enforcement

While the media and many politicians focus on President Trump’s verbiage in response to the immigration legislation presented by the “Gang of Six,” one major immigration reform group says the plan itself is nothing but an amnesty push for more than 10 million people.

The Gang of Six is led by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.

At issue is the effort to provide legal status to young people brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents. In 2012, President Obama unilaterally granted legal status to young people who agreed to sign up with the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program, or DACA.

President Trump announced in September that he would end the program in March of this year and lawmakers were ostensibly working on a bill to continue granting legal status to DACA enrollees while also tightening some immigration restrictions. Most estimates suggest there are between 800,000-850,000 people impacted by DACA.

Instead, Numbers USA reports the Gang of Six bill extends permanent legal protection to all illegal immigrants who fit the DACA criteria rather than those who actually enrolled and sets them on a path to citizenship.

“They expand DACA to include the entire pool of dreamer illegal aliens. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that that population exceeds three million and is about 3.3 million,” said Numbers USA’s Chris Chmielinski.

In fact, Numbers USA has released a worksheet comparing the Gang of Six bill with a much more conservative plan from house Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, known as the Securing America’s Future Act. It also lines up both plans against President Trump’s immigration reform priorities.

He says there’s a big difference between DACA and everyone who fits under the ‘dreamer’ label.

“When President Obama announced the DACA program, he limited it to folks that entered prior to 2007, had maintained continuous presence until 2012 and were under the age of 31.

“The dreamer population is much, much more broadly defined than that. And again, the Migration Policy Institute estimates that population is about 3.3 million,” said Chmielinski.

So how does the estimate get to 10 million? By opening the doors for the parents of the dreamers.

“It also offers an amnesty for the parents of the dreamers. So if you assume that all the parents have two parents, that’s another 6.6 million. 6.6 million plus and 3.3. million and you’re at 10 million,” said Chmielinski, who says that is clear-cut amnesty even though the parents are not in line for citizenship.

“We define amnesty as anything that allows illegal aliens to stay in the country and work in the United States,” said Chmielinski.

Furthermore, Chmielinski says those parents actually could wind up being rewarded with citizenship.

“Once the dreamers become citizens, they will be able to sponsor their parents under the chain migration laws, because even though they say they address chain migration, they really don’t,” said Chmielinski.

In fact, it’s unclear what immigration enforcement advocates get in exchange for legalizing DACA in the Gang of Six bill. Chmielinski points out the plan does not address chain migration or the visa lottery in any serious way. It does provide almost $1.6 billion for border fencing, but it comes with a massive caveat.

“They appropriate a little funding towards border fencing, but they say that this $1.6 billion they’re assigning can only be used for existing fencing. They’re telling the administration that as part of this deal, you cannot build any new fencing or any new walls. You can only use the money to repair existing fencing,” said Chmielinski.

The Goodlatte bill, in contrast, gives the government broad authority to build new fences and even walls. However, it does not include funding for such projects, meaning lawmakers would have to approve a separate bill to pay for such construction.

Overall, Chmielinski is encouraged by the Goodlatte bill. He says it limits chain migration to an immigrant’s spouse and children, although there is an exception for elderly parents to come over without a path to citizenship so that their children can care for them.

The Goodlatte plan also scraps the visa lottery entirely, makes overstaying a visa a crime and mandates all employers use E-Verify to confirm their new and existing employees are all in the country legally.

Chmielinski also says Goodlatte wants to use cutting edge technology to keep track of who is in the country.

“It requires the implementation of a bio-metric entry-exit system. This is something that was actually passed by Congress in the mid-2000’s as a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission. This is basically a tracking system. Every non-citizen that enters the United States is checked in to the country and then we check them out when they leave, so we know when folks overstay,” said Chmielinski.

The Goodlatte bill seems to have little traction on Capitol Hill right now and the mainstream media have ignored it completely while often hailing the Gang of Six bill. The issue prominent this week as Democrats try to attach legalization of DACA to legislation to keep the federal government running at full capacity.

So what is likely to happen? Chmielinski doesn’t expect much to happen for a few weeks.

“You’ll see a [continuing resolution] passed for about a month. Then over the next three to four weeks, this DACA situation will completely play out. But I think this might be the last time we’re talking about it. I think if nothing’s taken care of over the next month, then nothing will probably happen on it,” said Chmielinski.

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Along with tax reform, the debt ceiling, spending bills, and maybe another crack at health care legislation, Congress also has the chance to address immigration policy, and a leading advocate of tougher immigration standards says compromises can be made so long as the most important elements wind up in the final bill.

Center for Immigration Reform Research Director Steven Camarota says President Trump has already improved our homeland security and positioned the country better for reform simply by enforcing the laws on the books.

“Having Trump in there, whatever else you may think of him, he’s pushing enforcement. He’s going after illegal immigrants and those who are criminal aliens. He’s trying to increase work site enforcement and get the cooperation of local law enforcement. All of that makes sense and that’s a very big deal,” said Camarota.

But he says enforcement of current laws only goes so far.

“It doesn’t do that much to address the overall issue of numbers. How many people can we assimilate? What is the absorption capacity of America’s physical infrastructure? What is the absorption capacity of schools? That’s why numbers all matter so much,” said Camarota.

“Unless we start bringing the legal numbers, which are enormous and account for three-fourth’s of all immigrants, we’re not going to deal with many of the problems the country faces stemming from immigration,” said Camarota.

Earlier this summer, President Trump introduced the RAISE Act, which most notably lower levels of legal immigration and also require immigrants to be able to support themselves financially and be proficient in English.

A quick head count of the Senate shows that bill essentially dead on arrival. In addition to most or all Democrats lining up against the legislation, several Republicans are also balking at it, including members of the 2013 Gang of Eight, such as John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

But Camarota believes a good bill can still get done and he is willing to offer a major priority of Democrats as enticement.

“One of the ways it might pass is if it were part of a compromise that gave some kind of legal status to those illegal immigrants who came at young ages in return for the provisions of the RAISE Act. These are the people currently covered by the program called DACA (often called ‘Dreamers’),” said Camarota.

But Camarota was very clear about what he believes needs to be in the bill.

“Obviously, (we need) enforcement, controlling the border, going after the employers who hire people who are illegally here, and an entry-exit system that records the arrival and departure of people,” said Camarota.

“Foreigners come into the United States 200 million times or more a year on a time-limited basis. That means they have a temporary visa, a tourist, a guest worker, a foreign student. We don’t keep track of the time we’re here, so we don’t know if the time limit has been honored,” said Camarota.

Camarota would also like to see a much stricter definition of family members who can be allowed in, primarily limiting the option to spouses and dependent children.

However, he also says the benefits of immigration to the immigrant, and not just the nation, ought to considered.

“I realize that the immigrants themselves may benefit by coming here and maybe that’s something to think about. Maybe that’s why we should continue to have a reasonable pace of immigration. But it doesn’t, to my mind, justify, the enormous amount of legal immigration, nor does it justify tolerating illegal immigration,” said Camarota.

The immigration issue is a political tinder box right now. The debates over the Trump travel bans grew very intense that will likely spill over into this struggle. Camarota says Trump brings good and bad qualities into this debate.

“To his credit, Trump has at least been willing to address some of the big issues. Not to his credit, he has not done so in a careful and sensitive way and he’s contributed in that way to polarization,” said Camarota.

But he says it’s not just Trump who has to take a more sober look at this debate.

“Careful, intelligent, fact-based discourse is hard for most people and a polarized environment makes it harder,” said Camarota.

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