimate of costs. However, the Heritage Foundation is already in the process of updating its cost estimate for the attempted McCain-Kennedy-Bush 2006 amnesty. The cost should be at least $2.7 trillion including only Social Security, Medicare, and additional Obamacare liabilities. We already have a national debt of $16.5 trillion, so what’s a few more $trillion. RPIs can qualify for U.S. citizenship and voting in between 5 and just over13 years, depending on several qualifying factors. Drumming up public, media, and Congressional sympathy and tears for shortening the time required for citizenship can be reliably expected to occur quicker than the ink can dry on S.744 if passed. Another clean-up amnesty just like the six that followed the 1986 Amnesty could be expected soon thereafter.

     There is a Border Security Trigger for commencing Green Card status and health and welfare benefits. Just like the 1986 enforcement measures that have never been implemented, they sound tough—90 percent border effectiveness, etc. But no one outside of a madhouse believes Barack Obama or Charles Schumer will actually permit any enforcement. It might interfere with their massive import of future Democrats. That is also why the act allows five years to phase in the Employee Verification program.

Border security is overblown as prevention for illegal immigration. Half of illegal immigrants enter on a legal visa and then go illegal. These will not have to worry about apprehension unless they commit a felony and could confidently expect additional amnesties following the post 1986 amnesty pattern.

     Besides the massive amnesty, the bill calls for legal immigration to increase from 1.1 million per year to 2.6 million per year. Before the 1986 amnesty, legal immigration was about 300, 000 per year. In addition, there are other programs that will run legal immigration to a total of around 3.0 million per year. In sharp disagreement with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Gang-of-Eight believes the U.S. has a labor shortage. Tell that to the 20 million Americans who want a full time job and cannot find one! Excess labor supply will, of course, also drive down wage rates for American workers.

      According to Harvard Professor George Borjas, probably the most respected labor economist in the U.S, the annual dent in American wages from competition from imported cheap labor since 1980 is already $402 billion per year, about $2,800 annually per working American. Besides the immigrants themselves, special interest users of imported labor benefit by $437 billion per year. That is why they spend about $300 million per year lobbing Congress—reaping a very profitable return on investment.

     This bill is about special interest profits and building an overwhelming base of solid big-government and socially liberal Democrat voters. The hope of converting socially conservative Hispanics to Republicans is based on much-loved misinformation. The truth is that Hispanics favor the Democrats by about 3 to 1 because they prefer big-government social welfare programs, most notably Obamacare.  They are also significantly less socially conservative than the myth, having out-of-wedlock children and abortions at about twice the rate of non-Hispanic whites.

     The mainstream media, however, is trying to panic Republicans into joining the amnesty bandwagon. Recent research and polls, however, indicate that Republicans will gain no Hispanic votes for backing amnesty and stand to lose a considerable share of their conservative base by caving in to amnesty and open borders. As amnesties begin reaping overwhelming numbers of Democrat voters, the Republican Party will become a powerless, dwindling minority. Grassroots Republican conservatives are already seriously concerned about the national party’s lack of courage and increasingly politically correct abandonment of social issues. Republicans must defeat Schumer-Rubio or face ignominious extinction.