Amnesty Intranational

By Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 26, 2006

The U.S. Senate should have focused less on forging “paths to citizenship” and more on blocking paths to the great American gravy train.

Its supporters describe the immigration bill the Senate passed last night as “sweeping” and “comprehensive” – which means its amnesty provisions remained intact. The bill passed by a 62-36 vote (see the vote tally here).

In addition to a “path to citizenship” – which, when applied to at least 11 million illegal immigrants, is less a path than a superhighway – the bill includes a Guest Worker Program for 200,000 people a year, who can then apply for a Green Card. As Sen. Jeff Sessions has said, “[T]here is nothing ‘temporary’ about the new guest worker program created by this bill.” Moreover, the Associated Press reported, “A new program for 1.5 million temporary agricultural workers also survived.” They can also apply for a Green Card. In theory, “only” 650,000 aliens a year will be granted permanent resident status, or 13 million in 20 years – more than the population of Illinois.

This bill doubles the amount of legal immigration, while reorienting our employment visas, for the first time, toward unskilled laborers. (The National Academy of Sciences found each “migrant” with less than a high school education costs the United States $90,000, and that immigrants only begin to “contribute to our economy” if they have a post-secondary education.)