Is "Amnesty" Synonymous With "Secure Borders"?

Regardless of where you stand on the overall immigration/guest worker issue, poll after poll has shown that a plurality of voters agree where the subject of amnesty is concerned: entering the country illegally should not be rewarded with citizenship. The Senate failed on Friday to pass a "compromise" on a piece of legislation that the sponsors, in a stunning bit of marketing sleight of hand, have named the "SECURING AMERICA'S BORDERS ACT". If you are wondering what exactly is in these bills and compromises that the Senate is bickering so furiously about, how they deal with the issue of amnesty, and how exactly they secure America's borders, you are not alone as the latest bill was cobbled together by a small group of senators on Thursday afternoon and delivered to the full senate at 10pm that night ahead of a vote the next morning. Since the bill is over 500 pages long one can imagine that senators and their staffs had little time to digest its contents or the implcations if its enactment. Fortunately for the American people, the staff of at least one Senator, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, is both astute and dilligent. I have excerpted below portions of Senator Session's speech on the Senate floor prior to the latest vote wherein he outlines just a few of the items of particular note that his staff identified in the bill (you can read the full text here). Securing America's borders indeed................

>>We have seen amnesty before in our country, in 1986, and the record is clear that American taxpayers did pay the cost of the fiscal deficit created by the 3 million beneficiaries under the 1986 amnesty. Of course, the original estimates were that 1 million to 1.5 million people would qualify for amnesty in 1986. Now they are estimating 12 million [for this bill]. But, in fact, 3 million showed up in 1986 and claimed the benefits of amnesty, many using documents that were dubious. A 1997 study conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies estimated that the 3 million newly legalized aliens in the 1986 amnesty had generated a net fiscal deficit of $24 billion in the short decade that passed since their arrival. The 3 million cost the Government $24 billion. That is a very large sum of money. Incidentally, when Congress passed the 1986 amnesty bill, it estimated only 1 million illegal aliens would qualify for that amnesty law and draw upon the Treasury. That is how the numbers were out of sync............

.............Mr. President, at 10:30 this morning, the proponents of what I would have to say is amnesty in the bill that came out of the committee, the Kennedy-McCain-Specter bill, or whatever name you want to give it, that bill was crushed in this body with 39 votes for and 60 votes against. It was pulled and removed from the docket and sent back to Committee. Then we had a group get together yesterday in an effort to develop what they call a compromise. They could see that there was a vote coming, and they thought they could put something together, and I don't blame them. It has been referred to as the Hagel compromise. But we have looked at the bill, and I have to tell my colleagues, if you voted against the Kennedy, you need not support the Hagel compromise because it is fundamentally the same thing. I am going to talk about it and explain how it is essentially the same bill............

.....One of the most significant things that we have given very little thought to is it triples the number of employment-based green cards available each year. It triples the number. Currently, there are 140,000 available. Currently, spouses and children, if they come in, they count against the 140,000 cap. Under the Kennedy bill that we voted down this morning they jumped that number to 400,000, and spouses and children didn't count against the cap. This [compromise] bill raises it to 450,000 annually, and spouses and children--we estimate about 540,000 more, family members--can come with them, and they do not count against the cap. That is pushing a million a year. That is a huge change. I, personally, am of the view that if we can make our system lawful and have it work correctly, we can and will want to increase the number. But triple the number, and then increase that number again, by allowing spouses and children to come and not count against the cap? That is a sixfold increase. Without any hearings? Without any economists? Without listening to the labor unions? Without listening to business people tell us how many people we really need? Without any professors or scientists who understand the impact this kind of huge numbers would have? They propose we accept this compromise, and it goes beyond the Kennedy proposal that was rejected this morning. The message is we want a guest worker program. That is what they said. We want a guest worker program. What does that sound like, if you are an American citizen trying to evaluate what your legislators are doing up here? I hope those American people who are watching are following this closely because these are not guest workers. Somebody said let's not call it guest workers anymore, let's call it temporary workers. But they are not temporary workers either. They get a green card. They come in under this new H-2C program, and they are able then, on the petition of an employer, to get a green card within 1 year. If they don't have an employer petition for them, they can self-petition, which is not the rule now. Now these are supposed to be based on employment that is needed.

These numbers do not include all that is in the bill. The AgJOBS bill came up on the floor a little over a year ago and was debated and blocked. Senator SAXBY CHAMBLISS, who chairs the Agriculture Committee, and a number of us raised objections to that bill. We blocked it. It did not go forward. It did not pass.

They blithely added the whole AgJOBS bill to the committee bill and it has now been made part of this compromise. There are 1.5 million who can come in under the AgJOBS bill.
People say we need the talented people. We still have limits on talented people who come into the country with high education levels, but there is virtually no limit on the number of unskilled workers who come into our country. That is not good public policy, I submit. That is probably not what you said when you have been out campaigning and talking to your constituents around the country............

.........Using the estimate from our population chart, based on the CRS data and the Pew Hispanic data, the way the new amnesty categories would work is as follows. This is what is in the compromise: If you are here for 5 or more years--and that includes 8.85 million of the 11.5 to 12 million people who are estimated to be here, or 75 percent of those who are estimated to be here today--what happens to you? You are treated just like you were under the Kennedy bill that was rejected this morning. You get to stay, work, apply for a green card from inside the United States.

Again, what does green card mean? It means you are a permanent resident, eligible for all the social welfare benefits that belong to American citizens, No. 1. No. 2, it puts you on a guaranteed path to citizenship. This is your reward for violating the law by coming in illegally. Under this bill, 75 percent of them, 8.85 million would get to stay and apply for green cards from inside the United States, just like the rejected bill earlier today provided for. And in addition, spouses and children would get those green cards as well. And they, spouses and children, would get green cards even if they are not in the United States. So if the person came here to work temporarily, planned to go back to his family, didn't have a plan to stay here permanently and intended to go back to his country of origin, make a little extra money to help out the family, now we have encouraged them to go ahead and bring their family here. That would be a large number. That will impact more than the 1.1 million who are covered by the bill, according to the estimates.
So 75 percent of the 11.5 million are like that. What about those in the compromise? They say we are going to be a little different than the Kennedy bill for those 1.4 million people who have been here from 2 to 5 years. What happens to those that have only been here illegally for 2 to 5 years? You get to stay legally, and you are able to continue to work in the United States while you apply for a work visa if, within 3 years, at any time during that 3 years, you go across the border through a consular office and pick up a nonimmigrant visa that you can apply for from the United States. Although the Department of Homeland Security Secretary may waive the departure requirement. So you can go across the border, go to the office, pick up the thing and come right back the same day.

Spouses and children get the same status. If they came here illegally, they get the same green card status, but they don't have to go across the border to pick it up, they can get it right here at home. If they apply for the H-2C, a new work visa created under title IV, the employer can sponsor them for a green card the day they come back into the United States.
The employer can petition that day to get them a green card. Once you get that green card, you are a legal, permanent resident, entitled to the welfare and governmental benefits of our country...........

............What about those who are here for less than 2 years? This is the way the bill explains it. It doesn't say that plainly. It says:
In determining the alien's admissibility as an H-2C nonimmigrant. ..... paragraphs (5), (6)(A), (7), (9)(B) and (9)(C) of section 212(a) may be waived for conduct that occurred before the effective date.
What does all that mean? The last bunch, the 1.2 million that have been here less than 2 years, they are not going to leave this country. First of all, nobody is going to come and get them. They are going to apply under the new visa program, the H-2C worker program that has these huge numbers that we have triple the numbers for. And it specifically says in the statute that they will qualify, even if they came here illegally or have been apprehended here illegally or removed--and removed from the United States--and they have come back illegally, they still get to qualify and stay here. We don't need to vote for a bill such as that.................

.........By the way, in reading the bill carefully, my fine staff discovered--it is kind of hard to do all this when you get a bill last night at 10 p.m. which is 532 pages--that those here illegally, whom I just mentioned, in the last 2 years or have been removed and come back illegally, they do not even count against the cap. Why would we want to do that?................

.....................Let me take a few minutes to run over some of the provisions in that 95 percent of the Kennedy bill that was rejected this morning that remains in the Hagel compromise. Here are some of the difficulties with it.

Let us take loophole No. 1: Absconders and some individuals with felonies or 3 misdemeanors are not barred from getting amnesty. An absconder is somebody who was apprehended by Border Patrol people, detained, they did not have time to take him or her out of the country, they were busy, they did not have jail space, detention space for them, so they release them on bail. That is what they do all over the country because we don't take this seriously, and they don't show up when they are supposed to be deported. Surprise. They abscond.
Absconders and some individuals with felonies or three misdemeanors are not barred from getting amnesty.

Loophole No. 2: Aliens specifically barred from receiving immigration benefits for life because they filed a frivolous asylum application will also be able to receive amnesty.

Loophole No. 3: All aliens who are subject to a final order of removal--for some reason you are brought up and the court has ordered you removed from the country--who failed to leave pursuant to a voluntary departure agreement, they entered into those agreements and oftentimes people promise to leave and never leave--or who are subject to the reinstatement of a final order of removal because they illegally reentered after being ordered removed from the United States are also eligible for amnesty.
I call on my colleagues to look at the bill. On page 353, line 3, the bill clearly states that any alien with a final order of removal can apply for amnesty. This means that the aliens who have already received their day in court have had their case fully litigated, and they have been ordered removed and have failed to depart will now be rewarded for not following the law and leaving like they were ordered to do. They will qualify for this amnesty.

Loophole No. 4: Aliens who illegally entered the country multiple times are also eligible for amnesty. Page 334, line 8 requires continuous physical presence and states than an alien must not have departed from the United States before April 5, 2006, except for brief, casual or innocent departures. Every time the alien reenters the United States illegally, they are committing a criminal offense. But this bill rewards those aliens with amnesty also.

Loophole No. 5: This bill allows aliens who have persecuted anyone on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion get amnesty. It fails to make persecutors ineligible for amnesty.
I would have thought that was an oversight until I noticed on page 363, line 22, that the bill makes those heinous acts bar aliens here between 2 and 5 years from amnesty but not those who have been here longer. The same bar left out for the 8.8 million who have been here for more than 5 years. This will be interpreted as an intentional decision of Congress when we pass this bill.
That is not inadvertent. I don't know why they did that.

Loophole No. 6: There is no continuous presence or continuous work requirement for amnesty. To be eligible to adjust from illegal to legal statutes under the bill, the alien must simply have been ``physically present in the United States on April 5, 2001,'' and have been ``employed continuously in the United States'' for 3 of the 5 years ``since that date.''

Loophole No. 7: The bill tells the Department of Homeland Security to accept ``just and reasonable inferences'' from day labor centers as evidence of an alien meeting the bill's work requirements.
Day labor centers--I am not sure how reliable those can be to make major decisions. Some of these are openly and notoriously promoting illegal workers.

Loophole 8: The bill benefits only those who broke the law, not those who followed it and got work visas to come to the United States. That is a plain fact. If you were here legally on or before April 5, 2001, you will not get the benefit of this amnesty. This amnesty benefits you only if you came here illegally.

Loophole 9: The essential worker permanent immigration program for nonagriculture low-skilled workers leaves no illegal alien out. It is not limited to people outside the United States who want to come here to work in the future but includes illegal aliens currently present in the United States who do not qualify for the amnesty program in title VI, including aliens here for less than 2 years. Under the bill language, you can qualify for this new program to work as a low-skilled permanent immigrant even if you are unlawfully present in the United States.
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Needless to say, it will be quite interesting to see what kind of legislation the full Senate finally approves and how it will be married to the legislation the House passed in December.

-Ico