Most times when a politician takes a very partisan report and touts it as ‘the word’ he/she ends up looking foolish.
This was the case yesterday when Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) took to Twitter to hail the praises of the latest report coming from the Center for American Progress (CAP) on the benefits of the DREAM Act – including adding $329B to the U.S. economy and creating 1.4 million new jobs – and hilarity ensued. (In fairness to Mr. Reid, he was not the only one looking foolish)
As many may know, the DREAM Act was defeated in the U.S. Senate during a lame duck session in December of 2010 while Democrats enjoyed huge majorities in both houses of Congress and right before Republicans had taken back leadership in the House of Representatives and increased their share in the U.S. Senate. Sensing a final opportunity of getting it passed, Democrats tried ramming it through during a lame duck session but failed. But as you can see, they still aren’t giving up the fight for the over two million illegal aliens.
Like Mr. Reid, many others in the open-border lobby will look at this report and try to use it as another argument for why Congress should pass the DREAM Act. However, a closer examination of the findings of this report reveal some important points worth mentioning:
- The benefits listed in the report are based on projections 18 years into the future, and even using a multiplier of 18 they are still not very impressive;
- The report does not take into account the fact that the jobs that would be filled would probably have been filled by Americans or legal immigrants;
- The report does not take into account the opportunities lost by Americans to fill the seats at universities that these illegal aliens would take;
- The report does not take into account the public cost of subsidized in-state tuition for the newly legalized illegal aliens, and;
- The projected number of jobs that would be created by passage of the DREAM Act (1.4 million) does not even offset the number of projected DREAM Act beneficiaries (2.1 million), resulting in a 700,000 job deficit according to CAP’s estimation – that’s a 30 percent unemployment rate among this particular group, not something any politician would want to publicize.
Aside from any economic benefit real or claimed, let’s not lose sight of the higher principle. The decisions we make regarding immigration policy should not just be about dollars and cents – there’s an issue of right and wrong and the rule of law, which the DREAM Act violates. It’s an amnesty and like all amnesty it rewards illegal behavior, encourages more, and is fundamentally unfair to those who play by the rules.
8 Comments
Actually both political parties are to blame for the immigration problem. It is up to them to create stricter immigration laws, but republicans benefit from cheap labor for big corporations (the very few left here) and democrats want an excuse to lobby for to make themselves look humane. The only ones getting screwed are us.
DREAMers are in this country through no fault of their own. They identify themselves as American. Allowing them legal status and access to education can improve the economy and will have a positive effect.
My own nephew is a PhD grad in a technical field and it took him six months to find a job! We have somewhere near 8% unemployment that Washington admits to, and perhaps another 8% that have given up looking or are working part time. We need more illegal immigrants because ???
This Democrat is So Wrong
If the issue was black, he’d wildly assert, with no credible evidence, is was white; if it helped his WTO campaign funding.
Don’t forget the other idiots like Nancy Pelosi, Diane Fienstein, Charles Shumer, and others to numerous to mention. It takes idiots to elect idiots. Hopefully this will change come November.
Reid is a shameless ***, and I believe the election was rigged. Americans cannot be so stupid ad to elect someone, that is concerned 24/7 about foreign nationals illegally in this country.
Bobby. All Harry Reid, Gov. Brown, Nancy Pelosi and any American political hack that promotes the Dream Act, or some version of it, is looking for is a way to make illegal immigrants a part of the landscape, with the hope they can force the whole of this Country to pay the insurmountable debt that their foolish, and reckless behavior has brought on their states. As is well known California can’t pay attention little own their bills any longer their towns, and cities are slowly going broke as services go up, and tax’s disappear because so much go’s to the illegal aliens in the form of welfare hand outs , and the large pension benny’s of municipal workers. Yes given any chance to make any part of these illegal aliens an American debt then we would all be called on to bail out these poorly run states that have promise something they never had the right to promise. A free ride at the expense of the other states.
Good points dred44. I still cannot adequately express my disdain for Harry Reid. I’ve just read too much horrible stuff, visav-vie his attitude on citizens vs. illegal foreign nationals. He needs to move to Mexico, including his Son, who spent “years learning Spanish”,etc. Well then he should fit right in in Old Mejico. They can both apply for Mexican citizenship, and be happy. But they won’t, they’d rather be fifth columnists for Mexico while living off the American taxpayers in the states.