Any legislation that legalizes the status of those who broke our laws by entering our country illegally and allows them to stay is amnesty. We must not only prevent the Democrats and some moderate Republicans from hijacking the meaning of the word amnesty, but the public must be made aware about the true impact of an amnesty. The Heritage Foundation concluded that the cost of amnesty alone would be $2.6 trillion. And the number of additional LEGAL immigrants who would join those who were the recipients of amnesty through chain migration, i.e., family reunification, would approach 70 million over a 20-year period, assuming there are only 12 million illegal aliens. We cannot assimilate such numbers. An amnesty would destroy the United States of America with the stroke of a pen.
If the public understood that legalizing the status of the 12 to 20 million illegal aliens would permit them to sponsor at least another 66 million more LEGAL immigrants, the poll results would be much different. On immigration generally, Americans want less, not more, immigration.