Senate Immigration Bill Would Allow 100 Million New Legal Immigrants over the Next Twenty Years

The Heritage Foundation ^ | May 15, 2006 | by Robert Rector

[SUSSA]

We haven't lost yet. They have the leadership of both parties, but we have the people. Vote against ANY Senator who votes for this.

[Recall]

I'm so fed up I doubt I even watch the speech tonight. Bush
simply CAN'T be so out of touch with living in the USA. While he's making his flowery speech think of the rapists coming over, the murderers, the thieves, the pregnant women wanting to drop anchor babies, drug smuggling, gang importing, job taking, hospital closing, disease bringing, school crowding, traffic jamming, tax raising poor little "immigrants" he calls them.

EXCUSE ME...we have immigrants here already. Visit the immigration boards where they are asking about appropriate
steps to become citizens. The immigrants real Americans welcome.

The Senate bill absolutely must die or our America will.

[SCHROLL]

don't know about you, but I'll be a registered independant about 10 minutes after the Voter Registration Office opens in the morning

[Blood of Tyrants]

Unfortunately, there is nowhere to go. We must say and fight.

[virgil]

So the solution to illegal immigration is passing a law and making it legal and let 100 million immigrants in over the next 20 years? Brilliant. What criminal geniuses we have working in gov't. They are so much smarter than me. I am so dumb, I even pay taxes. The vote ain't worth sh...

[stephenjohnbanker]

BTTT

[Snoopers-868th]

It is the will of business for cheap labor that is important to the Republicans (bttt get out of my face government) and the votes that are important to the Dems (bttt protect those union wages). I just wonder how a common person not in business for themselves, not able to skim from the profits but works for an hourly wage and pays taxes gets their voice heard? Oh never mind, it doesn't matter anyway it won't be long and we will all be socialists. And the greed deserves it!!

[kimosabe31]

I hope about 1,000,000 "guests" show up to the ranch in Crawford looking for work. See what happens.

Uh...How about 100,000 armed civilian militia? It's beginning to dawn on folks...I think...that the beltway crowd is out of control. It seems apparent that...in addition to the president...the senate doesn't give a crap what mainstream america wants. It's almost as though they were expecting the election process to be suspended sometime before they come up for re election. The same with Bush. He conducts himself with the arrogance of a ruling monarch for life..."my way or the hiway".

[chris1]

Did you see Kennedy's speech supporting GWB? Did you see Clintigula and GHWB at the commencement speech together?

Our goose is cooked.

[Aetius]

Considering these enormous numbers, it is surprising that the impact on legal immigration has gotten no attention. But then when you think about it a bit more, its not that surprising. Consider;

1. The media is hopelessly biased in favor of mass immigration. Only rarely will some op-ed be allowed that argues against it, but the 'news' coverage is always favorable to the open-borders/mass immigration proponents.

2. Though the public has always been wary of mass immigration, and has consistently stated a preference for a reduction of our current level of legal immigration (so it goes w/o saying that they'd overwhelmingly oppose this insane bill should they be made aware of its impact on legal immigration), but the forces in support of mass immigration have always been protected by how the matter does not cut neatly across party lines. Many Republicans, especially elite/leadership ones, are as enthusiastic about mass immigration as liberals are, and sadly, they are overrepresented in the Senate. They are also protected by the fact that immigration is rarely a top-tier, vote-deciding issue for most Americans. Maybe that will now change, but generally immigration has paled in comparison to national security, the economy, education, healthcare, etc (even though it greatly affects all of those).

The contemptible sponsors and supporters of the bill are no doubt counting on the continuation of these two things -- media complicity and popular division -- to ram this monstrosity, this fraud, this deception, onto the nation.

Yet they must have some fear that if the people were made aware of these awful provisions and their likely-disastrous results, then it might just be the straw that breaks the camels back, and tips the balance so that popular will against mass immigration might finally have some serious political and electoral force. This is perhaps where the media is most important to their agenda, and is most despicable in its dereliction of duty to the public.

3. Years of pc-multiculturalism, and its worship of 'diversity' have pushed the parameters of the debate signficantly to the Left, so that now the language of the debate is decidedly unfriendly to conservatives. Just consider how cowed conservatives have become when speaking of immigration. You've got Hugh Hewitt adamantly insisting that public discontent over illegal immigration has to do solely with national security, and that no other concerns are at play; as if there are not other 'legitimate' concerns -- a thoroughly leftist idea. Just consider how people like Sean Hannity and even solid conservatives in Congress feel the need to preface almost every criticism of illegal immigration with some inane declaration of heartfelt support for 'legal' immigration. Its as if they feel guilty about criticizing immigration at all, or maybe more likely, they feel the need to preemptively protect themselves from bogus charges of racism and xenophobia by assuring their critics that they only have gripes with illegal immigration. Now of course there is nothing wrong with supporting (some level of) legal immigration -- most Americans do -- but when conservatives feel an almost reflexive need to praise it almost everytime they open their mouth to criticize illegal immigration, it speaks to how the Left has been so successful in framing the rules of debate. I mean, can you even imagine a reasonable debate about LEGAL immigration where the mainstream views of Americans gets anything approaching a fair hearing?

Again, polls consistently plurality-majority public support for DECREASING our current level of mass legal immigration of one million per year, yet this view gets very little play from our elected representatives. To be fair, support for maintaining the current level often challenges support for reduction for the most popular position, but one thing never changes, and that is how Americans overwhelmingly oppose increasing legal immigration above current levels. Only once have I seen support for increasing legal immigration crack the 20% mark. Yet despite this, the Senate stands ready to stealthily saddle the nation with massive increases the public would never support if given a direct choice on the matter.