During my lunch break today, I’m planning to read a Heritage Foundation analysis of the Senate immigration reform bill ( i.e., the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act ( CIRA, S.2611). I’ve already read parts of it. Just on the basis of the first two paragraphs, I am getting even angrier about matters immigration than I have been thus far. And I’ve been pretty angry for some time. And my immediate family members will tell you that, unless super-stressed, I rarely get emotional about anything.
I just do not understand what is so difficult to grasp about the concept that national borders ought to be respected, that a nation has the right (and, to its citizens, the obligation) to enforce national borders, that nations (no less than property-owning individuals) have the right to decide who gets to come in, why, and how long they can stay before being asked to leave. The President insists on calling the United States and Mexico “friends.” Well, my friends respect my property rights; you could very well say they respect my borders. If I had a friend who was a friend to me in the way that Mexico is a “friend” to the United States, I’d cut him loose.
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.
This analysis is a must read.