Malvern Daily Record

Dem’s amnesty plan must be stopped

- Tom Cotton

Only 42% of Americans approve of Joe Biden’s presidency and as few as 15% approve of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi’s Congress. The reason for this abysmal approval rating is simple; Democrats in Washington do not represent the interests of the American people. Instead, they appear hellbent on bankruptin­g our government, derailing our economy, and dissolving our border. Their multitrill­ion-dollar spending bill would do all three.

No provision is more pernicious than the immigratio­n proposal pushed by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-ill., who has tried to force amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants into this bill not once, not twice, but three times. The Senate parliament­arian has ruled two of his proposals out of order, and we are awaiting her ruling on Sen.

Durbin’s third attempt to bypass the Senate filibuster.

His most recent proposal would amount to nothing less than DACA-FOR-ALL. It would grant full public benefits to millions of illegal aliens and grant five-year “amnesty passes” for illegal border crossers. These amnesty passes could be renewed in perpetuity, until Congress is forced to make this amnesty plan permanent. This proposal would cost the American people unknown billions of dollars and would add to our nearly $30 trillion national debt.

It would cost money we don’t have and take away jobs that we cannot afford to lose. Once legalized, these millions of illegal aliens will naturally seek legitimate employment and take positions that would otherwise be filled by American citizens and lawful immigrants. Working-class Americans would disproport­ionately suffer as a result of this policy.

The current draft of the Democrat’s bill also includes a nearly unpreceden­ted assault on the livelihood­s of American tech workers. In service of their big money donors, Democrats intend to authorize green cards for hundreds of thousands of foreign tech workers. On day one, Democrats want to open the floodgates to 200,000 such workers.

The tech industry has been subsidized with cheap foreign labor for long enough. Silicon Valley should invest in upskilling the American workforce instead of using their money to lobby Congress for a new giveaway.

In a nod to their extreme base, the Democrats’ bill would additional­ly give at least a billion dollars in “trauma” compensati­on to illegal aliens removed under the Trump administra­tion. This is analogous to paying a burglar who broke into your home for the “psychologi­cal trauma” they endured during the crime. Reparation­s for illegal aliens is absolute insanity and will only encourage more lawbreakin­g.

These proposals, irresponsi­ble in normal times, are insane under current circumstan­ces. In a painfully sluggish economy wracked by inflation, supply chain shortages and rising energy prices, the last thing Americans need is a massive influx of foreign workers taking jobs and opportunit­ies.

The Democrats’ DACa-for-all and reparation proposals would exacerbate the worst border crisis in American history. Last year, a record 1.7 million illegal aliens were encountere­d at the border and hundreds of thousands of additional illegal immigrants escaped into the interior of our country. These amnesty and reparation proposals would cause a further meltdown at the border by sending the unmistakab­le message that crime pays.

Amnesty would also worsen our nation’s spiraling drug crisis, which starts at the Rio Grande and flows into every city, town and community in our country. The majority of deadly narcotics sold on street corners in the United States are smuggled across the southern border. Last year alone, the Border Patrol seized nearly three tons of meth and enough fentanyl to kill over 100 million people.

The Democrats’ radical spending bill threatens American prosperity. If passed, it will result in open borders and closed businesses, rising taxes and falling wages, growing debt and shrinking opportunit­ies. It will put left-wing extremists and special interests first and put American workers, families and citizens last. I am urging my colleagues to join with me and kill this bill.

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