What You Don't Know About the Immigration Bill (Allows 40 Million Immigrants in Next 20 Years)

Washington Post ^ | May 31, 2006 | Robert Samuelson

[nj26]

The Senate passed legislation last week that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) hailed as "the most far-reaching immigration reform in our history." You might think that the first question anyone would ask is how much it would actually increase or decrease legal immigration. But no. After the Senate approved the bill by 62 to 36, you could not find the answer in the news columns of The Post or the New York Times. Yet the estimates do exist and are fairly startling. By rough projections, the Senate bill would double the legal immigration that would occur during the next two decades from about 20 million (under present law) to about 40 million.

One job of journalism is to inform the public about what our political leaders are doing. In this case, we failed. The Senate bill's sponsors didn't publicize its full impact on legal immigration, and we didn't fill the void. It's safe to say that few Americans know what the bill would do because no one has told them. Indeed, I suspect that many senators who voted for the legislation don't have a clue as to the potential overall increase in immigration.

Democracy doesn't work well without good information. It is interesting to contrast these immigration projections with a recent survey done by the Pew Research Center. The poll asked whether the present level of legal immigration should be changed. The response: 40 percent favored a decrease, 37 percent would hold it steady and 17 percent wanted an increase. There seems to be scant support for a doubling. If the large immigration projections had been in the news, would the Senate have done what it did? Possibly, though I doubt it.

But if it had, senators would have had to defend what they were doing as sound public policy.

[kabar]

No doubt. To me, the major increase in legal immigration was far more important than what would happen to the illegals already here.

[Soul Seeker]

The truth of the matter is that neither one wrote the legislation, so they probably do not know the specifics of the bill. Or didn't, until Sessions & heritage exposed it. Sessions is an oddity ( a good one) in that he actually researches the bill and has his staff do so as well. Perhaps because he's one of the few capable of understanding it given his history in law.

Most of these Senators contract out the work of the written legislation to their staffs at very least, or outside lobby groups. They may not know what is in the legislation at first, but I'll guarentee they know the people they contract the legislation out to. They know their agenda, and they support that agenda.

[freekitty]

I believe you. After all, they have enough taxpayer paying hired staff to do all this while they campaign.

[the lone wolf]

40,000,000 immigrants in the next 20 years.

How many abortions will we have in the next 20 years?

Is it possible that the two numbers will be roughly equal?

If half of the next generation on Americans is killed before birth, maybe we need to import replacements.

Or maybe we need to change the abortion laws, too...

[Shermy]

my #10

"and define themselves as bigoted as opposed to the enlightened writers themselves."

Arrrggghh!

I meant,

"and define them as bigoted as opposed..."

[churchillbuff]

And Kennedy knew what he was doing in 1965 as well."""

I'm sure he did. The better question: Does BUSH know what HE - BUSH - is doing to America, NOW, by supporting this bill?

[churchillbuff]

Why is George Bush supporting this legislation?

[churchillbuff]

Forget about McCain and Kennedy for a moment. George Bush is behind this legislation. Why?

[Calpernia]

And don't forget about the grant monies that become available from the NGOs.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1593821/posts UMDNJ chief to press for change

(snip)

National Coordinating Committee for the US Social Forum; social justice leaders from across the US who work on issues including environmental justice, poverty, racial justice, immigration, and workers’ rights.

blah blah blah

The World Social Forum (WSF) model is spreading around the world and a wide range of grassroots organizations and networks have announced the location of the first U.S. Social Forum (USSF)

(snip)

blah, blah.....“For us immigrants, the growth of our new communities here have been met not only with repressive policies, racist backlash, abuse and exploitation in the workplace, and scapegoating for socio-economic problems suffered by working class communities, we now also have to face state policies that ask to further extract from our already burdened communities. For instance, Georgia SB 529 seeks to suck up immigrant’s hard-earned income by taxing our remittance wire transfers to our families back home. We are displaced by US economic policies, harassed and kept in a state of constant fear to ensure a cheap and disposable labor supply for US corporations. Immigrant communities in GA and around the country challenge all these, and we say “No Taxation Without Representation.” -Colin Rajah (National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Chair Program Working Group)

blah blah...“The political moment in the United States brings four important intersections: the war in Iraq, Indigenous Artic drilling, Katrina survivors and US-Mexico border & immigration issues. In fact, all four issues are under the Department of Defense and Homeland Security.” - Ruben Solis (Southwest Workers Union, Southwest Regional Representative)

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[AmeriBrit]

Plan B for the RINOs is to install Nancy Pelosi as House leader in November 2006, and have her appoint the House conference committee.

---

Where's your link for that piece of rubbish?

[Torie]

Well it is down to 40 million now. It started at something like 200 million, when the Senate bill got of committee. Congress is a bit of a circus these days, with reckless behavior the soup de jour.

[Torie]

Why is George Bush supporting this legislation?

Tell us. Don't be coy. Is there something behind the curtain, that the masses can't see, but you can?

[ncountylee]

Very good article, thanks for posting.

[gpapa]

Amidst all the rhetoric on the Senate Bill (S.2611), is one underlying theme that no Senator dare utter. The supporters of the bill are only interested in one thing, buying votes. They are not interested in securing the border. They are not interested in guest workers, temporary workers or whatever you wish to call them. They are interested in creating new citizens that will vote their way with a decidedly leftist tilt favoring more and bigger government.

[clawrence3]

Good point.

[clawrence3]

Actually, the first 300 pages of the Senate bill are enforcement provisions.

[Shermy]

"George Bush is behind this legislation. Why?"

Well, I think most here are past the cognitive dissonance phase. :)

Maybe, Grover Norquist order Rove to tell Bush what a great man he would go down in history for this!

The lobbies might have got to greedy, shot themselves in the foot, corraling the Senators to put in so, so much into that bill. The Senate's debate sounded like an auctioning off of the "Estate of America."

[BellStar]

....and rescinding the anchor baby laws.


No anchor baby law exists!

[gpapa]

We have not been fully enforcing existing laws that have been on the books since 1986. The 300 pages of enforcement provisions in S.2611 are nothing more than a warmed over rehash of what has been tried before, notwithstanding the question of who will enforce such laws once enacted.

[BellStar]

"Every Person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.
Senator Jacob Howard, Co-author of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, 1866.