As Michelle has noted, Monday’s big push for amnesty was just more of the same old, same old from an administration in which official cynicism long ago became the modus operandi. Still, credit is due to the President’s talented team of speech writers (text here): they did a wonderful job weaving the ragged tissue of lies, half-truths and non-sequiturs that is the administration’s “argument” into a seamless and surprisingly elegant whole.

Bravo!

The many bloggers who gave their time to cover the speech and its aftermath deserve the same, this time without irony. If the public is better informed about the stakes of the present debate, it is in no small measure due to their efforts.

That said, it seems to me (but not just me) that all the attention given the amnesty question has had the unfortunate effect of diverting attention from the other, equally objectionable aspects of the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act” (CIRA S.2611) now before the Senate. Chief amongst these is a provision which will certainly double and potentially quintuple – quintuple! – the number of immigrants legally admitted to the United States each year.

To grasp what this means, some perspective is needed. Over the past two decades, annual legal immigration to the US has hovered around the 1 million mark (compared to an estimated annual intake of 500,000 illegal aliens). Under present law, the US should thus receive an additional 19 million immigrants over the next twenty years.

All that will change should the President and Senate have their way. As a recent Heritage Foundation report observed, instead of 19 million immigrants, under the new law the US will receive 103 million, or the equivalent of one third of its present population. The Foundation’s report was confirmed by a separate impact analysis ordered by US Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL).

The Washington Times reports:

Although that "amnesty" would be granted to about 10 million illegals, the real growth in the immigrant population would come later.

As part of the bill, the annual flow of legal immigrants allowed into the U.S. would more than double to more than 2 million annually. In addition, the guest-worker program in the bill would bring in 325,000 new workers annually who could later apply for citizenship.

That population would grow exponentially from there because the millions of new citizens would be permitted to bring along their extended families. Also, Mr. Sessions said, the bill includes "escalating caps," which would raise the number of immigrants allowed in as more people seek to enter the U.S.

The amnesty question has so far sidelined the legal immigration debate. Worse, it has led critics of amnesty to seize upon legal immigration as a point of contrast, thereby implying that there’s nothing wrong with the latter’s present levels and sources. My personal view is that immigration to the US is already too high, that the country has embarked on a great experiment in multicultural nation-building without debate and with little or no thought given to the experiment’s long- and middle-term consequences – for population growth, for the environment, for public services, for wages, and for national identity.

Liberals and Conservatives can pick and choose between these as they see fit, there's more than ample reason to be worried.

Indeed, the great transformation is already afoot. A recent census bureau report showed that immigration plus differential birth rates are contributing to a population boom (70% of the growth in the nation’s birthrate is attributable to Hispanic women). Even before the Senate announced plans to regularize the status of the 10 to 20 million illegals in the country and more than double the number of legal immigrants, the US population was projected to grow [PDF file] from 293 million to over 419 million by 2050. All of that growth is the direct and indirect consequence of present immigration policy.

So just think what quintupling – or quadrupling or just doubling -- the annual number of legal immigrants will mean. Nations are not made in a day but they can – as the Senate is on the brink of showing us – be unmade in one.

Now is the time to act. Contact your Senators and Congressmen and tell them what you think.

Support the House of Representatives enforcement-only bill; reject the Senate’s “guestworker”/amnesty betrayal.

It's happening now...

Call your Senators and tell them what you think.

Then call your Representatives and tell them the same thing.