Let us begin with what is widely known though not widely reported: many things are more important to the American people than immigration reform, including:
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• Creating Jobs,
• Growing the Economy,
• Improving Government Efficiency,
• Improving Education,
• Fixing Social Security & Medicare,
• Cutting Healthcare Costs,
• Cutting the Deficit,
• Improving Healthcare Access,
• Reducing Poverty and Inequality, and
• Reforming the Tax Code
Those first two have been Americans’ top concerns since the election…of 2008. So, the American people are left to watch a government, that won’t address their priorities, put great effort into something that is not their priority. Between this, gun control legislation about which the nation does not care, and the daily fixation on the almost daily increase of Obama administration scandals, the 2014 midterm elections may simultaneously: A) not come soon enough for Americans to voice their disdain, and B) not matter a hill of beans for, if historic re-election rates hold, then those who drove the nation into this ditch will yet have their hands on the wheel in January 2015.
However, the important question may not be, “Why is the federal government ignoring the electorate?”, but “Why is the federal government ignoring the electorate to do THIS?”
In 1986, there were about 3.2 million illegal immigrants in the US; then the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 did the following:
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• Required employers to attest to their employees’ immigration status.
• Made it illegal to knowingly hire or recruit unauthorized immigrants.
• Legalized certain seasonal agricultural illegal immigrants.
• Legalized illegal immigrants who entered the United States before January 1, 1982 and had resided there continuously with the penalty of a fine, back taxes due, and admission of guilt.
Now, in 2013, there is Senate Bill S744, which:
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• Requires employers to verify their employees’ immigration status with E-Verify.
• Holds employers harmless for knowingly hiring illegal workers.
• Legalizes agricultural illegal immigrant workers.
• Legalizes illegal immigrants who entered the United States before age 16 and puts them on a 5-year path to citizenship.
So, this movie has played before, with two primary differences: 1) in 2013, employers of illegal immigrants get a better deal than they had in 1986, and 2) the Democrat Party is pushing this to the exclusion of more pressing matters. Now, if the 1986 Immigration Reform Law increased illegal immigration by nearly 250%, then what might a 2013 version, which looks pretty darn similar, do?
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) indicates the number of illegals will climb more than 300%, to 46 million by 2033, in less time than it took the 1986 law to increase them nearly 250%. The CBO also indicated that S744 encourages illegal immigration.
Given those facts, it is no surprise that the public is not overly fond of the bill, especially if securing the border is not a primary outcome of the legislation. It is also no surprise that Democrats are eager to pass this as soon as possible, since the following are true:
1. Illegal immigrants vote in US elections,
2. Illegal immigrants vote Democrat, and,
3. Should comprehensive immigration fail to pass, Democrats are confident it will be a winning issue for them in the 2014 and 2016 elections.
So, the Democrat Party fights for illegal immigrants to receive: food stamps; housing; medical care; education, including lower college tuition than US citizens attending the same school; etc., and all at the taxpayers’ expense.
Such is the Democrat Party’s modus operandi when it seeks the electoral loyalty of any demographic: blow up the nearest treasury and let “compassion” rain…funded with other people’s money. The strategy is successful, especially when racial animosities can be exploited. Blacks remain fiercely loyal to the Democrat Party, even though entitlement “compassion” has devastated black families and communities for nearly half a century. In fact, blacks are so loyal that they seem blind to hispanics supplanting them as the Democrat Party’s main ethnic squeeze. Remember, Obama snubbed the NAACP, sending VP Joe Biden instead, while packing his administration with hispanics.
Disrespectful (to blacks)? Perhaps. Deferential (to hispanics)? Definitely. Coincidence? I think not.
Immigration reform is not about addressing a top priority, like fixing the US economy and encouraging robust trade with countries from where immigrants come, creating jobs there and here…which WOULD address the top priorities of the American people. It is not about building the US workforce; that would require lower taxation and a smaller regulatory burden on businesses. If low-skilled and low-wage workers (which are the majority of illegal immigrants) made for a stronger economy, then the South should have won the Civil War. This cannot be about compassion, since there is no compassion with borrowed, or other people’s, money, in the form of entitlements. Finally, this is not about a cost-effective way to address the problems of illegal immigration, since the federal government already determined, more than 2 years ago that deporting all illegal immigrants costs less than allowing them to stay.
This is about the political left being so close to nearly unchecked power, at least in the next session of Congress, they can almost taste it; they had that power from 2009 to 2011, and the country has yet to recover. They are eager for another two-year stretch to finish the job “Hope and Change” started. Since blacks have outlived their political usefulness, the left looks to saddle up the hispanic community and ride a new race in pursuit of their agenda…
Adding another 35 million people to the country by 2033 who should not be here, registering them to vote (which they should not be able to do), and ensuring the majority vote for Democrats…THAT is the WHY of Immigration Reform.
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