While McConnell has come out of the witness protection program to attack the ‘low-hanging fruit’ IRS scandal with alacrity, he has remained silent on the most profound threat to our Republic – the Schumer immigration reform bill.  How can the sitting GOP leader remain silent on a bill that will compound the mistakes he voted for in 1986 and create a permanent Democrat majority?  How can the top Republican in the Senate remain insouciant toward the Obamacare-style discretion that is afforded to DHS in a way that will make future deportations almost impossible?  How can a self-described conservative be indiffernet to a bill that will chart a pathway to welfare benefits for millions of low-skilled illegal and legal immigrants within just a few years?

Well, it’s quite simple.  Chuck Schumer is the defacto GOP leader in the Senate.  All he has to do is craft legislation, and Republicans will ask how many votes he needs.

Earlier today, McConnell told The Hill’s Alex Bolton that he will support the motion to proceed with debate on the amnesty bill, noting that “the status quo is not good.”

So even as the Senate Judiciary Committee votes to allow criminal aliens to receive amnesty and for them to collect billions in refundable tax credits McConnell is OK with it.

So even as Obama is embroiled in the worst scandals of his administration, McConnell plans to bail him out with his second biggest legacy victory.

So he praises the Gang of 8 without mentioning one concern from the dozens of problems in the bill?

Mitch McConnell voted for the 1986 amnesty bill.  Seldom do lawmakers have the opportunity to rectify the same mistakes in such a dramatic way.  Instead he is opting to roll over and genuflect before The Schumercare Democrat Voting Act of 2013.  This is endemic of McConnell’s approach to follow from behind instead of lead from the front.  He knows that Democrats have the votes to strike down all GOP amendments to put real enforcement triggers in the bill.  They have already done that on a committee level.  Once the debate proceeds, there is no way to stop the runaway train.  Failing to filibuster it now is nothing but a rubber stamp on the bill.  And despite McConnell’s carefully choreographed statements, that is exactly what he wants.

If we’ve learned any lesson from the gun debate it is that you need a filibuster early on to test vote the Senate and bring all of the cowardly members out of the shadows on the issue.  In the case of the gun debate, once those who voted for cloture were documented, they heard the wrath of their constituents and backed off.  Schumer would love to dive straight into this bill before the unwashed masses begin paying attention.  Opposing a filibuster and praising the bill early on is tantamount to full support of the bill.

McConnell praised the gang’s work noting that “the Gang of Eight has made a substantial contribution to moving the issue forward. So far, I’m told that the Judiciary Committee has not in any fundamental way undone the agreement reached by the eight senators so I’m hopeful we’ll be able to get a bill we can pass here in the Senate.”

Evidently, he thinks the fact that the committee has kept the bill intact and voted down commonsense amendments is a good thing, and will enable its passage.  He thinks that Chuck Schumer has made a “substantial contribution.”  Why doesn’t he just come out and endorse the bill in unambiguous terms?  He’s got a lot of money to run ads; why not run some pro-amnesty ads so his Kentucky constituents can get a clear picture as to where he stands on such a consequential issue?

Folks, the only thing that is not good about the status quo is the lack of a bold contrast – or any contrast – to Schumer’s agenda in the Senate.  We need a choice, not a faint and pathetic echo.

Schumer’s immigration deform bill might play well with McConnell’s base of donors and establishment consultants who desire to remake the party, but it won’t play well with his constituents.

That is the question Heritage’s Robert Rector deals with in his cost study on amnesty today, at least in the case of illegal immigrants.  And the answer is a resounding no.  Under any amnesty plan, there would indeed be more people paying payroll taxes, but that revenue will never outweigh the cost of benefits they would inevitably receive.

According to Rector, “over a lifetime, the former unlawful immigrants together would receive $9.4 trillion in government benefits and services and pay $3.1 trillion in taxes.”  That’s a net cost of $6.3 trillion in combined federal, state, and local benefits.   The annual net cost will be roughly $112 billion.  The majority of expense will be the result of increased educational and welfare costs.

Additionally, there are a number of likely factors that could result in higher costs:

• What if there are more than 11.5 million illegals?  What if fraudulent documents allow more people to receive amnesty?  In 1986, 25% of applications were fraudulent.  A similar dynamic now would cost an additional $1.6 trillion, according to Rector.
• This bill allows the amnestied immigrants to bring in spouses and minor children.  The cost would top $600 billion per 1 million more family members.
• Every amnesty encourages more illegal immigration, especially when the enforcement is nothing more than a promise.  The number of border crossings have already tripled in recent months.

I would also note that the bill doesn’t take into account the costs of birthright citizenship.  Every illegal that has a child is able to collect welfare on behalf of his or her American-born kid.  While this is a problem even without amnesty, many of them fail to collect those benefits due to fear of being caught.  Now they will all collect welfare.  Moreover, those who have a fast-track to green cards and citizenship – Dream Act recipients and agriculture workers – will have the ability to bring in family within the 10-year budget period.

Furthermore, this report does not attempt to quantify the cost of the legal immigration aspects of the bill, although Rector promises to do so in the future.  According to Senator Sessions, this bill would bring in 32.7 million immigrants over the next 10 years, along with 25 million new guest workers and non-immigrant residents.  This is on top of our current record levels of between 1 and 1.1 million new green cards annually.  The bill will essentially bring in 2 million new immigrants every year.

Although some of that increase will come from more high-skilled immigration, the cost associated with all the low-skilled immigrants is undoubtedly staggering.  Remember, even though guest workers are not eligible for welfare, and future immigrants must wait some time to collect benefits, they can all collect benefits on behalf of their American-born children immediately.

Once again, you simply cannot have an expansive immigration system coupled with unqualified birthright citizenship and a redistributive society.

Now, it is true that every time you increase the population, you will increase the GDP overall.  I guess we could import another 500 million people and jack up the GDP.  But does this actually increase disposable income for all Americans, aside for the recipients of amnesty?  Will mass importation of poverty actually benefit anyone aside for some special interests?  If anything, real “dynamic scoring” will show an even higher cost to amnesty. Trillions more in welfare spending will engender higher taxes and more debt, thereby dragging down the economy in the long-run.

There will always be diverse views on the issue of immigration, even on the right.  But no good conservative can dismiss the fiscal cost of amnesty without first reforming the welfare state.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project       

After picking apart the gang bill one issue at a time, I put out a summary of all the issues with the immigration bill for The Madison Project.  Here it is for those who have not seen it.  Note that some of this might be subject to change after the dust settles from the 350-page manager’s amendment that was tacked onto the bill.

Enforcement/Security

• No Fence: This plan only calls for Janet Napolitano to “establish a strategy”… “to identify where fencing”… “should be deployed” before temporary legal status is granted.  Any plan that doesn’t complete the 700-miles of double fencing is worthless.
• Internal Enforcement: Any plan that does not limit Obama’s prosecutorial discretion, restore the 287(g) program, ban sanctuary cities and explicitly allow states to enforce federal law and preclude the Justice Department from suing them, is worth less than the paper it is printed on.  This plan does nothing to force the hand of this administration or future administrations on enforcement.  In fact, on page 496, it explicitly preempts states from enforcing immigration laws.
• No real triggers: Senator Rubio keeps saying that we shouldn’t worry about Obama because he won’t be president forever.  However, he and Janet Napolitano will be in charge for the most critical years of implementation.  All they have to do is submit a plan to secure the border (coming from someone who already believes the border is secured) within 6 months of passage, and everyone immediately becomes eligible for legal status.  Even the trigger to green cards and citizenship 10 years later is only that DHS certify they are achieving the goals of their own plan.  If not, it triggers the creation of another commission to find a plan to spend more money!  The recommendations of the commission will not prevent any LPR status from being granted.

E-verify and the visa tracking system don’t have to be implemented for 5 and10 years respectively.  Even then, they never call for a biometric exit-entry system as currently required by law, just an electronic one and it will not be required at land ports of entry.  As such, there is no way that this massive expansion in temporary work visas will ever be temporary. By the time they are processing the amnestied aliens for green cards in 10 years from now, we will have even more than 12 million illegals from those who were left on the table (ineligible from the first round of RPI status) and all those new people who overstayed their visas.  Border patrol agents have already testified before Congress that illegal entries are on the rise ahead of the amnesty.  That will only grow as long as we make it clear that deportations will never occur and have no tracking system to crack down on overstayed visas.

• The bill replaces E-verify, the most effective system, with some other unspecified verification system which won’t be in place for another few years (p. 503).  This could potentially undercut the 350,000 employers who currently use E-verify on a voluntary basis.  It also exempts day laborers from using it (p. 402), which will present a big magnet to future illegal migration.  It only requires the use of verification for new employees so as to protect those here already who don’t qualify for legalization from being caught.
• Encumbering future deportations: Section 3717 places the burden upon ICE to prove that a given alien should be detained.  Section 2313 of the bill offers discretion DHS and immigration judges to grant amnesty to illegals who would suffer personal hardship from being deported.
• The bill grants the Secretary of DHS waiver authority (page 12) to proceed with the LPR status after 10 years if the enforcement provisions are not implemented as a result of being enjoined by a lawsuit.
• The bill puts drastic limitations on “profiling” and discriminating against illegals both on the employer side (even though we require them to use E-verify) and the law enforcement side. This is yet another provision that invites boundless and perennial lawsuits.

Amnesty for Illegals

• Almost Immediate Amnesty: Every illegal is eligible to come forward for “Registered Provisional Immigrant” (RPI) legal status within 6 months after passing the bill once Napolitano submits a strategy plan for border security.  That is the most important detail.  Once the legalization begins, it will never be revoked, irrespective of the success of any promised enforcement in the future.  Also, because anyone could potentially be eligible for legal status, and must be afforded a “reasonable opportunity” to come forward, it will ostensibly be impossible to deport anyone during the entire 2.5 year application process, including the new people who will inevitably come here illegally to take advantage of the liberalization.
• Background check: No government documents are required to identify these people during background checks.  They can easily present documents, and there will be an entire business created to provide them with such documents (see below).
• Public Charge: Although RPI’s would not be able to constitute a public charge when they apply for green cards (however, that is defined as a paltry 125% of the poverty line), they are completely exempt from public charge when initially applying for RPI status, the most important gateway.  (Section 245B(b)(3)).  This legal status will also allow them to immediately collect welfare benefits in many states, which award benefits to anyone lawfully present.
• Criminals:  Section 245B(3)(A) (pages 61-66) allows many criminals to get legal status.  Even those violent felons excluded may be granted legal status by the Secretary for humanitarian purposes, to ensure family unity, or if such a waiver is otherwise in the public interest.  Even the worst of terrorists who are excluded from this waiver, are not required to be deported.  “Nothing in this paragraph may be construed to require the Secretary to commence removal proceedings against an alien.”
• Refundable Tax Credits: They have to pay back taxes owed during their stay illegally in the country.  So what happens with 95% of them who, had they been legal, would have paid $2,000 in payroll taxes but netted $8,000 in refundable tax credits?  What happens with such a tax return?  Do they make money off the system?  That point is not clear.  Moreover, only those who have already been assessed by the IRS would have to pay taxes. (p. 68-69).
• Social Security:  The bill would waive prosecutions of those who have used fraudulent Social Security numbers to get jobs when they were illegal, allowing them to receive Social Security benefits when they retire.
• Dream Act: The dreamers (aged 16-and above with no maximum) and the Ag workers will get immediate blanket amnesty, green cards in just 5 years, and in the case of Dream recipients, immediate citizenship.  All of this is not subject to even the cloddish border triggers established for the rest of illegals. Children of illegals and Ag workers are some of the poorest immigrants, so they will become the most immediate and profound public charge.  Add education costs to the Dreamers.  There is also a hardship exemption to waive the requirement that they complete college.  Section 2103 (page 110) of the bill repeals the ban on in-state tutiton.  Also, how will this affect chain migration when 3 million new citizens could petition to bring in their families after 5 years?  Moreover, spouses and children can be brought in immediately, obtain green cards in 5 years, and citizenship 5 years later.  Furthermore, those who have been granted status under President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy (DACA) could get green cards immediately.
• American-born children: Everyone born on American soil is recognized as an American citizen under current law.  As such, every child born to someone in RPI status, the millions of new low-skilled legal immigrants, and the guest workers will all be American citizens and will be eligible for welfare benefits.
• Invites in Deportees: Not only will deportations be suspended for everyone here, the bill invites thousands of people who have already been deported (a spouse, parent, or child of a U.S. citizen or green card holder, or entered the country illegally before the age of 16) to come back and apply for the provisional legal status.  It also allows deportation absconders to get amnesty.
• Immigrants officially have to wait 5 years upon receiving a green card to collect most welfare benefits, although it is not always enforced.  Those who register for RPI amnesty status, however, will not have to wait 5 more years after receiving green cards.
• Obamacare market distortion: Ironically, in an attempt to show that the RPIs will not receive obamacare benefits, they are creating another problem – tilting the labor force towards the amnestied aliens.  Employers must provide health coverage for all full-time employees or contribute $3,000 towards government coverage for that individual.  Given that the RPIs will be excluded from the program, employers will be exempt.  They will have a $3,000 incentive to hire those individuals over everyone else.
• Government-Sanctioned Private Advocacy and Legal Groups: Section 2106 establishes a foundation (“Grant Program to Assist Eligible Applicants”) that can easily become a government-sanctioned La Raza/ACORN group to agitate for the RPIs during the entire process.  Also, Section 2537 (page 384) authorizes the Director of USCIS to award newly-created “Initial Entry, Adjustment, and Citizenship Assistance” (IEACA) grants to “eligible public or private, non-profit organizations” for the purpose of assisting RPIs with numerous aspects of legalization, such as “completing applications”, “gathering proof of identification”, “applying for any waivers” and “any other assistance.”  Section 3503 (page 570) creates an Office of Legal Access Programs to provide free legal service to all illegals during deportation proceedings.
• Lawsuits:  Sec. 2104 (pages 120-129) of the bill allows illegals to challenge and appeal any denial of RPI status for any reason.  DHS is prohibited from deporting any illegal – including criminals – during the period of adjudication.  This is another provision that ensures that no one single illegal will ever be deported.  The bill opens the door for class action lawsuits, and allows judges to appoint taxpayer-funded council to represent them (p. 567) – not that there is a lack of immigration groups that will represent them for free.

Legal Immigration/Guest Workers/Future Flow

• Wage Controls: On the legal immigration side, this bill increases the number of visas exponentially for both high and low skilled immigrants.  Then, in order to stave off the inevitable depressing of wages, this bill proposes new wage controls for H1-B visa workers.  It even establishes an entire new agency, the Bureau of Immigration and Labor Market Research, to deal with the labor issues created by the massive new flow of low-skilled immigrants who come in on the new W visas.  The inane cycle of government at work.
• Diversity Agenda: While the bill would take the positive step of eliminating the diversity visa lottery, which randomly grants 50,000 visas to many third world countries, it compounds the problem with the new regime.  Under the new points system, which can work effectively when implemented properly, applicants from those countries on the diversity visa would be granted extra points, almost as much as those who hold master’s degrees.

• Prioritized H1-B Expansion: Almost all of the H1-b expansion (from 65,000 to up to 180k) comes from the base cap.  The base cap is simply those who have a bachelor’s degree. We’re not talking about geniuses from MIT who are held up as posted children for our immigration problems.  Yet the bill only raises the exemption for graduate degree H1-bs from 20 to 25k.  That tells you this is all about importing cheaper labor for a number of “tech” jobs that are not that highly skilled as opposed to filling a much-needed vacuum.
• Defacto Permanent Guest Workers: Those Ag workers who come in on the new W visas will be able to stay for 3 years and have their visa renewed for an additional 3 years.  Even if we had a visa tracking system in place, does anyone actually believe we will send them home?  Yet millions of more low-wage earners who will enter the welfare state.

• Obamacare: Although the amnestied illegals in RPI status will not be eligible for obamacare, all of the new LPRs created by this bill on the legal side will be eligible immediately.  The cost will be astronomical.
• Chain Migration: The same provision that grants an unlimited number of visas to family members of citizens is extended to family members of LPRs (page 280).  Given that this bill creates millions of new legal and illegal LPRs, the family-based immigration would explode over the next decade.  Additionally, this bill creates an entire new immigration track in addition to the current family and employment-based tracks.  It also expedites all 4.5 million already “waiting in line,” without prioritizing those who actually benefit the country.
• Refugees and Asylum: This bill dramatically expands the already-abused Refugee and Asylum laws, including any “humanitarian effort” and “stateless persons.”  Chechnya?  Palestinians?  It also allows those who were rejected to have another bite at the apple.  On page 551, the bill waives the requirement that asylum applications be filed within one year of fleeing to the U.S.  This will allow people who represent national security risks to linger without having to come forward.

Just who controls the House? Democrats?

Well, that is what will happen if we continue to violate the Hastert Rule.  Former House Speaker Denny Hastert employed a simple rule when scheduling legislation for floor consideration.  He would never bring any legislation to the floor that did not enjoy the support of the majority of Republicans.  So far this year, House leadership has violated that rule 5 times, bringing bills to the floor with minority support from the Republican conference:

• “Fiscal Cliff” tax hikes and stimulus pork (HR 8 1/1/13)- This was the McConnell-Biden tax hike coupled $230 billion in new stimulus spending, including $40 billion in green energy pork.  It passed with only 85 Republican votes.
• Sandy Pork Bill (HR 152, 1/15/13) – This bill contained $60 billion in extraneous pork spending, of which the majority would be appropriated long after the recovery from the Hurricane is over.  It passed with just 38 Republican votes.
• “Violence Against Women Act (S. 47 2/28/13) – This was the Senate version of VAWA that dramatically expanded the unconstitutional program to include a number of social engineering provisions and violations of due process.  It passed with only 87 GOP votes.
• Battlefield preservation pork (HR 1033 4/9/13) – This was a random Democrat suspension bill to give money to states for the purpose of buying up more land.  It passed with less than half of Republican members.
• Obamacare pre-existing conditions program (HR 1549 4/25/13) – to pump $4 billion into Obamacare’s federally managed and manipulated high-risk pool for those with pre-existing conditions.  The bill was pulled from the floor at the last minute due to a mass revolt within the conference.

Several weeks ago, when pressed about his violation of the Hastert Rule, Boehner retorted that “it was never a rule to begin with.”  He is correct.  There is no commandant to follow the Hastert Rule, but it is commonsense.  And it is time we codify it.

From my understanding of the conference rules, a group of roughly 25-30 members can force the GOP Conference to vote on a new rule.  They should force a vote to adopt a new rule banning any floor consideration of a bill opposed by the majority of the majority.  With the threat of the Senate passing a massive amnesty/immigration deform bill, a farm bill, student loan increases, a highway bill, and God knows what else, it’s time for conservative House members to begin asserting control over the House before this gets out of hand.

Remember, the Hastert Rule still gives these guys leeway to grow government as long as they have 118 Republicans supporting the idea.  Unfortunately, we don’t have 118 conservatives in Congress at this point.  So if anything is opposed by a majority of Republicans, it’s bad news, and should be scuttled.

Over the next few months, Republicans need to commit to blocking all Senate bills, while going on offense with conservative legislation, such as universal carry, border security and legal immigration reforms, repeal of ethanol and energy mandates and subsidies, Federal Reserve reform, welfare reform – just to name a few.

With a simple majority in the House, we control more of the legislative process in Washington than the Democrats do.  It’s time we start acting like it.  It’s time we codify the Hastert Rule.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project

In 2011, Alabama passed a law (HB 56) authorizing state and local police to check the immigration status of those already apprehended for breaking a law or those caught driving without a license.  It also required every public school in Alabama to determine if an enrolling student was born outside the United States or is a child of an illegal alien (just for data collection, not to deny enrollment).  Last August, at the behest of Obama’s Justice Department, the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court’s injunction against most of the law, including the provisions regarding data collection in schools and those related to criminalizing employing and harboring illegal immigrants.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court refused to grant certiorari to Alabama in its attempt to appeal the injunction.  Justice Scalia publicized his dissent, revealing his desire to overturn the lower court’s decision.  Taken as a whole, it has become almost impossible for states to deal with the crime and costs associated with illegal immigration, even as the feds refuse to uphold the laws.

To begin with, there is a clear need for states to help enforce laws against illegal immigration in such a large country.  When you couple that with the perennial recalcitrance on the part of any administration to fully enforce federal laws, there is no way we will ever enforce the laws in the future without granting states latitude to protect their residents from the ill effects of illegal immigration.  Before Republicans jump into wholesale capitulation mode on the issue, state enforcement must be one of the concessions they receive from Democrats, if they are to ever agree to some form of amnesty.

However, the gang of 8 bill, which has received so much praise from Republicans, actually preempts states from enforcing immigration laws (page 496):

PREEMPTION.—The provisions of this section preempt any State or local law, ordinance, policy, or rule, including any criminal or civil fine or penalty structure, relating to the hiring, continued employment, or status verification for employment eligibility purposes, of unauthorized aliens. A State, locality, municipality, or political subdivision may exercise its authority over business licensing and similar laws as a penalty for failure to use the System.

We’ve already pointed out how this bill makes it so arduous for ICE agents to enforce the laws.  This provision will ensure that almost every state law is thrown out in the courts.

Ideally, immigration enforcement should be handled solely by the federal government.  But if there is one lesson we should learn from the past three decades of lawlessness it’s that administrations of both parties are not excited about enforcement.  With so many policy issues being solved on a state level in a more effective and efficient manner, immigration is another issue for which we should allow states to demonstrate their innovative ideas, especially as it relates to interior enforcement within the state’s borders.

The basket case politicians in California might feel that an endless supply of illegals is good for their economy.  But other states should be allowed to secure their streets, schools, and programs from unauthorized visitors.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project

Just how unpopular is Obama with the voters of West Virginia?  He lost all 55 counties last year in the general election, and 41% of Democrat primary voters to a man sitting in jail.  That’s why Joe Manchin lacks the moxie to air a commercial saying, “I’m Joe Manchin, and I approve this message because West Virginia needs a senator who will stand with Barack.”

Instead of manning up and letting his constituents know he is a gun-grabbing, Obamacare-supporting leftist, Joe Manchin ran a TV ad depicting himself shooting a rifle – taking “dead aim” – at a cap and trade bill.  Now he is working indefatigably to pass gun control, even after his bill was defeated.  During the gun debate, he also voted against an amendment that would have required a judicial ruling to determine if a veteran is dangerous before he is banned from buying guns.  I’m sure the many veterans in West Virginia would appreciate that.

What about Obamacare?

When running for Senate in 2010, Manchin said he would have voted against Obamacare.  He also claims to be pro-life.  Yet, not only did he vote against repealing Obamacare, he voted against denying Obamacare to illegal aliens!  He also voted against repealing the tax increases on catastrophic medical expenses.

It’s only a matter of time before Manchin comes out of the closet and evolves on cap and trade and gay marriage.

Perhaps the next time he is up for reelection, he ought to show a picture of himself standing with Obama and grabbing a gun away from a veteran.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project

Indeed, Marco Rubio presciently warned about this lax attitude towards enforcement when he was running for Senate in 2009:

“If you grant amnesty, the message that you’re sending is that if you come in this country and stay here long enough, we will let you stay. And no one will ever come through the legal process if you do that.”

This is why many of us believe that to the extent amnesty can ever work as a final solution, it must be preceded by a resolute determination to enforce deportations against future illegal entrants.  The Senate immigration bill, however, does just the opposite.  Aside for the fact that it will be virtually impossible to decipher all the new illegal immigrants from the plethora of those eligible for legal status, thereby ostensibly halting all deportations, this bill explicitly grants wide latitude to DHS and immigration judges to suspend future deportations.  We’ve already noted how the bill grants DHS authority to legalize current illegals who would otherwise be ineligible for RPI status “for humanitarian purposes, to ensure family unity, or if such a waiver is otherwise in the public interest.”

Section 2313 (page 328) of the bill adds in the following discretion to judges overseeing removal proceedings:

In the case of an alien subject to removal, deportation, or exclusion, the immigration judge may exercise  discretion to decline to order the alien removed, deported or excluded from the United States  and terminate proceedings if the judge determines that such removal, deportation, or exclusion is against the public interest or would result in hardship to the alien’s United States citizen or permanent resident parent of a child, spouse, or child,

On Page 330, similar discretion is granted to the Secretary of DHS:

‘‘(w) SECRETARY’S DISCRETION.—In the case of an  alien inadmissible under this section, the Secretary of Homeland Security may exercise discretion to waive a ground of inadmissibility if the Secretary determines that such refusal of admission is against the public interest or would result in hardship to the alien’s United States citizen or permanent resident parent, spouse, or child

What about those aliens who have already been deported and have reentered a second time?  Under current law (8 U.S.C. 1231(a)(5)), “the prior order of removal is reinstated from its original date and is not subject to being reopened or reviewed, the alien is not eligible and may not apply for any relief under this Act, and the alien shall be removed under the prior order at any time after the reentry.”  This bill (page 331), once again, adds on that broad exception:

“unless the alien reentered prior to attaining the age of 18 years, or reinstatement of the prior order of removal would not be in the public interest or would result in hardship to the alien’s United States citizen or permanent resident parent, spouse, or child.’’

Couple these waivers with Section 3717 (page 653), which places the burden upon ICE to prove that a given alien should be detained, and this bill ensures we will have millions more illegals by the time the current crop receives their voting cards.  There are already tons of migrants from Central America traveling through Mexico to reach our porous border and take advantage of the permanent free-for-all.

This comprehensive immigration deform bill is a lot more than amnesty.  It is a mockery of the rule of law.

• Those who qualify for the broad DREAM fast-track amnesty under S. 744—estimated by the Center for Immigration Studies’ Steve Camarota to be between two and three million people—are able to become citizens after being in registered provisional immigrant (RPI) status (the general amnesty) for five years. Those five years are deemed as having been spent in legal permanent resident status (under current law LPRs must wait five years before becoming citizens).
  • There is NO AGE CAP on eligibility
  • The Secretary of Homeland Security can allow a deported DREAM beneficiary who is outside the U.S. or who has re-entered the U.S. illegally after the December 31, 2011 cut-off date to apply for this status.

• Illegal agriculture workers will also be placed on an expedited path: green cards in five years and citizenship in 10. This could apply to almost a million people or more.

• DREAM beneficiaries will also be able to get green cards for their parents, spouses, and children five years from enactment. Those family members will then be eligible for citizenship five years after that. Therefore, the DREAM provision of the bill alone could be responsible for potentially as many as 10 million new citizens over an approximate 10-plus year time frame.

• S. 744 would allow unlimited visas for the spouses and children of all green card holders—both those currently illegal and new legal immigrants, leading to exponential chain migration.

• In addition, under S. 744, any LPR can petition for visas for adult unmarried sons and daughters (but they must wait for a visa to become available). A citizen also will be able to petition for their married sons and daughters under the age of 31 if visas are available under the family-based visa cap.

• S. 744 appears to allow those who have been granted status under President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy (DACA) to immediately adjust to LPR status under a “streamlined procedure” determined by the Secretary and consistent with the DACA requirements. These individuals may petition for visas for family members in the same manner as the LPRs described above. According to USCIS statistics, 472,004 DACA applications were accepted for review between August 2012 and March 2013; 268,361 were approved, 16,778 were deemed incomplete and required resubmission, and only 1,377 were denied.

• As with all illegal immigrants under S.744, eligibility is extended to those with two misdemeanor criminal convictions, those who have overstayed their visas, forged documents, absconded from removal proceedings, had felony arrests, etc.

• Taking into account the expedited legalization of illegal immigrants, the expansion of low-skill legal immigration, and the new avenues for chain migration, the bill would exponentially increase the number of people granted legal status.

Also, remember that the minute any of them have a baby, that kid is an American citizen, making the family eligible immediately for welfare.  This is something that is lost on those who say they have to wait 5-10 years to collect benefits.  Just yesterday, the Washington Examiner reported that the USDA is advertising in foreign consulates that you need not be a legal resident to collect food stamps:

The USDA said the program is designed to help American children. “[The USDA Food and Nutrition Service] understands that mixed status households may be particularly vulnerable,” FNS’ Yibo Wood wrote to Mexican embassy officials in a January 2012 email.   “Many of these households contain a non-citizen parent and a citizen child.”

Therein lies the big lie about the welfare issue.  You simply cannot have open borders, chain migration, unqualified birthright citizenship, and a welfare state at the same time.  In the context of the time we live in, we need to have a targeted immigration process that identifies those who will benefit the country at large (not a few special interests), and make it easier and cheaper for them to go through the process.  Random chain migration will spell the end of the Republic.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project

It looks like we might have to get more conservative-Americans to do the job that the GOP-controlled House won’t do.

In what has become a familiar routine, instead of fighting against the heaping pile of immigration deform emanating from the Democrat Senate, House Republicans are looking to tweak it with some honey and sugar in order to inveigle  conservatives into eating this excrement sandwich.  Whereas Republicans in the Senate outsourced their principles on the issue to Chuck Schumer, some House Republicans are looking to Luis Gutierrez, an even more extreme leftist, for guidance.  For months, the House gang of 8, comprised of Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA) Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho), Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), Sam Johnson (R-Texas) and John Carter (R-Texas), have been meeting behind closed doors with special interests to iron out a similar deform bill to the Senate’s version.  Paul Ryan seems to merit a separate one-on-one relationship with Gutiérrez.

The House gang is beginning to leak some of the details of their plan to the media.  Russell Berman of The Hill has the shocking, I mean shocking details:

Democratic sources say Republicans in the House group want to nearly double the maximum number of guest-worker visas, which was set at 200,000 in the Senate bill.

On the path to citizenship, sources briefed on the talks say that the minimum number of years it would take an person living in the U.S. illegally to gain citizenship would be 15 in the House bill, compared to 13 years in the Senate measure. That is because unlike the Senate gang, the House negotiators do not intend to reduce the number of years that a legal permanent resident with a green card must wait before applying for citizenship.

Both bills would create a decade-long provisional legal status for illegal immigrants to work in the U.S., pay back taxes and learn English while the government works to meet benchmarks for securing the southern border. In the Senate bill, illegal  immigrants given the provisional legal status must wait 10 years to obtain a green card for permanent status and then another three to apply for citizenship.

Wow – so they are going to immediately grant legal status before there is a parallel commitment and demonstration of enforcement from the administration.  It doesn’t matter if you back up the citizenship another two years or another fifty years; as long as they are immediately granted legal status before the fence and visa tracking system are in place, we will continue repeating the same cycle for years to come.  The path to benefits and citizenship will obviously be sped up as political pressure mounts every subsequent year.

As for the massive guest worker program, I have no problem with a targeted guest worker program when implemented under the right circumstances and at the right time.  Every country has one.  The problem is if we implement such a massive program before the exit system is in place, the hundreds of thousands of low-wage temporary workers will never be temporary.  Moreover, many of them will have American-born children and stay here forever anyway, collecting benefits on behalf of their children for years to come.  They might be hard workers, but the low wages that the Ag industry want to pay them (which is precisely the point of this in the first place) will never lift them above the eligibility threshold for those programs.

Which brings me to another point: when will Republicans finally realize that you can’t have massive amnesty and an expansionist immigration/guest worker policy coupled with the welfare state and unqualified birthright citizenship?  One of those elements has got to go if this will ever work.

More broadly, what part of ‘enforcement first’ don’t these people understand?  Some might feel it is prudent at some point to grant legal status.  But there is no requirement of that in the Constitution.  They are, however, required to secure the border and protect our sovereignty.  Why are they negotiating with themselves (and the far left) over how much legalization they are willing to offer before there is a parallel commitment from the administration to execute the Secure Fence Act of 2007 and the US-Visit program from 1996 and 2002?  It’s real simple: enforce the laws now, and we’ll discuss what to do with those here illegally.

The American people understand this bedrock principle as well.  Republicans live and die by polling, yet they must have missed the Fox News poll from yesterday.  To the extent that issue polling can ever be accurate and subjective, they asked respondents a pretty innocuous and straightforward question:

Do you favor or oppose requiring completion of new border security measures first — before making other changes to immigration policies?

68 percent are in favor; 22% are opposed.  Even 66% of Democrats agree support enforcement first.

Nowhere do we find such a bifurcation between the views of those in the political class and the commonsense of the average citizen as with the issue of illegal immigration.  Among the political class, even many prominent conservatives prioritize amnesty over sovereignty.  Among the citizenry, however, even many Democrats support the rule of law and national security.

This is just one more example of the political class doing the jobs Americans won’t do.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project

As the public finally gets an opportunity to read and analyze the bipartisan gang of 8 immigration bill, it is clear that there will be some irreconcilable differences between your vision of immigration reform and that of many conservatives across the country.  However, we should all agree that this is an extremely consequential bill and must go through a long process – one which will allow all points of view to be heard.

Several months ago, you promised Rush Limbaugh that you would never be part of a process “that comes up with some bill in secret and brings it to the floor and gives people a take it or leave it.”  Unfortunately, the process that has commenced thus far is ostensibly a ‘take it or leave it’ approach.

This bill was crafted behind closed doors with the help of special interests, including big business, big labor, and ethnic front groups, instead of by the relevant subcommittee.  It is becoming clear from the committee hearings that Democrat members of the gang have been briefing their colleagues and special interest supporters on the details of the bill for weeks.  At the same time, the Republican members of the Senate, including the members and staffers on the Judiciary Committee, were not informed of the details until the bill was dropped at 2:25 AM Wednesday morning.  While Democrats and their outside allies were amply prepared for the hearings this week, Republican members were flummoxed and struggling to analyze the details of the bill.  Hence, groups like La Raza know more about the bill than the chairmen of the Budget and Judiciary committees.  That is simply wrong.

After rushing through two hearings within a few days of publicizing this 844-page, enormously complex bill, Senator Leahy has called for a committee markup this Thursday.  Due to committee rules and the Senate recess, Republicans are able to delay the markup until May 7.  There is simply not enough time to prepare for amendments on one of the most complex and consequential issues of our time.

While it is true that Republicans will get to offer amendments before the bill is brought to the floor, it is impossible to fully digest and analyze such a complex issue in just two weeks.  Consequently, it is unlikely Republicans will have the opportunity to provide input that will improve the impact of the bill.

There is broad consensus among conservatives, many of whom have divergent opinions on the fundamentals of immigration policy, that this should be done in piece meal bills – with those components that deal with enforcement and enjoy broad support considered first.  However, if we are going to deal with this issue “comprehensively,” shouldn’t your fellow Republicans be afforded the requisite time to study the impact of this multi-faceted bill?

This is not just a bill that remakes our current economy; it remakes the orientation of our society.  Between those illegals who receive legal status along with their families; those temporary workers who are brought here with their families; those future legal immigrants who are brought here without any family caps; those Dream Act recipients and agriculture workers who can bring in family members to enjoy an expedited pathway to citizenship, there are serious questions about future flow, the fiscal cost, and the ability to absorb and assimilate such a precipitous flow of new immigrants.  Some in our party might come to the conclusion that the benefits outweigh the costs; others will conclude the opposing view.  But we must all agree that this is one of the most impactful issues we will ever consider, and it must be subjected to comprehensive analysis.  This problem wasn’t created in a few weeks; it need not be solved in a few weeks.

As such, I would humbly request that you ask Chairman Leahy to push back the May 7^th markup and allow for more time to prepare for this historic opportunity.  You have bent over backwards for Democrats in an effort to craft a bipartisan bill.  The least they can do is grant the committee members – who have already been shut out of the process – ample time to study the bill before offering amendments.

The conservative movement stood behind you during a time of need.  Please stand behind us as we’re steamrolled by this reckless process.

Here’s what James Madison had to say about the Commerce Clause in a letter to Joseph C. Cabell in 1829:

For a like reason, I made no reference to the “power to regulate commerce among the several States.” I always foresaw that difficulties might be started in relation to that power which could not be fully explained without recurring to views of it, which, however just, might give birth to specious though unsound objections. Being in the same terms with the power over foreign commerce, the same extent, if taken literally, would belong to it. Yet it is very certain that it grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government, in which alone, however, the remedial power could be lodged.

Well, in the case of the internet sales tax, Congress finally has the opportunity to exercise its power under the Commerce clause to prevent injustice among the states.  Instead there is a bipartisan consensus in the Senate to allow states to tax internet sales across state lines.

Yesterday, 74 senators, including 27 Republicans, voted to proceed with debate on the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act (S.743).  The bill would essentially allow states to join together in a tax cartel to force online retailers to collect sales taxes on behalf of all 50 states based on the location of the shipping address.   Although the bill never went through regular order and a markup in the Finance Committee, Harry Reid is fast-tracking this bill through the Senate.

Here are my continued concerns about the entire premise of the interstate cartel:

• Taxation without representation: The idea that states could collect sales taxes from companies in other states is an anathema to the founding ideals of our country.
• Hurting federalism and low-tax states: While brick and mortar stores are forced to collect taxes from everyone, they are only subject to the tax of their home state.  So if they are located in a state with no sales tax or a low tax they collect the lower tax, even if the customer is from a high tax state.  Under the MFA, online vendors in a state like New Hampshire would still have to collect the high rate of taxes of customers from California.  So red-state companies will have to serve as tax collector for high-taxed blue states, thereby obviating the benefit of being in a red state and blurring the effectiveness of laboratories of democracy.
• Onerous Burden:  This bill would encumber online businesses with the technicalities of establishing a tax collection system that would satisfy nearly 10,000 unique tax jurisdictions in this country?  That is a recipe for killing jobs and raising the cost of goods.  It’s for good reason that in 1992 the Supreme Court referred to such a scheme as a “burden” and violation of due process.  Big online retailers like Amazon are willing to shoulder this burden in return for driving smaller online businesses out of the market or into their own platform.  In that sense, this is a consummate example for big government colluding with big business.  It should be called the Amazon Enrichment Act.
• National Sales Tax:  Collection, enforcement, and reciprocity of this tax would be so complicated that it would engender yet another fix in the endless cycle of government incompetence.  The only way to effectively collect it would be with a uniform national sales tax.  There is no question that the MFA would be the easiest way for liberals to leverage their much sought-after national sales tax – an entirely new revenue stream.
• This is a tax increase: Why would we ever push for new revenue and a new stream of taxation that will totally disrupt e-commerce?  Let’s find ways to lower the tax burden on brick and mortar stores instead of raising them on online vendors.

The internet is the most successful invention known to man.  Why?  Because it is the freest venue of information dissemination in the world, unencumbered by government.  We need to keep it that way.  The bill is being heavily pushed by Walmart and Amazon, which stand to benefit from such a cumbersome regulatory tax system that disproportionately hurts small online retailers.  It is also being pushed by state and local governments who are hungry for the new revenue to grow government, but lack the fortitude to ask for the revenue through new direct taxes (on the seller) or simply enforce collection of use taxes that already exist in most states.

Passage of this bill seems to be a fait accompli in the Senate.  We must begin calling on House leadership to invoke the Hastert Rule and block any legislation that lacks support from the majority of the GOP Conference.

No more tax increases!  Blocking states from forming an interstate tax cartel would actually represent the first prudent and legal use of the Commerce Clause in decades.

As far as amnesty, that’s where [Charlie Crist] and I disagree. He would have voted for the McCain plan. I think that plan is wrong…if you grant amnesty…you will destroy any chance we will ever have of having a legal immigration system that works here in America. [Marco Rubio, Fox News Sunday debate with Charlie Crist, March 28, 2010]

It’s this sort of straight talk that endeared Rubio to the conservative base in 2010.  Rubio presciently noted that when you consistently grant amnesty and telegraph the message that you will never enforce the law, we will continue to repeat the cycle of illegal migration and amnesty.  At the 1:30 mark in this interview, Rubio offers one of the best lines of attack against amnesty I’ve heard.  His views were simply diametrically opposed to what he is espousing now.

The irony is that the McCain amnesty bill wasn’t nearly as offensive as the current iteration Rubio is supporting.  The past bill contained a cap on the age for Dream Act recipients and required education attainment.  This bill doesn’t.  Moreover, this bill invites in thousands of illegals who were already deported, many of them for criminal activities.

Consequently, the cost of this bill – both for amnestied illegals and low-skilled guest workers, along with their children – will likely be more expensive than the 2007 bill.  Yet Rubio’s office is coordinating a pre-emptive attack on the coming cost study from Heritage, demanding that they score the “benefits” of bringing in so many new workers.  Amazingly, it was actually Charlie Crist who advanced a similar argument in defense of McCain-Kennedy.  During a debate with Rubio, Crist said that by offering amnesty to 12 million illegals ,we would help solve the Social Security deficit because more people would be paying into the system.

Rubio laughed him off the stage: “There isn’t a single serious public policy observer in the country that thinks that’s a serious solution.”  Then, Rubio sent out a press release, which was posted on his website at the time, lambasting the idea that low-wage earners could possible solve Social Security.  In doing so, he cited….Robert Rector’s cost study – the very study he now maligns:

DEBATE FACT #5: Crist’s Amnesty For Social Security Plan Would Bankrupt The System Faster

by Marco Rubio (Notes) on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 at 6:42pm

What Crist Said…

That he would protect Social Security but his plan would actually make it go bankrupt faster.

The Facts About The Crist Record…

Charlie Crist Has Proposed Granting Amnesty For Illegal Immigrants To Save Social Security:

· In 2007, The CBO Predicted That Amnesty For Illegal Immigrants Would Increase Social Security Spending $350 Million Over Ten Years And Add 11,500 Disabled And Retired Workers To The Rolls Ten Years Out. “CBO estimates that the Z-A visa program would boost outlays for Social Security benefits by $350 million over the 2008-2017 period and add 11,500 disabled and retired workers to the rolls in 2017.” (Congressional Budget Office, “Senate Amendment 1150 To S. 1348, The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act Of 2007,” 6/4/07)

· Amnesty Would Also Increase Medicare Spending $290 Million Over The Same Period According To The CBO. “Medicare would spend an extra $290 million over the 2008-2017 period and enroll an added 7,000 people in 2017.” (Congressional Budget Office, “Senate Amendment 1150 To S. 1348, The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act Of 2007,” 6/4/07)

· PolitiFact: Crist Plan Would Actually Add Costs To The Social Security System. “In fact it turns out Social Security already is receiving a huge benefit from illegal workers who are paying into the system but as of now are unable to receive any of the benefits. Back in 2005, the New York Times reported that illegal workers essentially are contributing a $6 billion to $7 billion annual subsidy. More recent estimates suggest illegal workers are now paying $9 billion to $12 billion a year into Social Security, with no legal way to get that money back in retirement benefits. … Crist’s plan would potentially tap the other third of illegal workers not paying payroll taxes, but also would allow all workers access to Social Security benefits when they reach retirement age. Added benefits, yes. But added costs, too.” (Aaron Sharockman, “Charlie Crist Says Social Security Plan Embraced By Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich,” St. Petersburg Times’ “PolitiFact,” 10/18/10)

· National Review: Amnesty “Would Also Make All Of These Individuals Eligible For The Program Upon Retirement – Essentially Turning Today’s One-Way Cash Flow Into A Two-Way Street.” “Here’s the fallacy of Crist’s thinking, by the numbers: About 50 percent of illegal immigrants already pay Social Security taxes, because their wages are ‘on the books.’ The Social Security Administration estimates that illegals pay as much as $7 billion into the program on a yearly basis. Since they’re not eligible for the benefits, this is an inflow of money without any future corresponding outflow. If Social Security’s numbers are the only consideration, keeping illegal immigrants illegal has its advantages. Amnesty would bring the other half of current illegals into the fold of payroll taxes, and increase Social Security receipts in the short term. But it would also make all of these individuals eligible for the program upon retirement — essentially turning today’s one-way cash flow into a two-way street. ‘It is true that they will pay small amounts into the Social Security and Medicare systems for, say, the next two or three decades, but once they retire, they will draw down $2.7 trillion in benefits from Social Security and Medicare alone,’ Rector said. Rector calculated the figure during the 2007 consideration of amnesty, based on an estimate of 10 million adult illegal immigrants.” (Kyle O. Peterson, “Charlie Crist Says Amnesty Will Help Social Security. Really. Governor?” National Review, 9/27/10) [emphasis added]

· Crist’s Amnesty Plan “Will Put More Pressure On The System.” “When Crist has been pressed for his ideas of dealing with Social Security’s long-term problems, the governor suggested that finding a way for some of the country’s 14 million illegal immigrants to become citizens may create more workers who would provide additional payroll taxes to support Social Security. Critics have attacked his proposal by pointing out many illegal immigrants already work and pay payroll taxes but do not receive Social Security benefits. They said if those workers become legal, they will put more pressure on the system and also qualify for other federal aid, such as Medicare.” (Lloyd Dunkelberger, “Senate Candidates Talk About Changing Social Security,” Lakeland Ledger, 10/3/10)

Look, there’s nothing new about politicians “evolving” shortly after being elected to Congress, but how could someone evolve so profoundly in such short order?  Rubio rightly recognized the absurdity of suggesting that millions of low-skilled amnestied illegals can affect a net-positive change on taxes and entitlements.  While they might pay in a small amount of payroll taxes, they get back more from the progressive benefit formula of Social Security, as well as from the refundable tax credits and transfer programs they might secure on behalf of themselves, or at the very least, on behalf of their American-born children.

Charlie Crist was wrong in 2007 on McCain-Kennedy.  Robert Rector was right.  McCain-Kennedy on steroids will not change that equation.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project

1)      Too Long: Nobody can fully digest the intricate details of a long bill with so many components.

2)      “Insider Trading”:  What was so bad about the practice of earmarking?  It allowed crafters of legislation to insert one small provision that would garner support from a legislator in an effort to support a broader, undesirable bill.  The way special interest politics works is that each person gets thrown a bone in the form of their pet provision in a massive bill, enticing a broad coalition to support the bill out of self-interest.  Every special interest under the sun is supporting the Gang’s bill because it has their special provision in it.  The Wall Street Journal – of all news outlets -  has a good roundup on this dynamic.  Ironically, even libertarians are supporting a bill that creates wage and labor controls, creates new government bureaus, and penalizes those who employ too many H1-B workers, because they like the amnesty on the illegal side.  Why should we pass bad components just because some will get their provisions passed?  Have they even read the bill?  Do they even care about some of the other provisions?

3)      Too Much Subterfuge:  It is a lot easier for politicians to cook the legislation when it is full of multiple, semi-intertwined proposals.   This bill contains 400 waivers, exemptions, and exceptions, many of which are pursuant to the cumbersome Immigration and Nationality Act.  This makes it easier to misrepresent the effect of the bill.  See Obamacare.

4)      Proper Order:  There are often times when it is necessary to pass several laws regarding a specific issue.  But it is important that they be implemented in the proper order.  Even if you support a process of legalization at some point, it is simply absurd to do so before the enforcement is implemented, especially in light of past history and in the context of the crafty way the “triggers” were drafted.   Each provision should be able to stand on its own merit.

5)      Hostage Taking: Why should provisions of a bill that have broad support be held hostage for passage of controversial components?  Why should something like the visa tracking system be held hostage for a broader amnesty and increase in immigration?  That should pass Congress on its own merits.   While some might think it’s prudent to grant amnesty or to let in an unlimited amount of legal immigrants across all visa categories, we are not required to do that.  We are, however, required to secure our borders and protect our sovereignty.  That should not be held hostage for the other provisions.  Also, some of the legal reforms, such as merit-based legal immigration and the repeal of the diversity visa lottery should not have to wait until we decide what to do with a 25-year-old problem with regards to illegal immigration.

Um…the last time I checked, potential terrorists don’t submit themselves to background checks.  And even those who would ultimately come forward for a background check, will only do so to receive legal status.  Those who don’t come forward, including all the terrorists, will still be allowed to remain in the country even if they are not eligible for legal status.  As we noted last week, Section 245B(3)(A)( on pages 61-66) of the bill makes clear that not even the worst criminals are subject to deportation.  In fact, the bill invites in hundreds of thousands of people who have already been deported to step forward and apply for legal status.  Remember, in recent years we’ve mostly been deporting those who are real bad actors.

Worse, the bill (Section 3717) places the burden upon ICE to prove that a given alien should be detained:

“the immigration judge shall review the custody determination de novo and may detain the alien only if the Secretary demonstrates that no conditions, including the use of alternatives to detention that maintain custody over the alien, will reasonably assure the appearance of the alien as required and the safety of any other person and the community.”

That is just swell for our national security.  Add in to the mix the fact that the bill contains a whole new section banning “profiling” on the part of employers and law enforcement, and that it creates a new ACORN-style foundation to support “innovative and creative solutions to barriers faced by those seeking naturalization,” and I’m sure we will have an easy time deporting people who present a security risk.

Nevertheless, the more serious problem for our national security is who we let in through our front door.  It’s time to put the political correctness aside.  On behalf of tens of millions of Americans of all stripes who are asking the question at their dinner tables: why the hell do we let in these people?  Why do we continue to let in people from countries and regions that represent a security risk?

As we continue to debate prudent versus irresponsible immigration reform, I was always planning to address the national security aspect of the issue – long before the Boston bombing this past week.   Thank God there have only been “a few” terror attacks carried out on American soil since 9/11.  But few people realize how many attempted attacks were foiled before they came to fruition.  According to the Heritage Foundation, as of last October there had been 53 attempted terror attacks since 2001.  Almost every one of them was perpetrated by a Muslim who came here legally – through our front door – from a region of the world that clearly represents a security threat.  In the case of the Boston jihadis, they were brought in as asylees a decade ago.

Our refugee and asylum laws were originally designed to protect individuals who fled to America and faced “a well-founded fear of persecution” were they to return to their country of origin.  This was relevant in the ‘80s when anti-communists would flee the former Soviet Union.  It is still relevant today with individuals who flee China.  However, in recent years this classification has been abused to admit whole classes of people from the third world and volatile countries for a whole host of reasons, at the behest of powerful lobbyists.

So does the Gang bill tighten our refugee laws from high risk regions?

It does just the opposite.  It expands refugee status in a number of ways, including for those “whose resettlement in the United States is justified by humanitarian concerns.”

Then there’s this doozy (page 557):

The Secretary of Homeland Security or the Attorney General may, in his or her discretion, provide conditional lawful status to an alien who is otherwise inadmissible or deportable from the United States if the alien— ‘‘(A) is a stateless person present in the United States

So what is a stateless person?  Someone from Chechnya?  A Palestinian?

Who knows?  Maybe it’s innocuous, but it’s one of the many provisions that are stuffed into the bill and not reported on by anyone on or off the Hill.  It’s hard to tell give that we were completely shut out of the process until 2:25 AM last Wednesday.  While Schumer shared the bill with Democrat members of the Judiciary Committee for weeks, McCain and Rubio shut out fellow Republicans, including the chairmen of Budget and Judiciary, from the process.  Jeff Sessions, Chuck Grassley, and their top staff members found out about the details of the bill the same time I did.  Yet, Pat Leahy is conducting a marathon hearing tomorrow with 20 guests before Republicans have had a chance to fully understand the bill.

When it comes to national security, it’s probably not a good idea to find out what’s in a massive immigration expansion and amnesty bill by passing it.

Instead of proposing more free market solutions, Republicans are offering pale-pastel versions of Democrat government intervention as solutions.  Here are two examples.

Last week, Congressman Larry Bucshon (R-IN) introduced the Orwellian-named “Truth in Healthcare Marketing Act of 2013” (HR 1427) – a bill that forces optometrists to disclose all their licensing and qualifications in all advertising.  It grants wide latitude to the Federal Trade Commission to regulate and penalize offenders.  The bill is heavily backed by special interest hustlers like the AMA and American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO).  The ophthalmologist lobby doesn’t want competition from cheaper healthcare providers (optometrists), and they want to use the boot of the federal government to ensnare them in red tape.

It is this sort of anti-free market special interest legislating that has crowded out choice and competition from the marketplace.  The reality is that there are already strict laws in most states to punish those optometrists who step outside of their scope of service beyond their qualifications. There is no reason, beyond special interest politicking, for the federal government to get involved.  The bill was introduced on April 9, a day before the AAOs national meetings in DC commenced.

John Sullivan of Oklahoma introduced the same bill during last Congress (along with his special interest T. Boone Pickens Nat Gas handout).  He was defeated.  Enough said.

The second example is Eric Cantor’s bill to spend $4 billion on an Obamacare program to cover pre-existing conditions, a program that even Obama doesn’t want.  Cantor plans to bring the Pre-Existing Conditions Insurance Plan (PCIP) (HR 1549) to the floor next week.  It offers more funding for Obamacare’s federally managed and manipulated high-risk pool for those with pre-existing conditions.  In fact, it even eliminates the requirement that enrollees be uninsured for 6 months prior to applying for the program.  So they can wait until they get sick and immediately get insurance.  This is like applying for fire insurance after your house burns down.

It is precisely these federal anti-free-market programs that make the cost of health insurance unaffordable for everyone – not just those with pre-existing conditions.  Moreover, at a time when we are trying to starve the Obamacare beast, why are we expanding it and giving moral cover to the premise of the law?

The House should instead offer numerous free market ideas that will directly address the barriers to coverage for those with pre-existing conditions, with the most limited impact on the broader market.  We should eliminate the ridiculous “community rating” rules that make insurers offer limited services and options for the same price irrespective of condition.  We should have options targeted for chronically-ill people that don’t include mandated AIDS and fertility coverage, yet provides for their needs with a higher premium.

To help cover the higher cost of the premiums, we could end the ridiculous tax policy of granting exemptions for employer-based health insurance but not personal health insurance costs.  We could expand HSAs especially tailored to those with chronic illness.  Obviously, the general reform ideas, such as making insurance portable and breaking down the barrier to purchase across state lines, will lower costs on everyone.  The remaining few who can’t pay should be dealt with by providing direct vouchers to buy private insurance.  But let’s not do it by having government get on the field and start playing in the market.  Or at the very least, leave the high risk pools up to the states.

Once again, we need a choice, not an echo.

Did you know that Congress and the President quietly repealed misguided aspects of the Stock Act a few days ago?  I thought not.

Late in 2011, CBS’s “60 Minutes” aired a sensational news story detailing allegations that lawmakers were profiting from investments spawned by non-public information.  Harry Reid seized the moment, and in a highly political calculation, brought the STOCK Act (S. 2038) to the Senate floor.  The bill banned lawmakers and some aides from buying or selling stocks and other securities based on confidential information.  As a means of enforcement, the bill required those effected to report stock and bond transactions within 30 days of the transaction.  The bill sailed through the Senate and passed 96-3 on February 2.

Not to be outdone in the game of political grandstanding, the House passed a similar bill under suspension 417-2, circumventing the entire committee process.  Differences between the House and the Senate were resolved by unanimous consent and the bill was signed by the President in March.

So in a matter of two months, Congress voted to overcriminalize the undefined and ambiguous vice of insider trading.  In their mind, corruption in the legislative process was over.

The reality is that Congress overlooked the real insider trading.  The real problem with insider trading is not staffers getting wind of insider information affecting their personal investments.  The problem is Congress not following the Constitution and granting special interest handouts to industries and big labor in return for helping them get reelected.  The blatant incestuous relationship between big labor or K street and members of Congress is much more important than a questionable ability to affect their personal portfolios with prior knowledge of specific events affecting their investments.

In fact, the idea that 28,000 top executive and legislative branch staffers (those earning more than $120,000) would have to post all of their financial information online was inane and dangerous to begin with.  And after a National Academy of Public Administration study was published last month showing how dangerous such a requirement would be, Congress repealed this part of the Stock Act by unanimous consent last week.

Think about it this way.  You could have two potential staffers working on the Hill.  One is a 60-year-old with a wealth of experience and talent form the private sector.  That individual supports the free market and would advocate that his boss vote down any special interest bill.  Yet, with his years’ of success in the private sector, he has a substantial portfolio.  That individual would have been forced to disclose all his finances.  Hence, he would never step foot on the Hill.

On the other hand, you could have a 25-year-old politico with not much of a portfolio, but a penchant to engage in pay-for-play with big labor and K Street.  He has no investment portfolio to speak of, and would have been in good shape under the Stock Act.  He could then go on to work for a special interest lobbying shop the very next year, after helping secure favors for that industry.  This description essentially sums up the lives of thousands of staffers who would never have been affected by the Stock Act.  The average age of a staffer is already not much older than a college dorm.  This provision of the Stock Act would have dissuaded the few older, more experienced, individuals from ever working on the Hill.

But the broader point is how can Congress go from passing something with unanimous consent one year and repealing it through unanimous consent the following year – without any mea culpa?   Yet they refuse to learn their lesson from passing bad bills outside of regular order.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing they repealed this.  They should do things like this more often.  They should repeal the ethanol mandate – a true “insider trade” – by unanimous consent as well.  There are hundreds of other bills that should follow the same fate.  But don’t expect Congress to learn its lesson of due diligence any time soon.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project

On Tuesday, the WSJ condescendingly chastised Senate conservatives for mounting a filibuster on the motion to proceed with debate.  They mockingly observed that “If conservatives want to prove their gun-control bona fides, the way to do it is to debate the merits and vote on the floor. They can always filibuster the final bill if they want to, but it makes no sense to paint themselves into a political box canyon before even knowing what they’re voting on.”

Moreover, they argued that by blocking debate on the bill, red state Democrats “don’t have to declare themselves on provisions that might be unpopular at home.”

Obviously, these novice observers of the legislative process have not been paying attention to the way the Senate has functioned in recent years.  The reason why Republicans need to filibuster even the motion to proceed on debate is precisely to leverage Reid into allowing a debate in the first place!  Reid has used a parliamentary procedure to “fill the amendment tree” and block all amendments that would embarrass his caucus.  To that end, the only recourse for Republicans is to filibuster the motion to proceed with debate, as a means of forcing him to allow amendments to go through.

Now that these Republicans, with the support of the dinosaur conservative intelligentsia, have handed over their one point of leverage, Harry Reid has once again taken full control of the amendment process in an effort to protect the vulnerable Democrats.  In fact, it is those 16 Republicans who afforded Reid the opportunity to hand out hall passes to Pryor and Begich yesterday to vote no on cloture.  They provided him with more than enough votes to break the filibuster without those two Democrats.  Now they can go home to their states (Arkansas and Alaska) and feign a more pro-gun posture than one-third of Republicans.

Now it will only get worse once “debate” commences next week.  Harry Reid knows that there is no chance of ever passing a sweeping gun banning bill.  He merely wants Republicans to break their consistency on the issue, and grant the overzealous ATF more power to begin stepping up gun stings and collecting more data.  Perforce, he will bring up Feinstein’s assault weapons ban knowing that it will never pass, only to offer Democrats like Kay Hagen (NC), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Joe Donnelly (IN), Max Baucus (MT), and Claire McCaskill (MO) the opportunity to vote no and bolster their position at home.  They might also vote yes on some good Republican amendments with the knowledge that they won’t pass either.  This will give them the requisite cover to vote for the part of the bill Reid thinks will actually pass.

Enter Schumer’s Toomey-Manchin amendment.  Although it contains dangerous healthcare privacy concerns, statist regulations on transporting guns across state lines, and allows the ATF to collect more data from background checks, it doesn’t overtly ban guns.  All those vulnerable red-state Democrats will have enough cover to support it because they will vote the right way on all the straw men votes.

And that is just the Democrats.  What about the Republicans?  Yes, if every Republican were like Cruz/Lee/Paul, we could act on the advice of the Journal and vote for the MTP on every bill, with the full confidence that they will filibuster the final vote.   But that seldom happens in the Senate with this pack of flaccid Republicans.  Once the train gets rolling, Reid finds a way to get wayward Republicans to cut a “compromise” and oppose cloture on final passage as well.  That is how we got saddled with so many bad bills passing out of the Senate and pressuring the Republican House this year.  And in this case, the compromise is already on the table, brought to you by a “tea party” senator from Pennsylvania.

And what about the rock-ribbed, right-wing House?  Certainly they would never pass the bill, right?  Who knows.  With House leadership already violating the Hastert Rule four times this year, one never knows if they will try to avoid the media pressure and pass something with Democrat support.  Paul Ryan is already lending support to expanded background checks.

Yes, what could go wrong by allowing debate to proceed?

Cross-posted from The Madison Project          

The Senate bill expands “coverage” to men, homosexuals, transgendered individuals and prisoners.  It expands the definition of domestic violence to include causing “emotional distress” or using “unpleasant speech.”  It ostensibly nullifies the legal presumption of innocence until proven guilty.  The bill also expands the law’s reach to give tribal Indian authorities jurisdiction over non-Indians accused of abusing Indian women.   Finally, what good is a social engineering bill without tossing in bones to the most sacrosanct constituency, illegal immigrants?  It would grant more visas to illegal immigrants who are victims of domestic abuse.

Last year, the House passed a version that was, more or less, a clean reauthorization.  That was the best we could expect from them.  But now, in the hopes of not being outbid in gender warfare, they plan to bring the bill to the floor in a way that will ensure the Senate bill passes.

Yesterday, we spoke about the lack of leadership in the Senate to block bad legislation from coming to a final vote.  This is a classic example of how the Republican minority in the Senate empowers Harry Reid to jam the House and pressure an already flaccid House leadership to acquiesce to abhorrent pieces of legislation.  Several weeks ago, half the GOP conference voted for the juiced up version of VAWA.  Now the House has decided to throw in the towel.

Folks, we live in dark times.  The Democrats are more radical (and successful) than they’ve ever been, yet there is virtually no opposition to anything they do.  All they have to do is insert the word “women” into the title of a bill, and they win the battle without firing a shot.  The sad irony is that this comes at a time when the radicals are promoting women to serve in direct ground combat, an absurdity that has already and will continue to promote real violence against women – both at war and at home.

Later this afternoon, the House will take up the rule for this bill (H Res 83).  If the House fails to pass the regular version of VAWA, the rule automatically triggers consideration of the Senate bill.  Once brought to the floor, the Senate version will pass because all the Democrats will support it.  Some conservatives might feel inclined to support the “clean” extension, lest it be voted down in favor for the Senate bill.  However, the reality is that GOP losership is hell bent on getting this thing passed instead of engaging in a real philosophical debate.  Even if they pass the clean bill, they will just appoint conferees to a conference committee that will insert all the onerous provisions from the Senate bill into the final version.  That’s why the default position is to stand on principle and vote the entire bill down.

In fact, as Erick pointed out yesterday, this is one of those examples where conservatives need to take down the rule.  Yes, they should vote against this ridiculous rule, which is politically motivated.  There is no reason they should be considering this bill anyway.  Why is a GOP-controlled House taking up leftist legislation instead of bills to block grant Medicaid, repeal ethanol mandates, or reform the Fed?  Even if they choose to bring up bad legislation, they should do so under an open amendment process.

Call your member of Congress and ask him/her to vote down the rule on this unconstitutional federal power grab.

There is no breathing room this year for those of us who fight endless GOP capitulations in Washington.  Within the first few weeks of the new session, we must confront a grave assault on the Filibuster in the Senate.

Harry Reid is plotting some version of the “nuclear option” to limit the filibuster when the Senate convenes to adopt the rules package for the new Congress.  It essentially works like this.  Every rules change in the Senate requires a 67-vote threshold to adopt the change.  Harry Reid is offering the absurd argument that the Senate is not a continuous body, and is therefore not governed by the rules of the previous session on the first day of the new Congress (before the rules package is adopted).  With that in mind, he plans to abolish the filibuster on “the motion to proceed” and limit the minority’s ability to offer amendments when they vote on the rules package.  He plans to do this with a simple majority vote.

Although the Senate already convened last Thursday, Reid used a parliamentary procedure blocking any adjournment of the Senate, so that the body will technically remain in its first “legislative day.”   This will provide him with the opportunity to pull the trigger later this month.

Aside for the fact that this represents an egregious power grab, especially in light of his refusal to allow Republicans to offer amendments to bills, his justification to change the rule is based upon a falsehood.  The Senate is absolutely a continuous body, as represented by staggering terms with Senators elected for 6 years.

The reason why filibusters have become so pervasive, even on the motion to proceed with debate, is because the filibuster is the only leverage Republicans have to force through a mere vote on their amendments.  Harry Reid always uses a parliamentary maneuver to fill the amendment tree with pro forma amendments before anyone can offer anything.  As such, an effort on the part of Republicans to give into this unfair and unbinding power grab would be suicidal to their own interests.

Unfortunately, there is no lack of Republicans who are willing to comply with Democrat demands.  Senators Carl Levin, Chuck Schumer, and John McCain are floating an alternative to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s effort to break the Senate’s rules to change the rules.  A bipartisan group of senators is proposing to put modest limits on filibusters, the procedural delays that minority parties often use to grind the Senate’s work to a halt.

The idea would provide the Majority Leader with two new ways to proceed to bills with severe limits to a filibuster of a motion to commence debate on a bill.  One option would allow the Senate to immediately proceed to a bill with a rule that allows two amendments by Republicans and two by Democrats. This would exclude rank-and-file members from offering amendments to bills, allowing only leadership-approved amendments.

A second option would allow a bipartisan group of ten Senators to move to proceed to a bill in a manner that makes it impossible to engage in extended debate.  It is unclear if any amendments would be allowed to bills agreed to by this option.

A second proposal would be a new procedure that would make it virtually impossible for Senators to block a conference committee on a bill.  Senator Jim DeMint has made it a practice to block conference committees, because they have a long history of rewriting bills and ignoring controversial amendments approved by the House or Senate and committed to the conference committee.  Furthermore, the leadership could use a conference committee to load up bills with matters unrelated to the matters committed to a conference report.  It would make secret deal making much easier for Capitol Hill insiders.  One other provision of the rules change would change the filibuster of nominations to only apply the regular rules to Cabinet level officials, the Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals.

Taken as a whole, these ideas will not improve the Senate.   They would also reward Reid for his obstructionism, while diminishing the power of conservative stalwarts to disrupt the bipartisan commitment to grow government.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project

The likely voter screen was comprised of 42% self-described Democrats 38% Republicans and 18% Independents.  Presumably, this does not reflect the actual affiliation of those surveyed because registered Independents comprise a greater share of the electorate than 18%.  I’m presuming that some of those tallied as Republicans or Democrats are registered Independents who lean decisively in one direction.

Almost every likely voter poll taken until now has shown Romney and Obama deadlocked, even while RV polls were showing Obama with a significant lead.  It will be interesting to see what happens when other RV pollsters switch over to an LV model.

Here are some of the key findings from the Fox News poll juxtaposed to some historical data.  It’s useful to become familiar with these data points as more LV polls begin to surface.

• Demographics:
  • Party ID: Romney enjoys the support of 92% of Republicans, while Obama garners 88% of the Democrat vote.  Romney is winning the Independent vote 42-32%.  Obama won Independents by 8 points while he won by 5 points overall.
  • Gender: Romney leads Obama 48-40 among men; Obama leads 48-42 among women.
  • Race: Romney leads 53-36% among whites; Obama leads 73-17% among non-whites.  Bush won the white vote by an identical 17-point margin when he won overall by 2.5%.  On the other hand, whites might comprise a slightly smaller percentage of the electorate this year.  Whites accounted for 77% of the electorate in 2004; 74% in 2008.  If Obama has an exceptionally strong showing among Hispanics, Romney might need a few more points from white.
  • Age: Obama is winning the under-35 vote by 50-37; Romney is winning 65+ by 50-41%.  McCain won the over 65 vote by 8, so this is not stellar.  On the other hand, if younger voters turn out in more traditional numbers, Romney won’t need to win more seniors.  Bush only won them by 5%.
  • Marriage: Romney leads 51-38% among married voters.  McCain won the married vote by 5% in 2008; Bush won it by 15% in 2004.  So Romney’s 13-point lead tracks closely with a 50-50 election.
  • Income: Obama is winning those earning under $50k by 53-35 and Romney is winning those earning more than $50k by 50-41.  McCain lost the under 50k vote by 22 points while Bush lost it by 11 points in 2004.
• Voter intensity: 47% of Democrats polled were “extremely interested” to vote in November, while 59% of Republicans felt the same way.  By far, self-described Tea Partiers were the most interested in voting (71%) of all sub-groups.  Also, only 27% of voters under the age of 35, a critical demographic for Obama, were extremely interested in voting; 58% of those over 65 fit into this category.
• Approval:
  • Obama job approval: 46% approve and 50% disapprove of Obama’s job performance. The key data point is Independents; Obama is under water at 36-54%.  In terms of approval specifically on the economy, he is under water at 42-54 overall and 35-58 among Independents.  When Bush won reelection narrowly in 2004 his approval stood at 53-46.  His numbers on the economy were 49-51.  If Obama indeed continues to hover around the mid-40s in approval and low-40s on the economy, it’s hard to see how he wins.
  • Trust on jobs and economy: Romney leads by 45-43% on trust on jobs and economy.  He leads 40-30 among Independents.

• Trust on Medicare: Overall, Obama enjoys only a 3 point lead over Romney in terms of trust on Medicare.  But Romney leads among Independents by 6.  And yes, Paul Ryan’s name is mentioned many times during the survey.  This is pretty dismal for an issue that is supposed to serve as Obama’s trump card.  It looks like Mediscare is headed to the Obamacare death panel.