Posted on 05/15/2006 8:37:59 AM PDT by 3AngelaD
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) today unveiled an impact analysis that shows the Senate immigration bill – should it become law – would permit up to 217.1 million new legal immigrants into the United States over the next 20 years, a number equal to 66 percent of the total current population of the United States.
Even if the maximum levels are not reached, the increase to the U.S. population caused by S. 2611 will be at least 78.7 million in 20 years, just over 25 percent of the total current population. This lower estimate assumes that the bill's escalating caps on certain visas will not increase at all over the next 20 years; if the bill's caps are hit each year, the total number will be the higher estimate.
“Until now, most of us have focused on securing the border and deciding how to treat the illegal alien population already in the United States,” Sessions said. “Few, if any, of us have looked ahead to see what the long-term numerical impact of the bill would be. My staff and I have just completed such a study, and the results are shocking.”
Sessions discussed his findings at a news conference today, along with Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, who released his own analysis showing similar numbers.
“As we begin debate today on the floor, my goal is to get these numbers before my colleagues so that they can appreciate just how breath-takingly unsatisfactory this 614-page Senate bill is,” Sessions said. “We know that this country is going to treat the illegal alien population fairly. However, if the Senate wants to be successful in passing immigration reform, it should produce a bill that secures the borders and the workplace and establishes a commonsense, carefully thought out, legally enforceable policy for legal immigration in the future. For our immigration system to work, the Senate bill must guarantee that today’s facade of enforcement and illegal immigration flows won’t exist in the future.”
If the current legal immigration level (950,000 a year for 20 years or 18.9 million over 20 years) is excluded from the total, according to Sessions, the Senate bill could be described as increasing legal immigration by 59 million to 198.2 million over 20 years.
“These are actually very conservative estimates,” Sessions said. “For example, for the low end, we assumed the caps would never escalate, and we only added an average of 1.2 immediate family members coming in with each alien worker. Additionally, our numerical analysis did not add in estimates of future illegal immigration flows, or include any estimates for chain-migration – the parents, brothers and sisters that new citizens can bring in on a permanent basis.”
Chain-migration occurs when an immigrant becomes a citizen. Citizens have a legal right to bring in family members other than spouses and children. They can bring in their parents, their adult siblings and the spouses and children of their adult siblings.
“You can see how the potential exponential growth impact of the Senate legislation will cause consternation on the part of Congress and the American people ,” Sessions said.
The Senate bill would increase permanent future immigration into the United States in several ways.
LOW SKILLED PERMANENT IMMIGRATION:
H-2C Workers: By creating a new (H-2C) visa category for “temporary guest workers” (low skilled workers) with an annual “cap” of 325,000 that increases up to 20 percent each year the cap is met, the bill allows at least 6.5 million, and up to 60.7 million new guest workers to come to the United States over the next 20 years. There is nothing “temporary” about these workers. Employers may file a green card application on their behalf as soon as they arrive in the United States, or the worker may self-petition for a green card after four years of work.
H-4 Family Members of H-2C Workers: By creating a new visa category (H-4) for the immediate family members of the future low-skilled workers (H-2C), and allowing them to also receive green cards, the bill would allow at least 7.8 million, and up to 72.8 million immediate family members of low-skilled workers to come to the United States over the next 20 years.
HIGH SKILLED PERMANENT IMMIGRATION:
H-1B: The bill would essentially open the borders to high-skilled workers, as well as low-skilled workers. By increasing the annual cap of 65,000 to 115,000, automatically increasing the new cap by 20 percent each year the cap is hit, and creating a new exemption to new cap for anyone who has an “advanced degree in science, technology, engineering, or math” from any foreign university, the number of H-1B workers coming into the United States would undoubtedly escalate. The 20-year impact of this escalation could be anywhere from 1 million to 20.1 million. H-1B workers are eligible for green cards and would be allowed to stay and work in the United States for as long as it takes to process the green card application.
STEEP INCREASES TO ANNUAL GREEN CARD LIMITS:
Family Based Green Cards: The bill would increase the annual cap on family based green cards available to non-immediate family members (adult sons and daughters, adults siblings, and the spouses and children of adult siblings) by more than 100 percent, upping the current cap of 226,000 to 480,000 a year. Immediate family members are already able to immigrate without regard to the family based green card caps. The 20-year impact of this change would be an increase of 5.1 million non-immediate family member green cards.
Employment Based Green Cards The bill would increase the annual cap on employment-based green cards by more than 500 percent, upping the current cap of 140,000 to 450,000 until 2016 and to 290,000 thereafter and exempting all immediate family members that currently count against the cap today (spouses, children and parents) from the newly escalated cap. The new exemption would result in an average of 540,000 family members receiving green cards each year of the first 10 years, and an average of 348,000 family members receiving green cards each year of the second 10 years. The 20-year impact of this change would be an increase of 13.5 million employment-based green cards, for a total of 16.3 million employment-based green cards issued over the course of the next 20 years.
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And exactly half that number when the immigration bill of 1965 opened the floodgates.
Jeff Sessions BUMP.
"Sessions Unveils Massive Numerical Impact Of Senate Immigration Bill"
"TIP OF THE ICEBERG"
should be the headline concerning any amnesty "guest voter" program...
But then, the MSM does not report the news.
ping
My son did the right thing by ditching his interest in aerospace and going for a business degree. He has 15 days of class left before completing his business degree. His real estate business is going great.
Tom Coburn has shown remarkable firmness in the past. He will probably fillibuster.
"WOSG is right. I'm here on an H1B and am in the process of getting permanent residency. The current immigration bill won't have an effect on me except to slow down processing times because of all the illegals flooding the system for amnesty.
That being said, my salary as a research scientist is about 35% above the prevailing wage as given by the Dept of Labor. Almost all of the PhD's I know working in the U.S. under the H1B program are paid much higher than the prevailing wage and, at these high wages, thre is still trouble finding Americans. And I've seen the same 3% unemployment figures in my field, too.
I cannot speak for waht is commonly called the "High Tech Sector" but that sounds like a horse of a different color compared to research and industrial opportunities in the hard sciences and engineering."
Thanks for your supportive comments.
I threw 'high-tech' as a general term to cover Silicon Valley-type IT,computer, semiconductors, internet, but specifically, in my field, I'm a Comp. Sci. PhD and work in semiconductor industry. on the team working for me, 6 out of 9 employees are immigrants.
Fortunately, we have very good code enforcement in my town in Florida. But I understand your point.
"Why would anyone spend $40,000 to get a computer science or electrical engineering degree in the U.S. when the job market will be flooded with as many foreigners as want to come? You'll never earn enough to repay your student loans."
Because you can make $70,000 annually or more within a few years of graduation., and average salaries for engineers is toppoing $95,000 ...
"Today, many designers, managers and entrepreneurs have vaulted past $100,000, helping to pull the mean salary for the EE Times "2004 Worldwide Salary & Opinion Survey" to $96,400.
But it's not just CEOs and engineering vice presidents who have crashed the six-figure barrier. Among the respondents in the 2004 survey, 1,201 holding staff-level positions — senior engineers, project engineers and even some design engineers — are now in the $100,000+ category."
http://www.eet.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=30900112
"My son did the right thing by ditching his interest in aerospace and going for a business degree. He has 15 days of class left before completing his business degree. His real estate business is going great."
Great, but he could also do very well in aerospace if he's got the brains and passion for it, and it's got attractions beyond a salary.
Sorry, this is making my blood boil!
It is criminal what happens to elderly people who get trapped in situations like this. The grafitti, the overcrowding, the loud music, the noise at all hours, petty thefts, auto accidents. Sometimes assaults because they are 'gringos, and therefore deserve it'. This will be coming soon to the neighborhood of a lot of Americans who won't know what hit them. Put an end to it now, or you will never again get the chance. Southern California is likely unsalvageable. Don't let it happen to you.
"The Wall Street Journal, long ago, said the goal of the corporate world was a population of 1 BILLION people in the United States."
It will be a hellhole. What would be the profit in that.
Hellhole for the peons. A "good" life for the oligarchy.
I think my son found his real niche in the business world. At 23 he runs two real estate corporations and has 5 top producing salesmen. He will probably break the $100K level this year or next. It took me almost 20 years to do that. I'm around $135k now. Going beyond that will require running my own business instead of being a senior employee.
In the Senate bill, non-citizens -- the illegals that the Senate, and Bush, intend to give amnesty to -- get this same "right." Usually these family members are dependent on public assistance.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
You got me there ... running your own business is definitely the way to do it, if you have the knack.
I think it is completely approriate to debunk the lie that engineering and science is a bad career choice, when the future for that is brighter than ever, imho.
Everything but creative thinking can be automated.
They don't care if its a hellhole for us. Its a numbers game. China has 1 billion people, India as 1 billion people, they think the US needs a billion to remain an interesting market.
good read. Senator Sessions....doing the counting most congresscritters won't do.
mmmmm....a new tagline has been born!
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