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

(Update: On Tuesday, May 16, the Senate passed Sen. Jeff Bingaman's (D-NM) amendment to S. 2611 that significantly reduced the number of legal immigrants who could enter under the bill's "guest worker" program. As a result of this change, our estimate of the number of legal immigrants who would enter the country or would gain legal status under S. 2611 falls from 103 million to around 66 million over the next 20 years.)

If enacted, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S.2611) would be the most dramatic change in immigration law in 80 years, allowing an estimated 103 million persons to legally immigrate to the U.S. over the next 20 years—fully one-third of the current population of the United States.

Much attention has been given to the fact that the bill grants amnesty to some 10 million illegal immigrants. Little or no attention has been given to the fact that the bill would quintuple the rate of legal immigration into the United States, raising, over time, the inflow of legal immigrants from around one million per year to over five million per year. The impact of this increase in legal immigration dwarfs the magnitude of the amnesty provisions.

In contrast to the 103 million immigrants permitted under CIRA, current law allows 19 million legal immigrants over the next twenty years. Relative to current law, then, CIRA would add an extra 84 million legal immigrants to the nation’s population.

The figure of 103 million legal immigrants is a reasonable estimate of the actual immigration inflow under the bill and not the maximum number that would be legally permitted to enter. The maximum number that could legally enter would be almost 200 million over twenty years—over 180 million more legal immigrants than current law permits.

To understand the provisions of CIRA, largely based on a compromise by Senators Chuck Hagel (R–Nebraska) and Mel Martinez (R–Florida), it is useful to distinguish between the three legal statuses that a legal immigrant might hold:

1. Temporary Status: Persons in this category enter the U.S. temporarily and are required to leave after a period of time.

2. Near-Permanent, Convertible Status: Persons in this category enter the U.S. and are given the opportunity to “adjust” or convert to legal permanent residence after a few years.

3. Legal Permanent Residence (LPR): Persons in this category have the right to remain in the United States for their entire lives. After five years, they have the right to naturalize and become citizens. As naturalized citizens, they have the constitutional rights to vote and to receive any government benefits given to native-born citizens.

A key feature of CIRA is that most immigrants identified as “temporary” are, in fact, given convertible status with a virtually unrestricted opportunity to become legal permanent residents and then citizens.

Another important feature of both CIRA and existing immigration law is that immigrants in convertible or LPR status have the right to bring spouses and minor children into the country. Spouses and dependent children will be granted permanent residence along with the primary immigrant and may also become citizens. In addition, after naturalizing, an immigrant has the right to bring his parents into the U.S. as permanent residents with the opportunity for citizenship. There are no numeric limits on the number of spouses, dependent children, and parents of naturalized citizens that may be brought into the country. Additionally, the siblings and adult children (along with their families) of naturalized citizens and the adult children (and their families) of legal permanent residents are given preference in future admission but are subject to numeric caps.

Four key provisions of CIRA would result in an explosive increase in legal immigration.

Amnesty for Current Illegal Immigrants: CIRA offers amnesty and citizenship to 85 percent of the nation’s current 11.9 million illegal immigrants. Under the plan, illegal immigrants who have been in the U.S. for five years or more (60 percent of illegals) would be granted immediate amnesty. Illegal immigrants who have been in the country between two and five years (25 percent of illegals) could travel to one of 16 “ports of entry,” where they would receive amnesty and lawful work permits.[1] In total, the bill would grant amnesty to 85 percent of the current illegal immigrant population, or some 10 million individuals.

After receiving amnesty, illegal immigrants would spend six years in a provisional status before attaining LPR status. After five years in LPR status, they would have the opportunity to become naturalized citizens and vote in U.S. elections. As well, the spouses and dependent children of current illegal immigrants would have the right to enter the U.S. and become citizens.[2] There would be no numeric limit on the number of illegal immigrants, spouses, and dependents receiving LPR status; under the amnesty provision, such individuals would not be counted against any other cap or limit in immigration law.[3]

The New “Temporary Guest Worker” Program: CIRA creates an entirely new “temporary guest worker” (H-2C) program. There is nothing temporary about this program; nearly all “guest workers” would have the right to become permanent residents and then citizens.

Foreign workers could enter the U.S. as guest workers if they have a job offer from a U.S. employer. In practical terms, U.S. companies would recruit foreign workers to enter the guest worker program and immigrate to the U.S. Most likely, intermediate employment firms would specialize in recruiting foreign labor for U.S. employers.

Guest workers would be allowed to remain in the U.S. for six years.[4] However, in the fourth year, the guest worker could ask for LPR status and would receive it if he has learned English or is enrolled in an English class.[5] There are no numeric limits on the number of guest workers who could receive LPR status. Upon receiving LPR status, the guest worker could remain in the country permanently. He could become a U.S. citizen and vote in U.S. elections after just five more years.

The spouses and minor children of guest workers would also be permitted to immigrate to the U.S.[6] When guest workers petition for LPR status, their spouses and children would receive it as well. Five years after obtaining LPR status, these spouses could become naturalized citizens. The bill sets no limit on the number of spouses and children who could immigrate under the guest worker program. After workers and their spouses have obtained citizenship, they would be able to bring in their parents as legal permanent residents.

The bill does provide numeric limits on the number of guest workers who can enter the country each year, but the number starts high and then grows exponentially. In the first year, 325,000 H-2C visas would be given out, but if employer demand for guest workers is high, that number could be boosted by an extra 65,000 in the next year. If employer demand for H-2C workers continues to be high, the number of H-2C visas could be raised by up to 20 percent in each subsequent year.

The 20 percent exponential escalator provision allows the number of H-2C immigrants to climb steeply in future years. If the H-2C cap were increased by 20 percent each year, within twenty years the annual inflow of workers would reach 12 million. At this 20 percent growth rate, a total of 70 million guest workers would enter the U.S. over the next two decades and none would be required to leave. While it is unlikely that so many workers would enter, the program does have the potential to bring ten of millions of immigrants to the U.S.

The “guest worker” program, then, is an open door program, based on the demands of U.S. business, that would allow an almost unlimited number of workers and dependents to enter the U.S. from anywhere in world and become citizens. It is essentially an “open border” provision.

Additional Permanent Visas for Siblings, Adult Children, and their Families: The permanent entry of non-immediate relatives—such as brothers, sisters, and adult children—is currently subject to a cap of 480,000 per year minus the number of immediate relatives (the parents, spouses, and minor children of U.S. citizens) admitted in the prior year. CIRA eliminates the deduction for immediate relatives from the cap.[7] This effectively increases the number of non-immediate relatives who could attain LPR status by 254,000 per year.

Additional Permanent Employment Visas: The U.S. currently issues around 140,000 employment-based visas each year. Under CIRA, the U.S. would issue 450,000 employment-based green cards per year between 2007 and 2016.[8] After 2016, the number would fall to 290,000 per year.[9] Under current law, LPR visas going to the spouses and children of workers with employment-based visas are counted against the cap. Under CIRA, these spouses and children would be removed from the cap and given legal permanent residence without numeric limits.[10] Historically, 1.2 dependent relatives have entered the U.S. for each worker under employment-based immigration programs.[11] This means that some 990,000 persons per year would be granted LPR status until 2016 and, after that, 638,000 per year.

Most provisions of CIRA are straightforward; in many categories, the number of future immigrants allowed is either directly stated or can be easily calculated from the law’s provisions. In some areas, however, the law’s impact is uncertain. To estimate future legal immigration under the bill, three assumptions have been used in this paper:

* Spouses and children of workers: Dependent spouses and children represent a major component of current immigration. In the current employment-based visa program, 1.2 dependents enter for each incoming worker.[12] This paper assumes this ratio will continue in the employment-based program and will also apply to those entering under the new guest worker program. This is a conservative assumption: guest workers are likely to have lower education levels and thus to have larger families. Finally, many current illegal immigrants who would receive amnesty under the bill already have families in the U.S.; therefore the ratio of incoming spouses and children to amnesty recipients is assumed to be only 0.6, or half the ratio of the employment-based program.

* Parents of naturalized citizens: Parents of naturalized citizens currently make up eight percent of all new legal immigrants. This paper assumes that half of all adult immigrants will naturalize after five years of LPR status and that 30 percent of the parents of these naturalized citizens will immigrate in the three years after their children’s naturalization.

* Growth in the guest worker program: The number of immigrants in the guest worker program will be driven by employer demand. The bill allows the number of H-2C visas to increase by 20 percent per year; this level of growth would result in an extraordinary 60 million guest workers in the U.S. over the next twenty years. This paper assumes that the number of immigrants in the guest worker program would increase at a more moderate rate of 10 percent per year. Alternative estimates for 20 percent growth and zero growth in the program are also presented.[13]

Under CIRA, immigrants could enter the country or attain lawful status within the country through eight channels. In each channel, immigrants would be granted permanent residence and the right to become citizens. The first channel represents immigrants who would have entered under current law; the second channel represents illegal immigrants who are currently in the country and would be given legal permanent residence under the bill. The other six channels represent new inflows of legal immigrants that would occur as a result of the bill. The total number of new legal immigrants over a twenty year period would be as follows: (See Charts 1 and 2.)

1. Visas under current law: Roughly 950,000 persons receive permanent residence visas under current law each year. Over 20 years, the inflow of immigrants through this channel would be 19 million. This represents the status quo under existing law.

2. Amnesty: The bill would grant amnesty to roughly 10 million illegal immigrants. These individuals are currently living in the U.S.; amnesty would allow them to remain legally and to become U.S. citizens.

3. Expanded family chain migration: The number of family-sponsored visas for secondary family members, such as adult brothers and sisters, is currently limited to 480,000 per year minus the number of visas given to immediate family members (spouses, minor children, and parents of U.S. citizens). The bill changes the law so that the total quota on secondary family members would be 480,000 without deductions for immediate family members. The net increase in the number of immigrants under this provision would be around 254,000 per year, or 5.1 million over 20 years.[14]

4. Employment-based green cards: The bill would increase the number of employment-based visas from 140,000 to 450,000 per year. For the first time, it would also exempt the spouses and children of workers from the cap. Total annual immigration under this provision is likely to be 450,000 workers plus 540,000 family members annually. The net increase above current law over 20 years would be around 13.5 million persons.[15]

5. The guest worker (H-2C) program: CIRA would allow 325,000 persons to participate in the guest worker program in the first year. This number could rise by 65,000 in the next year and then by 20 percent per year. Assuming 10 percent annual growth in the annual number of guest workers entering the country (well below the bill’s maximum), the total inflow of workers under this program would be 20 million over 20 years.

6. Spouses and children of guest workers: Guest workers could bring their spouses and children to the U.S. as permanent residents; the added number of entrants would be 24 million over 20 years.

7. Spouses and children of illegal immigrants given amnesty: Illegal immigrants who received amnesty could bring their spouses and children into the U.S. as legal permanent residents with the opportunity for full citizenship. The number of spouses and children who would enter the U.S. as a result of amnesty would be at least six million.

8. Parents of naturalized citizens. The bill would substantially increase the number of naturalized citizens. Naturalized citizens would have an unlimited right to bring their parents into the U.S. as legal permanent residents. Over twenty years, the number of parents who would enter the U.S. as permanent legal residents as a result of CIRA would be around five million.

Overall, the bill would allow some 103 million persons to legally immigrate over the next twenty years. This is roughly one-third of the current population of the United States. All of these new entrants would be permanent residents and would have the right to become citizens. This would be a 84 million person net increase over current law.

All of the immigration discussed to this point would be legal immigration. If illegal immigration continued after enactment of S.2611, the inflow of immigrants would be even greater. Although illegal immigration is considered a major problem, the proposed legal immigration under CIRA would dwarf it numerically. The net inflow of illegal immigrants into the U.S. population is around 700,000 per year.[16] Legal immigration under CIRA would exceed five million per year, seven times the rate of the current illegal immigration flow. Annual legal and illegal immigration together now equals about 1.7 million; future legal immigration alone under CIRA would be three times this amount.

The figure of 103 million new legal immigrants is based on the assumption that immigration under the guest worker program would grow at 10 percent per year. If guest-worker immigration grows at the maximum rate permitted by the bill, 20 percent per year, the total number of new immigrants coming to the U.S. over the next twenty years would be 193 million. On the other hand, if immigration under the H-2C program did not increase at all for two decades but remained fixed at the initial level of 325,000 per year, total legal immigration under CIRA would be 72 million over twenty years, or more than three times the level that would occur under current law. (See Chart 3.)

The tables in the Appendix show annual inflows of total legal immigrants in each of the eight channels mentioned above over the next twenty years. The tables show the estimated yearly rate of immigration under three scenarios for the H-2C program: zero growth, ten percent growth, and twenty percent growth.

Between 1870 and 1920, the U.S. experienced a massive flow of immigration known as the “great migration”. During this period, foreign born persons hovered between 13 and 15 percent of the population.[17]In 1924, Congress passed major legislation greatly reducing future immigration. By 1970, foreign born persons had fallen to 5 percent of the population.

In the last three decades, immigration has increased sharply. The foreign born now comprise around 12 percent of the population, approaching the levels of the early 1900’s. However, if CIRA were enacted, and 100 million new immigrants entered the country over the next twenty years, foreign born persons would rise to over one quarter of the U.S. population.[18] There is no precedent for that level of immigration at any time in U.S. history.

If enacted, CIRA would be the most dramatic change in immigration law in 80 years. In its overall impact on the nation, the bill would rival other historic milestones, such as the creation of Social Security or Medicare.

The bill would give amnesty to 10 million illegal immigrants and quintuple the rate of legal immigration into the U.S. Under the bill, the annual inflow of immigrants with the option of becoming legal permanent residents would rise from the current level of one million per year to more than five million per year. Within a few years, the annual inflow of new immigrants would exceed one percent of the current U.S. population. This would be the highest immigration rate in U.S. history.

Within 20 years, some 103 million new immigrants would enter the U.S. This number is about one-third of the current U.S. population. All of these immigrants would be permanent residents with the right to become citizens and vote in U.S. elections. CIRA would transform the United States socially, economically, and politically. Within two decades, the character of the nation would differ dramatically from what exists today.

Robert Rector is Senior Research Fellow in Domestic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

[6] See S.6211, Section 403 (m)(1). Some might argue that the number of guest workers who would be permitted to attain LPR status would be subject to the overall caps on employment-based permanent visas elsewhere in law. But Section 408(h) of the bill, which deals with the right of guest workers to convert to LPR status, clearly states that “employment-based immigrant visas shall be made available to an alien having nonimmigrant status described in section 101(a)(15)(H)(ii)(c) [the H-2C program] upon the filing of a petition for such a visa.” In other word, LPR status shall be granted to any guest worker upon his filing of petition; there is no mention of any numeric cap or other mechanism limits the number of such status adjustments. If the bill’s authors intend to limit the opportunity of guest workers to obtain legal permanent residence with a numeric cap, then the bill should explicitly state that fact.

[11] Ruth Ellen Wasem, “U.S. Immigration Policy on Permanent Admissions,” CRS Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, May 12, 2006, p. 18.

[13] Several factors have not been included in the estimates. The paper ignores future levels of illegal immigration. The paper assumes that there are some 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.; this widely used figure rests on the assumption that nearly all illegal immigrants are counted in annual Census surveys. In fact, the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. may be much larger; this would mean that the number of immigrants eligible for amnesty would also be higher. The paper also assumes that there will be no successful fraud in applications for amnesty; in fact, the standards for proving prior residence and employment in the U.S. are very flimsy. Fraud may be prevalent, further boosting amnesty numbers. Finally, there is no attempt to estimate return to native countries or reverse migration by new immigrants. In effect, the paper assumes that returns will be matched by a corresponding increase in new entrants under the H-2C program.

[14] This number is the net increase in immigration due to the legislation and does not include the secondary family members who would have immigrated under current law.

[15] This number is the net increase in employment-based immigration and does not include persons who would have immigrated under current law.

[16] Jeffrey Passel Unauthorized Migrants: Numbers and Characteristics, Pew Hispanic Center, Washington, D.C, June 14, 2005, p.6.

[17]National Research Council, The New Americans: Economic, Demographic and Fiscal Effects of Immigration, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. 1997, p. 35

[18] Currently there are around 35.7 million foreign-born persons in the U.S. (Passel, op.cit., p.3). With a new influx of 103 million immigrants, the total foreign-born population would reach around 124 million (adjusting for deaths in the interim.) Given the massive projected immigration, the population of the U.S. would have swollen to around 449 million by 2027. This would be up from a base projection of around 355 million. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004, “U.S. Interim Projections by Age, Sex, Race and Hispanic Origin,” at http.://www.census.gov/ipc/www/usinterimproj/. The foreign born would comprise around 27 percent of the total population.

I think we agree mostly. However, The worst part of the bill is amnesty, and the business groups dont care for that one way or the other.. So why is it now the 'linchpin' for the Senate??? Cant we craft a bill that takes HRR4437 and tacks on an unskilled worker visa so the cheap labor lobby has some legal employment avenue?

Simple - to get the Democrat support. The whole flawed strategy was based on the fear that - gulp - the conservatives would actually come up with immigration bill that would ENFORCE THE LAW and cut off the supply. So the RINOs had a stampede to the left to get Democrat support, and AMNESTY was the price of support. the amnesty-that-dare-not-speak-its-name.

So, based on fear and panic at the punitive HR 4437, theyve gone in the opposite disastrous direction.

IMHO, there is a middle-ground strategy and its a damn shame our President didnt reach out and find it. Its right there - in Kyl-Cornyn bill and in some other bills that give the cheap labor lobby the guest worker program they need without creating a 10 million person amnesty ...

Amnesty is not the only solution; gradualism works too; or the Isaakson approach, amnesty of some sorts, but only after the borders are truly secure and employer verification are set up.

My message on the solution is here ...

http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/
http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/2006/05/response-to-barnes.html

Anyone who stands up and says "it must include legalization/amnesty or nothing at all" is a real opponent of immigration law reform. We can only clean up this mess gradually, but NOT repeating the amnesty/legalization mistake is the first and most important rule to follow in whatever legislation we craft.

We got into this mess because of a failed amnesty in 1986 and 20 years of non-enforcement of immigration law. The only way out of this hole, in terms of both politics and policy, is a gradual, step-at-a-time approach to recover to a position of lawful immigration.

A TRUE compromise would NOT include amnesty/legalization at all, but would secure the border, get employment verification working 100%, and create enough legal avenues for employment-sponsored immigration so we can wean employers off illegal immigrant labor.

Let that be the 'compromise' from the House and Senate - leaving out the third rail of legalizing millions of illegal immigrants - and put it up for a vote in both houses. The only political victory for the GOP can be if we are united, and most conservative Republicans will never support a massive amnesty. Never. So drop it. Quit trying to 'compromise' around a Kennedy bill that gets a 'yes' vote from Schumer and "no" votes from 40 GOP Senators, and get serious about writing legislation that conservatives can rally around.

I read it. I suggest that you reread it. Kudlow said the following:

"History has shown that immigrants in search of freedom and prosperity will climb over, tunnel under, or circumvent any fence. But if fencing helps pass a broad-based reform bill, so be it."

He discounts the effectiveness of a fence and fails to mention that our laws are being broken. If that is the case, then we will get more poor and uneducated workers coming into this country regardless of whether we increase the number of educated/skilled workers via H1B visas or not. These are not immigrant visas.

Kudlow states. "Wage differentials between Mexico and the U.S. are huge -- largely because of Mexico ’s failure to liberalize its economy. So, as long as American job opportunities and higher wages beckon, immigrants in search of a better life will stream northward into the U.S. -- fence or no fence. This has always been the heart of the problem."

So are we supposed to accept this stream of [illegal] immigrants streaming northward? They can't be stopped?

Kudlow: "The anti-immigration crowd also gets it wrong when it points out that the Senate compromise bill would increase the number of immigrant workers in the U.S. by roughly 61 million over the next two decades. This Heritage Foundation analysis has the fear-mongerers predicting a Mexican takeover of the United States . But we need these workers.

Notice Kudlow's canard about the anti-immigration crowd. We are anti-illegal immigration. Raising the legal numbers will just add to the illegal numbers. The Heritage study was just providing the parameters of the impact of the Senate bill, which was amended to cut down the numbers. We already take in almost 1 million legal immigrants a year. Raising it to three or five million annually will have a major impact on the size of our population. Do we really need those numbers, many of whom are not workers but family members who will need social services, medical care, etc.

Kudlow again:"Let’s also not forget that immigrants come here to work, raise families, and assimilate. They would in effect become a much-needed churchgoing blue-collar middle class -- an all but forgotten demographic that is crucial to a healthy America

For the most part yes. Legal immigrants will contribute, but unless we change our immigration rules, we will be receiving immigrants at the lower end of the economic ladder, "doing jobs Americans won't do." According to the Senate bill, employers have to certify that no Americans want these jobs.

Kudlow:"Hotheaded conservative populistswho equate temporary workers and a long-term path to citizenship with amnesty are dead wrong, and their calls for deportation are lunacy. Imagine U.S. security forces somehow putting immigrants and their families onto armed busses and shipping them back to Mexico . What would that say about our country?ad-of-night deportation raids smack of totalitarianism, not Americanism."

These comments are just meant to distort the position of conservatives and most of the American people for that matter. This inflamatory rhetoric is also untrue. The Senates temporary worker program has the workers applying for a green card as soon as they enter the country. This is a path to citizenship.

Kudlow: Bush addressed this very well: “There are differences between an illegal immigrant who crossed the border recently -- and, someone who has worked here for many years, and has a home, a family, and an otherwise clean record.” His point is that henceforth, in the future, temporary workers will finish their jobs and go home before applying for permanent status.

What kind of reasoning is that? The longer you are here, the less illegal you become? The senate bill does not require the temporary workers to go home before applying for permanent status. And if we can't enforce our immigration laws now and deport illegal aliens, how are we going to find and deport "temporary workers" who won't go home and decide to stay?"

If Kudlow actuallysaid he opposed the Senate CIRA plan to amnesty 10 million unskilled illegal migrants, and focus instead on high-skilled immigration, I didnt see it... instead I saw: "hotheaded conservative populists who equate temporary workers and a long-term path to citizenship with amnesty are dead wrong," and other patent nonsense.

Hey, you think Kudlow or *any* free marketeer will like CIRA and its sham-nesty after they read this? ... thanks to Barack Obama's Bacon-Davis amendment and some other hidden Kennedy-written gotchs, we got *this*:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/wm1088.cfm
"Alarms bells should be ringing at the idea of creating a new bureaucracy within the Department of Labor tasked with centrally planning labor markets for untold numbers of guest workers. This would be a mistake. ...The Senate has devised a guest worker program that would extend bureaucratic control over some 5 percent of the labor force, via wage controls on the private sector. Rather than establish a simple cap on the number of temporary visas issued each month (which could be distributed fairly in a simple monthly auction), the Senate bill would create of a new Department of Labor bureaucracy that would be nothing less than a central planning agency for the U.S. labor market."

Kudlow states. "So, as long as American job opportunities and higher wages beckon, immigrants in search of a better life will stream northward into the U.S. -- fence or no fence. This has always been the heart of the problem."

"So are we supposed to accept this stream of [illegal] immigrants streaming northward? They can't be stopped?"

Right. This is typical of the defeatist phony talking points of the open borders advocates. We cant do anything, like our lack of political will and our corrupted inability to enforce immigration law is some immutable force of nature. Pity. Kudlow the economist *knows* humans respond to incentives. Punish the employers and fewer jobs for illegals will be there. Feweer jobs mean less job seeking by border crossing. Add a fence that makes it harder and the attempts will fall. I beomce more convinced that there are people who arent afriad the wall/fence will fail, they are afraid it will SUCCEED.

Thought experiment: Suppose it wasnt illegal aliens wanting jobs,suppose it was terrorists and drugs... you think we'd sit around and debate 'well, they'll just go around it, so lets not bother' H*** no, we'd build it and *then* we'd figure out how to stop whatever other avenue they come up with....

Then again, there *is* a terrorist and drug smuggling threat over the border, so all the more reason we should dismiss the defeatist pap out of hand.

"Raising the legal numbers will just add to the illegal numbers. "

This is a very important point to make. Amnesty alone and other 'carrots' alone for bigger legal immigration will *not* reduce illegal immigration without the corresponding 'stick' of actual law enforcement, both on the border and in the interior.

"I never really liked the RNC releases, most of them could be written better by any Freeper. Now I look at them with scorn. It's never wise to treat your base as though you despise them, and that is what they've done. Worse they've treated us as tempermental children that can't understand "adult" affairs. As thought we can be mocked, spoken down to, and subject to spin. We're the ones that take the Libs apart well before the RNC does and better than they do, yet they believe they can fool us?"

I really really like this paragraph. If you could put two more paragraphs this good together on a related subject, I would suggest you do a vanity post. What I like about this paragraph is, I sit it home and get these letters. It's not like I can talk to anybody about it---95% of everyone in my vicinity is a Liberal Democrat. The so-called Republicans in the area probably see the RNC is a pretty conservative group.

These kind of feelings boil up inside me---and you've put it to words very well. Thank you.

"You might be interested in this, I just stumbled across it via a link from a poster on polipundit

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZjIyYmRjMjMxZTViNWFlOWRmZWYyMGVhM2Y3Njk1MWI=

The bill extends Davis-Bacon “prevailing wage” provisions—typically the area’s union wage that applies only to construction on federal projects under current law—to all occupations (e.g. roofers, carpenters, electricians, etc.) covered by Davis-Bacon. So guest-workers (but not citizen workers) must be paid Davis-Bacon wage rates for jobs in the private sector if their occupation is covered by Davis-Bacon. Presumably because Senate Democrats’ union bosses thought this provision too modest, an amendment by Senator Barack Obama, approved by voice vote, extended Davis-Bacon wages rates to all private work performed by guest workers, even if their occupations are not covered by Davis-Bacon.

Essentially the cheap labor the businesses think they'll get have now been guarenteed union wages. The theory is that it was introduced to effectly kill the bill quietly, once the businesses find out about it. I'd be more impressed if the Reps had the guts to filibuster the bill in the Senate openly. This is probably why Sessions is stating he thinks it won't pass this year. Between the House taking so much heat from constituents and the poison pill for businesses he's wagering it's going to collapse. Which would be better than passing the bill, but not good enough as our borders are still unsecured."

Extremely interesting. Thank you. My main response to this is---not so much wishing the Republicans had more guts (which I've practically given up thinking about) but being afraid it will pass anyway. Remember, this entire dangerous bill started when we conservative Republicans began agitating about the border problem. Who's to say it doesn't go one step further and result in guaranteed minimum wages across the country?

Okay, I'm thinking a little here and being somewhat over-the-top---but not completely.

"I want the bill killed, don't get me wrong, but once it is I'm not letting up on bordr enforcement. I intend to make every politician answerable for this in their races."

While I completely agree with you, I have temporarily stopped thinking about the need to solve the problem. Right now, all I can see is the need to kill this bill. Before we address the problem again we need to perform a little "tune up" on the Republican Party. A tuneup that would be roughly akin to replacing the motor of a car.

Volusia, Flagler jobless rates fall to historic lows (Florida Counties) ^
	Posted by Luis Gonzalez to RedBloodedAmerican On News/Activism ^ 04/22/2006 3:01:26 PM EDT · 14 of 16 ^ I've been giving this thread some thought all morning, something gnawed at me. Let me post some numbers...keep in mind that Florida is the number 1 State in the Union in percentage of over-65 population...and growing. Seventy-seven million Americans were born between 1946 and 1964, we call them the Baby Boomers. The oldest among them are turning 60 this year, they're starting to retire; by the year 2020 they will be retiring by the millions. We have aborted roughly 47 million Americans since 1973; if abortions continue unabated in the US, we will abort an additional 18 to 20 million more Americans by 2020. The following segment is from the "Reports on America" series prepared by the Population Reference Bureau, titled "Government Spending". I've been posting this information on immigration related threads for two years now. "...Lee and Miller estimate that the country would need to admit an additional 5 million immigrants per year, quintupling the current level of immigration, in order to achieve long-term balance in the Social Security trust fund. A recent report from the United Nations Population Division reached a similar conclusion for European countries, announcing that even much larger migration flows than are currently permitted would not counterbalance the effects of population aging." "To maintain the 2000 ratio between the working-age population (people between the ages of 20 and 64) and the older population (people ages 65 and older), the United States would need roughly 95 million more working-age persons in 2025, in addition to those already expected at current levels of immigration. In other words, if the entire working-age population of Mexico were to move to the United States in 2025, there still would not be enough people to restore the old-age dependency ratio of 2000." In spite of the millions of illegal immigrants, Florida has what's considered statistical 100% employment...the nation is not far behind, and the Baby Boomer retirement stampede has not yet begun. Here's another interesting bit of information: Starting in the late 1980's, the Social Security Administration received a flood of W-2 earnings reports with incorrect - sometimes simply fictitious - Social Security numbers. It stashed them in what it calls the "earnings suspense file" in the hope that someday it would figure out whom they belonged to. The file has been mushrooming ever since: $189 billion worth of wages ended up recorded in the suspense file over the 1990's, two and a half times the amount of the 1980's. In the current decade, the file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes. In 2002 alone, the last year with figures released by the Social Security Administration, nine million W-2's with incorrect Social Security numbers landed in the suspense file, accounting for $56 billion in earnings, or about 1.5 percent of total reported wages. Social Security officials do not know what fraction of the suspense file corresponds to the earnings of illegal immigrants. But they suspect that the portion is significant. "Our assumption is that about three-quarters of other-than-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes," said Stephen C. Goss, Social Security's chief actuary, using the agency's term for illegal immigration. -- Source Now my point... We are seeing the future here in Florida: a shortage of workers created by the combination of an aging population (retiring Baby Boomers), massive legal abortions, and a fertility rate that's nearly centered around newly-arrived immigrants. When you understand all the factors listed here, you begin to understand the Federal government's unwillingness to enforce our immigration laws. We need millions of new immigrants to come over the next two decades so that we can fulfill our obligation to the tens of millions of retirees that will be expecting (NEEDING) SS payments for the next thirty years or so. There's NO WAY that the American people will accept the idea of an additional 5 to 7 million LEGAL immigrants PER YEAR over the next twenty years coming to the US...so we let them get in illegally, politicize their presence in the nation, use them as ammunition during election years, make promises to appease the general population...all the while continuing to let them in the country. Expect another Reagan-style massive amnesty coming soon. Post Reply \| Private Reply \| To 1 \| View Replies

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