Steve King Op-Ed: The DREAM Act Is An Amnesty Bill That America Cannot Afford

President Obama and the liberal open-border leadership of the Democratic Party are pushing for passage of legislation granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. They are doing this despite the fact that this costly legislation will make a difficult job market worse, will place a higher tax burden on Americans, will ensure greater difficulty in balancing budgets on the state and federal level, and will undermine respect for our nation’s immigration laws. -- Congress should wake up from this nightmare by defeating the DREAM Act.

In November, voters’ concerns about the weak economy and the poor job market contributed to the election of a large Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

Voters understand, even if the Democratic leadership doesn’t, that granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens will make it even more difficult for unemployed Americans to find work. With the unemployment rate at 9.8 percent the last thing American job hunters need is millions of DREAM Act amnesty recipients competing with them for work.

The DREAM Act not only undermines economic opportunities for Americans, it also makes it less likely that either state governments or the federal government will bring their budgets into balance.

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has released a report indicating that this amnesty bill will cost state and local taxpayers over $6.2 billion annually, not per decade as Congressional budgets are calculated, because state universities and local community colleges will be forced, by law, to grant illegal aliens in-state tuition discounts. The DREAM Act does not provide federal funding to cover these costs, meaning Americans will be required to pay higher taxes and higher tuition rates.

Providing facts about tuition fees provides insight into the magnitude of this unjust benefit being given to illegal aliens under the DREAM Act. At the University of Iowa, an in-state resident attending the College of Business pays $3,894 per semester while an out-of-state resident pays $12,068 per semester. At Iowa State University, an in-state resident pays $3,566 per semester to attend the College of Business, while an out-of-state resident pays $9,347. Other public universities show similar multipliers. In fact, in the University of California system, in-state residents pay no tuition at all, while out-of-state residents pay a non-resident tuition fee that costs $22,021 per year at all University of California campuses.

This tuition treatment creates a moral conundrum for DREAM Act supporters. What does one say to the widow or widower who has lost their husband or their wife in Iraq, or the child who lost their mother or father in Afghanistan, who is paying out-of-state tuition premiums while they are sitting at a desk next to someone who has received amnesty and a de facto scholarship under the DREAM Act?

Further, the deficit spending federal government will face huge spending increases under the DREAM Act. When amnesty proponents point to a recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis to claim that the DREAM Act has a short-term positive effect on budget deficits, they do so in an attempt to distract American taxpayers from the long-term negative effects on the budget that are much more pronounced and severe. CBO found that deficit spending on welfare programs would increase by at least $5 billion, and possibly much more, after 2020 as a result of granting DREAM Act amnesty.

As bad as the costs revealed by the CIS and CBO analysis are, it is likely that they are vastly understated because each analysis was based on the assumption that 1.1 million illegal aliens would receive DREAM Act amnesty. Other versions of the legislation currently before Congress (there are 4 versions that the Democratic leadership is circulating to confuse the issue for voters) are estimated to grant amnesty to over 2.1 million illegal aliens.

Further, neither analysis includes the estimated impact of the costs to be incurred by the “backdoor amnesty” the bill provides for the family members of illegal aliens. Many do not realize that illegal aliens who receive amnesty under the bill become eligible at the age of 21 to sponsor members of their family for citizenship too. The cost of “chain migration” will be enormous.

There is also an additional cost for passing amnesty. It is the cost incurred when respect for the Rule of Law is undermined. It has been 24 years since a “one time only” amnesty bill was signed into law and, millions upon millions of illegal border crossings later, it is clear that the 1986 legislation only served as an incentive for further lawbreaking.

In addition, since the DREAM Act prevents the federal government from deporting anyone who applies for amnesty under it, anyone who can sneak into the United States and file a DREAM Act application will have an automatic and legal stay of deportation until the already overloaded courts can make a decision.-- The result will be millions of bogus DREAM Act filings and the function will be a de facto visa to stay in the United States.

The DREAM Act is an amnesty bill that America cannot afford. It is unjust to those who have played by the rules in order to come into the country legally, and it is unjust to American taxpayers who will be asked to shoulder the costs of rewarding illegal immigrants for ignoring the law. Americans should demand that it be defeated.

http://proenglish.org/projects/dream-act
“”House and Senate DREAM Act votes will occur today, Wednesday!
Both House and Senate leaders have planned votes for TODAY on the DREAM Act amnesty bills. There’s no time to waste, call Congress now!

December 8, 2010

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will hold a Wednesday vote on the controversial DREAM Act amnesty bill, and to make matters worse, late last night, the House of Representatives also scheduled a last-minute Wednesday vote on a brand new version of the DREAM Act that NO ONE has seen. This will be the sixth version (yes, six!) of the DREAM amnesty that has been introduced. Your calls into both Senate and House offices will be critically important all day in the hours leading up to the votes!

If passed and signed into law, the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act would legalize approximately 2.1 million illegal aliens under the age of 30 or 35, depending on which version of the bill is considered. The Amnesty provides no enforcement provisions and no end date or cap thereby encouraging future illegal immigration. It also provides no English language requirement. Although we have not seen the text of the newest, sixth version of the DREAM Act amnesty, the previous five versions of the bill contained largely cosmetic changes that do little to reduce the size, scope, and cost of the proposed amnesty.

TAKE ACTION!

As you know, the United States is experiencing a record wave of non-English speaking immigration. There are an estimated 12 million illegal aliens currently residing in the U.S. today.

ProEnglish opposes any amnesty, such as the DREAM Act, that does not require specific steps for amnestied persons to first become English proficient. Removing incentives for immigrants and native-born non-English speakers to learn English and instead increasing taxpayer-funded, government-mandated multilingual services for the over-300 languages currently spoken in the U.S. is bad public policy.

Amnesty legislation, such as the DREAM Act, without specific steps to learn and test fluent in English:

* Imposes a heavy financial burden. Granting amnesty will dramatically increase the already-costly demands for multilingual services, including multilingual voting ballots, driver’s license tests, translations for official documents, forms, and school textbooks, and government-mandated interpreters for court hearings and government-funded health care programs. The burden should not fall on American citizens to pay for immigrants to avoid learning English.

As Rep. Steve King (R-IA) explains in his recent op-ed, “CBO found that deficit spending on welfare programs would increase by at least $5 billion, and possibly much more, after 2020 as a result of granting DREAM Act amnesty.”

* Fosters linguistic isolation. Amnesties that lack specific language-learning requirements and a test weaken a critically needed cohesion for a nation as diverse, multiracial and multiethnic as America. Millions of English Learners have participated in public elementary and secondary education in the U.S. without acquiring proficiency in English. 59% of U.S. elementary school children who are LEP were born in the U.S. to immigrant parents.

* Cripples upward mobility of non-English-speaking and LEP immigrants. All immigrants should understand that learning English is essential to their hope of pursuing the American dream and that learning English enables them to improve their skills and earning power. Just like earlier immigrants, they have a responsibility to learn our nation’s language and assimilate. Lacking fluency in English traps amnesty recipients in low-skilled, low-wage jobs and keeps them heavily reliant on taxpayer-funded government programs.

TAKE ACTION!

SENATE

The Senate vote will occur on Wednesday, December 8th, so please call and email your two Senators today and tell them to vote NO on cloture on the motion to proceed to debate of the DREAM Act amnesty today!

View the list of target Senators

HOUSE

The House has placed Rep. Berman’s (D-CA) newest version of the DREAM Act on its legislative schedule for Wednesday. Your representative needs to hear from you – urge him or her to oppose the DREAM Act!

View the list of target Representatives

Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121””

Motivated by parochial self-interest, the pro-mass immigration, open borders, amnesty advocates have formed a powerful coalition including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, labor union leaders, the Catholic Church, ethnic and racial groups, “moderate” Republicans, and the Democrat Party. The common thread that unites these groups is power, money, and the prospect of increased constituencies, even at the expense of our long-term national interests and survival.

The proportion of immigrant-headed households using at least one major welfare program is 33 percent, compared to 19 percent for native households. The poverty rate for immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) is 17 percent, nearly 50 percent higher than the rate for natives and their children. Massive low-skill immigration works to counteract government anti-poverty efforts. While government works to reduce the number of poor persons, low-skill immigration pushes the poverty numbers up. In addition, low-skill immigration siphons off government anti-poverty funding and makes government efforts to shrink poverty less effective. Milton Friedman said, “You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state.” We have both.

ILLEGALS HAVE A DREAM---AND THIS IS IT.

WAITING TO GET THEIR ORDERS FROM MEXICO
Reconquista shock troops at Phoenix Capital protest, May 29, 2010.

May Day Marchers plot to takeover the USA, shooting cops in the process.
SIGN: "You owe us America. We will shoot more Arizona police until we get free."

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The Obama admin continues to tolerate this ntl-security nightmare of illegals using multiple identities for fear of offending the Mexican government, the National Council of La Raza, and other immigrant advocates....all of whom are providing Democrat voters to endangered Dems. This outrage is burdening taxpayers and polluting our election system----b/c these criminals adopt multiple fraudulent identities.

Keep in mind, all the evidence shows illegals establish several identities with phony SS nos and fake documents (which these "poor immigrants" buy from document brokers for several thousand dollars). Illegal parents get anchor babies SS nos. The SS nos are used to establish fake identities. Endangered Dems are pushing to get all those fake identities to vote.

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