No more illegal alien waivers
My column today exposes the myriad illegal alien waiver programs that the feds and the courts have sponsored over the past 20 years. Now is the time to tell Washington: We’ve had enough.
At the time I filed the column yesterday, the CBO had yet to release its score of the Dems’ latest iteration of the illegal alien DREAM Act bailout. The score — and as we know from the CBO Obamacare cooked numbers, these analyses need to be taken with a huge grain of salt — is now out and was apparently leaked to a pro-DREAM Act group first here. It reports that the current DREAM Act legislation, S3992 — and as you know from the Obamacare debacle, what’s written in these massive Democrat bills differs greatly from reality — would “increase revenues by $2.3 billion over 10 years,” but “would increase net direct spending by $912 million over the 2011-2020 period.” While CBO writes that “implementation by DHS would have no significant impact on spending subject to appropriation,” it goes on to estimate “that the bill would increase projected deficits by more than $5 billion in at least one of the four consecutive 10-year periods starting in 2021.” And that doesn’t include the costs of all the unlimited family members that the millions of DREAM Act beneficiaries would be able to bring to the U.S.
A separate cost analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies concludes that the illegal alien DREAM Act bailout would cost taxpayers $6.2 billion a year and “crowd out” U.S. students in the classroom. As I note below and have told some of these DREAM Act radicals directly to their faces, they can pretend that the DREAM Act bailout is not a zero-sum game. The rest of us can’t afford such delusions.
***
No more illegal alien waivers
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010
Open-borders radicalism means never having to apologize for absurd self-contradiction.
The way illegal alien students on college campuses across the country tell it, America is a cruel, selfish and racist nation that has never given them or their families a break. Yet despite their bottomless grievances, they’re not going anywhere.
And despite their gripes about being forced “into the shadows,” they’ve been out in the open protesting at media-driven hunger strikes and flooding the airwaves demanding passage of the so-called DREAM Act. This bailout plan would benefit an estimated 2.1 million illegal aliens at an estimated cost of up to $20 billion.
While votes on various DREAM Act proposals are imminent, the Congressional Budget Office has yet to release any official cost scoring. Viva transparency!
To sow more confusion and obfuscate the debate, Democrats in the Senate have foisted four different versions of the bill on the legislative calendar, which all offer variations on the same amnesty theme: Because they arrived here through “no fault of their own,” illegal alien children deserve federal education access and benefits, plus a conditional pass from deportation and a special path toward green cards and U.S. citizenship for themselves and unlimited relatives.
In a last-ditch attempt to win over fence-sitters, DREAM Act sponsors have tinkered with eligibility requirements. But supporters know that the words on bill pages — which hardly anyone will read before voting — don’t matter. Built into the proposals are broad “public interest” waiver powers for the illegal immigration-friendly Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
University of Texas-San Antonio student Lucy Martinez embodies the entitlement mentality of the DREAM Act agitators: “We have done lobbying, legislative visits, marches, sit-ins. We are tired of it,” she complained to the San Antonio Express News. The illegal alien student hunger strike “is similar to what we go through in our everyday lives — starving without a future.” But neither she nor her peers have been denied their elementary, secondary or college educations. Neither she nor her peers face arrest for defiantly announcing their illegal status. And for all the hysterical rhetoric about “starving,” the federal government and the federal immigration courts have been overly generous in providing wave after wave of de facto and de jure amnesties allowing tens of millions of illegal border-crossers, visa overstayers and deportation evaders from around the world to live, work and prosper here in subversion of our laws.
Among the major acts of Congress providing mass pardons and citizenship benefits:
– The 1986 Immigration and Reform Control Act blanket amnesty for an estimated 2.7 million illegal aliens.
– 1994: The “Section 245(i)” temporary rolling amnesty for 578,000 illegal aliens.
– 1997: Extension of the Section 245(i) amnesty.
– 1997: The Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act for nearly one million illegal aliens from Central America.
– 1998: The Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act amnesty for 125,000 illegal aliens from Haiti.
– 2000: Extension of amnesty for some 400,000 illegal aliens who claimed eligibility under the 1986 act.
– 2000: The Legal Immigration Family Equity Act, which included a restoration of the rolling Section 245(i) amnesty for 900,000 illegal aliens.
This is in addition to hundreds of “private relief bills” sponsored in Congress every year.
Most recently, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to stay the deportation of illegal alien DREAM Act activist Steve Li — whose family’s asylum claim was rejected and whom a federal immigration court judge ordered deported in 2004.
These illegal alien passes needn’t be approved by Congress for the recipients to gain benefits. Mere introduction of the bills buys the deportable aliens time that ordinary, law-abiding citizens can’t buy in our court system. The DREAM Act schemers pretend this isn’t a zero-sum game. But every time a private illegal alien relief bill passes, the number of available visas for that year is reduced by the number of illegal alien/deportable immigrant recipients granted legal status/deportation relief through the special legislation.
In Austin, Texas, this week, one illegal alien DREAM Act activist blithely argued to me that “it’s not like the government would be sending a message that breaking the law is OK.” Reality check: The number of illegal aliens in the U.S. has tripled since President Reagan signed the first amnesty in 1986. The total effect of the amnesties was even larger because relatives later joined amnesty recipients, and this number was multiplied by an unknown number of children born to amnesty recipients who then acquired automatic U.S. citizenship.
At a time of nearly double-digit unemployment and drastic higher education cutbacks, a $20 billion special education preference package for up to 2.1 million illegal aliens is not and should not be a priority in Washington. It certainly isn’t in the rest of America. And it certainly shouldn’t be a priority for federal immigration and homeland security officials, who have a 400,000 deportation fugitives problem, a three-year naturalization application backlog and borders that remain in chaos.
Grownups need to tell the DREAM Act agitators to get in the back of the line.
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Spending money we don’t have.
NPR had Janet Napolitano on this morning saying that DREAM is good for law enforcement, as after DREAM they will be able to focus on criminals.
Can you say Non Sequitur? I knew you could
From what I have read of the latest version of the bill I see two huge issues. Both have to do with the screening process requirements.
The first being the part about how DHHS and Homeland will conduct medical screenings of the applicants. The bill states that the both departments can determine how many and how often these screenings will occur and does not say who will pay for these screenings. My guess is these screenings will be covered by the taxpayers and this is the Dems attempt to provide Obamacare coverage to illegals.
The second issue has to do with the background checks themselves. Anyone who has ever gone through a government background check knows that the investigators talk to your friends and family about you. In this case the applicants are supposedly children brought across the border by their parents; therefore there parents are illegals too. When the feds go talk to the parents are they going to give the parents assurance that if they cooperate they will not be deported? I ask that, because I know that in many sanctuary cities they have rules like this when dealing with crimes. If an illegal reprots a crime they will not get turned in for being illegal. This section of the bill makes me wonder if this is a backdoor amnesty for the parents.
Unemployment up now 9.8% … What will the illegals do that get AMNESTY???
Denver prosecutors won a maximum 12-year sentence Wednesday for a deported man who sneaked back into the U.S. and killed a woman in a drunken driving accident.
Cesar Acosta-Castillo, 32, pleaded guilty earlier this year to vehicular homicide.
Acosta-Castillo was sentenced to two years probation following a DUI case in 2000, but never served the entire term because he was deported in 2001.
He admitted to coming back into the country illegally from Mexico in 2002 and remaining here undetected until 2008.
On Sept. 9, 2009, Acosta-Castillo was driving drunk and collided with a car driven by Miller who was killed.
Acosta-Castillo was on probation and driving without a license when he ran into Miller’s car.
He had a string of arrests, including criminal impersonation, providing false information, driving without a license, theft and a 1999 DUI arrest.
Your life, if a US citizen, is worth 12 years of the life of a habitual criminal/ drunk-driver Mexican’s.
Thanks, Michelle..great column.
I have a question, and am not sure I have seen it answered. There are “x” amount of high school graduates that can be accepted at any U.S. college or university each year. How many U.S. legal citizens are turned away due to illegal immigrants in that slot?
Financial aid is already available to illegals who register with an ID and Social Security number (fake ID and SS numbers are accepted, no doubt):
A student who can meet the following criteria may be eligible for aid:is a U.S. citizen, a U.S. national, or an eligible non-citizen;has a valid Social Security number;has a high school diploma or GED or for adult students, pass an Ability-to-Benefit test;is registered with the U.S. Selective Service (male students age 18-25);completes a FAFSA promising to use any federal aid for education purposes;does not owe refunds on any federal student grants;is not in default on any student loans; and has not been found guilty of the sale or possession of illegal drugs while federal aid was being received.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Application_for_Federal_Student_Aid
So, why the big push for the DREAM Act if you are a “U.S. national” or an “eligible non-citizen?” I mean, other than being a Democrat courted by La Raza, what is the big deal? If they want the path to citizenship, why can’t they get in line while they are in college?
Don’t patronize a business that hires illegals.
I’m looking for a landscaping company in NJ that does not hire illegals.
Not an easy task in a sanctuary state.
They refuse to listen. Obowmao is spinning the dumbocrats huge loss in November as something other than the obvious: American people are screaming NO. I have my doubts about some of the republicans as well. The arrogance and hypocrisy of politicians is staggering.
And how will the government reduce spending in this bill…by reducing the size of the Border Patrol. After all, it is apparent that we do not need them once this bill is passed.
The link Michelle posted answered some of my questions on numbers:
The CIS says its $6.2 billion estimate is conservative and does not include the “modest” number of illegal immigrants expected to attend private institutions. The report assumes that most illegal immigrants would attend state universities and community colleges schools where both funds and slots are limited.
“These institutions where most of these kids can be expected to enroll are in dire straits,” Steven Camarota, director of research at the center who authored the report, told FoxNews.com.
He calculated that 1.03 million illegal immigrants will enroll in public institutions and receive a tuition subsidy from taxpayers of nearly $6,000 for each year of attendance for a total cost of $6.2 billion year – a figure that doesn’t include other forms of financial assistance that may be provided.</em>
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/02/dream-act-cost-taxpayers-billion-year-group-says/
The most striking and tone-deaf comment of all was from Big Sis Napolitano:
The cost argument really doesn’t hold water anymore,” she said during a conference call.
Oh, really? Cost is no problem in this economy? Adding illegals to our welfare system (not that they are already on it) is no problem? This is the hoop and charge of Obama’s Stash.
NJ Aviator; Good idea, but we need to let the business know we aren’t hiring them BECAUSE they hire illegals. Paris Hilton can sashe around the world showing off her flat chest precisely because Hilton Hotels use slave labor the world over while charging premium service prices. Try asking the next maid you see in a Hilton Hotel for something other than the normal towel etc.
I’ll be making phone calls to landscapers asking them about what I need, then asking them if they hire illegal immigrants.
I expect arrogance to hang ups when I ask that question.
I’ll then add them to a site that lists business that hire illegals. It doesn’t have a huge amount of info yet, but that could change.
http://www.wehirealiens.com/
If freedom doesn’t suit these people, they should exercise the right to leave.
Spending more money we do not have so to further weaken the Republic, making us less of One People, more “sophisticated”-like the Balkans or Indonesia perhaps.
As we become more Diverse, less of One People and One Language and a nation without a center the proletariat Will Demand a stronger central government, a government separated from and not dependent upon it’s people. Perhaps a Dear Leader,Reichsführer or a CAESAR?
Sadly there will be those Unrepentant Nationalist, Capitalist and Bitter Clingers who would resist the Magnificent New World Order, sadly. But happily for all-except for the Unrepentant Nationalist, Capitalist and Bitter Clingers who would resist the Magnificent New World Order the Progressives do have William Ayres and his Re-education camps that would kill up to 25 million of the Unrepentant.
Am I making one giant leap here? I think not: nothing is unrelated in the Progressive Playbook. The weaklings and cowards will be as guilty as the Reichsführers and Commissars.
Diversity is Strength
War is Peace
A Lie Well Told is the Truth
It Can Never Happen Here
===
Let your sidearm be like American Express:
Don’t Leave home without it.
Unless you are from Massachusetts or Illinois (and all too many others)
then you just die in place waiting for help.
Resistance is mandatory
To be a little nonPC, has anyone ever suggested looking at the colleges and unis that admit illegals, that are maybe upfront and proud about it. Could start a campaign to boycott those institutions, to reduce alumni donations, to cut government grants to them, to call for the arrest of college officials.
Just a thought
What I don’t get is why the unemployed are not angrier about amnesty. Deporting the illegals would open up job opportunities. Maybe 99 weeks of unemployment benefits has something to do with it. Maybe.
That’s $6000 per year more subsidy that children of the MILITARY GET!
This really chaps my @$$.
When does Obama’s Auntie-Z get admitted to Berkeley?
+1
And someone here was saying a couple of days ago that we can’t send them all home. For half that ($3000) I bet you could get the unemployed to drive the illegals to the border.
The Fairness… Family Equity.. Blah Blah Blah ACTs….
I’m getting sick of these names based on some nicey nice bull.
How about the the F&@K YOU ACT where we drag out into the street by the ankles, every single of member of congress and replace them?
That’s an Act I could be happy about.
Let’s also not forget the “lottery” for third world countries and illegal aliens that Ted Kennedy foisted on the United States. Kennedy decided that too many immigrants came from Europe. Kennedy wanted more immigrants from the Arab world, where more of the immigrants become good Democrats. So one of the “lottery” spots was won by an Egyptian woman whose “husband” had been in the US for years illegally and had been ordered out but kept appealing and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that there can not be deportations as long as any appeal, however frivolous, is still technically alive. The “husband” was a known crook and trouble maker but because his wife won the Kennedy “lottery”, all of her family members, including her technical “husband” were welcome to stay in the US for the rest of their lives. So the husband, now free of any pressure to leave, walked into a gun store in 2001, loaded up with concealed weapons and on July 4, 2002, walked up to the EL AL Counter at LAX and began shooting at anyone he thought was a Jew. He killed a 25 year old woman one week from her wedding and a dad who was there to pick up his kids. Incredibly, the Kennedy “Lottery” exists to this day and brings boatloads of illegal aliens from primarily Muslim countries. And the provision remains allowing the “Lottery” winner to bring all family members, without any investigation from ICE, into America. And these “family members” are free to purchases guns, because liberal judges insist that illegal aliens must have all the rights of American citizens.
Well that needs to be ended.
Are we talking about Chappy?
It is a WONDERFUL thread we are on.
Then, when they make their way to the front, get told, “Oh, sorry. You should be in THAT line over there. NEXT!”
The only possible good I can see of this is that it might make some of the American slacker kids a little more competitive for the seats that are available. Nah! What was I thinking?
My sentiments exactly…NJAviator!
There are, as best I can deduce, four groups of people who would favor the so-called “Dream” act:
1. Donks, who understand that “Dream Act” is code for, “The Donkey Party Voter Base Expansion Act of 2010“;
2. Immigration lawyers, who see it as code for, “The Immigration Lawyers’ Full Employment Act of 2010“;
3. Unassimilated illegal aliens, who see it as code for “The Aztlan Memorial ‘We Will Bury You, Gringo’ Act of 2010“; and
4. Fools.
Have I left anyone out?
There lies the problems…this is just another democrat ‘it’s for the kids’ BS. There entire family, i.e. the ones that dragged them here illegally, get in.
Once again Ms. Malkin attempts to vilify people that just came to America for a better opportunity. While a few bad apples may enter the US millions more are hard working people that contribute to our society by paying taxes and expanding our economy. They deserve a path to citizenship just like the members of Malkin’s family did so many years ago.
Regulus,
You forgot the RINO, ‘I want my friends on the other side of the aisle to like me‘ Act of 2010. Of course, that may be covered by your #4.
The opportunity to ‘come to America’ is not a right conferred to all people of the world. That privilege is only offered to those that do so in accordance with our laws and regulations. America is the most generous nation on earth in terms of allowing immigrants the chance to lawfully come here.
The DREAMers need to ask though questions of their parents. Not expect that the American public will once again bail out persons, that, because of the law-breaking of their parents expect to have a custom-made law which gives them something no other legal immigrant or citizen can apply for and receive.
The world has changed drastically since then and so has the US population. Now, we have no extra jobs to support additional people. Our social services are pushed to the hilt and there is very serious talk of scaling those down/back. The situations that existed 100, 50 or even 20 years ago no longer apply. We just don’t have the resources to accommodate millions MORE people — much less support the Americans already here and in need.
Again, the DREAM Act is a very, very bad idea.
By the way, Ann Coulter links to an article about an illegal alien who raped his foster mother! Just in case you wanted to be outraged some more.
No she is saying what most Americans believe, that they need to come here legally if they want to have a better opportunity here in America.
And here you go trying to compare legal immigration, which Ms. Malkin’s family did, with Illegal Immigration which is what the Dream Act it trying to award. They do have the same opportunity to apply for legal entry into the United States from there own country and if they are accepted, as Ms. Malkin’s family was, they can come here and work to becoming a legal US citizen.
I agree. They deserve the SAME path. Get a visa, come here legally, apply for citizenship, follow the rules.
The problem I have with the open borders crowd is their insisting continually that these poor “CHILDREN” did nothing to break the law… Just being here is breaking the law, granted just a misdemeanor… However, if they obtained some form of ID, namely a SS card or drivers license they would have had to have either forged or stolen ID… Now that happens to be a felony…
Great column, Michelle. You are my favorite voice crying in the wilderness.
Concur — I lump feckless R’s in group #4.
There’s a fifth group, come to think of it: ACLU-types and other home-grown America-haters who, as long as it’s bad for the USA as we know it, are all for it. Although they may be a sub-set of the donks…
Well, really, only if you are actually a US Citizen. Seems there is little or no interest in pursuing, charging, procesuting and punishing illegals’ fruad in SS and DLs anywhere you find leftists in charge of government.
Sort of like a faithful pet that seeks its master’s approval no matter how abusive the master is. RINOs are too stupid to realize they have no real friends on the other side of the aisle, often even if they change sides. Dolts.
kwrxxx
Illegal immigration is not equal to legal immigration. The rest of your theorem is useless.
Nope. The Border Patrol will morph into operating LaRaza and SIEU Welcome and Hospitality Centers at all points of entry, ready will all documents necessary for easing our new Dem voters, union members and government program clients into life, work, education and health care in what was once the USA.
The ruling class has no intention of stopping the flow of illegal foreign nationals into this country, nor do they have any intention of enforcing the laws.
Amnesty will be the final nail in the coffin of the Republic.
We have to take everything this administration, and their hired guns, have to say with a grain of salt. They are incapable of telling the truth, and as such, we should know, preemptively, that what they are trying to do is either illegal, improper, immoral, or unConstitutional.
The newly elected conservatives need to put back on the books, what government MUST do, and what they are NOT EMPOWERED to do.
Identify, isolate, charge, and incarcerate the traitors, and defilers of liberty. Take America back, or loose it to criminals.
Wasn’t there something passed in 2006, the “secure fence Act” that was supposed to secure the border with a fence before discussing AMNESTY? Are the Democrats this dishonorable?
Or do they think we are that stupid?
Exactly right Rags.
HOW IT WORKS! In April 2010 I visited my home town in the Southern San Jaquine Valley, California. When I grew up there the population was 10-12 thousand, in 2000 the population was 35,000 and now is 55,000. This says a lot for a town whose primary industry is agriculture…Has agricultural production increased 500%? Or has state spending increased 500%? You can only grow so many beans on a acre of ground.
All text bolded… Bad form, troll.
My advise, just stick to the usual swoop and poop / idiotic comments. Abuses of netiquitte do nothing to further your argument.
Does chap need a disciple? Somebody please teach this troll some manners.
Michelle, you’re my hero.
Dear Mr. Prezident and congress-critters, please stop giving waivers to all of your friends and circumventing the legislative process. Please stop giving our tax dollars (that you take from the paychecks of working Americans) to illegal aliens. Please look up the work “illegal” in the nearest dictionary and familiarize yourselves with it’s meaning.