103M immigration-influx projections are challenged

By William Douglas
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON — It caught Vice President Dick Cheney off-guard, emboldened the conservative opposition, and it's become one of the most talked about "talking points" in the battle over the Senate's sweeping immigration bill.

A study by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy-research center, said that the Senate measure would allow a staggering 103 million immigrants to enter the United States over the next 20 years. The report instantly became the weapon of choice for the bill's opponents in Washington, on talk radio and across the country.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., cited the report Tuesday when voicing opposition to the legislation, which he said would explode America's population and bust the federal budget because its increase of low-skilled, undereducated immigrants would tax the welfare system.

"As the facts become more clear, I think there's more unease," Sessions said as he sat beside Robert Rector, the author of the Heritage study. "I heard a senator tell me not long ago, 'The more I learn about this bill, the worse I think it is.' And I think there's some concern growing in this regard."

But independent analysts and supporters of the immigration measure say the Heritage report's numbers don't add up.

A Congressional Budget Office study released last week estimates that the Senate bill would increase the U.S. population by 8 million residents by 2016.