As the Biden Border Crisis continues with no end in sight, Senate Democrats are working around the clock to inject amnesty into a massive spending bill they are selling as an “infrastructure package.”
The bill is slated to be advanced through the little-known budget reconciliation process, which allows the party in power to pass legislation related to the budget with only a simple majority, bypassing the traditional 60 vote threshold. However, the budget reconciliation process has complex requirements, and it is not certain that the Senate parliamentarian would agree to including amnesty.
The amnesty push accelerated when Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-VT), released a draft of a $6 trillion reconciliation budget blueprint, which includes $126 billion to put approximately 5 million illegal aliens on a pathway to citizenship. While this proposal is only the start of the budget reconciliation process, the addition of immigration components is a dangerous first step toward amnesty for millions with nothing in return.
How could they possibly do this through the budget reconciliation process? Their selling point is that while putting approximately 5 million illegal aliens on a pathway to citizenship is costly, it nonetheless results in big economic benefits for all Americans down the line. This tired talking point has been used by the pro-amnesty lobby for decades.
Here are the facts:
- Amnesty for millions of illegal aliens is not strictly a budgetary concern. Rather, amnesty would have negative, substantive impacts on an entire range of policy interests including criminal justice, law and order, social cohesion, environmental stewardship, public education, labor fairness, and infrastructure burdens. This makes it ineligible for inclusion in a budget reconciliation bill.
- This shady move by Senate Democrats would set a terrible precedent and an opportunity for the party in power to circumvent the traditional legislative process to enact unpopular special interest priorities unrelated to spending or revenue.
- Critical policy issues – like immigration – deserve a full debate on the floor of both chambers and require sufficient time for the American public to have their voices heard.
This attempt to blow up long-standing Senate rules in order to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens would not only exacerbate an already raging crisis, but deeply harm our nation for decades. It must be stopped.