Senate Bill 2611 is a Christmas tree

Senate Bill 2611, passed by the U.S. Senate on May 25 and known as the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA), is truly a Christmas tree.
The brightest ornament on the tree is at the top. It is a big, shiny “A,” symbolic of the word “amnesty” for current illegal immigrants. Twelve million illegal aliens will become U.S. citizens.
Dripping from the tree are ornaments galore: Legal Permanent Resident (LPR); Near-Permanent, Convertible Status, which means virtually unrestricted opportunity to become Legal Permanent Resident (LPR).
Legal Permanent Residents can live out their lives in the United States with all the rights of citizens, including all the entitlements: Social Security upon retirement or for disability and survivors; Earned Income Credit for workers in low paying jobs; Medicare, Medicaid and prescription drug plans, free public education and many more.
Prominently displayed are all the family ornaments. In fact, you might also call this a family tree. The family ornaments represent spouses, parents, sons and daughters of each of the millions of illegal immigrants who would be granted citizenship under this bill. And, it might be added, they have relatives, as well.
The family ornaments are the result of the now infamous 1965 Immigration Act, which established the policy of “family unification.” This policy of freely admitting family members to the United States became a key criterion for citizenship eligibility and gave these family members preference in the line for legitimate citizenship.
The family unification policy was forced on America in the Immigration Act of 1965.
Senate floor manager of the 1965 legislation, identified as “Camelot knight-errant” was Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. This same knight, in somewhat tarnished armor today, Ted Kennedy, was floor manager of S.2611 (CIRA). The Immigration Act of 1965 was pushed heavily also by the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., his brother, during a period of high pitched emotion following the death of President John F. Kennedy.
“Family unification” members are not considered part of the established annual immigration quota. However, they arrive in America with Near Permanent, Convertible Status, and after two years in the country will become Legal Permanent Residents.
In a short time, other hundreds of thousands of relatives — there is no limit — could join them. Many have very low paying jobs, and when they become Legal Permanent Residents, they become eligible for “Earned Income Credit” payments that can be as high as $4,700 a year for a family of four so long as their income does not exceed $36,000 a year.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the effect of legalizing 11 million people for this single program alone would cost $29 billion over a 10-year period. As these new Legal Permanent Residents settle in, their relatives will come as well and the taxpayer burden will escalate dramatically.
Legal immigrants from all countries in the world, those who go through the normal naturalization process, are limited by existing legislation to a total of 19 million over the next 20 years.
When adopted, the CIRA with its “family unification policy” could add 66 million (more than half the entire population of Mexico) additional Legal Permanent Residents to the U.S. population over the next 20 years, according to estimates cited by Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.
The 2006 amnesty, which is embodied in CIRA, will ignite a far greater flood of illegal immigrants than could ever have been imagined. The illegals will know by now that a gutless U.S. Congress will continue to grant amnesty.
And there will be no wall, fence or barrier built on the border.
A provision in CIRA requires consultations between Mexican and U.S. officials before any wall, fence or barrier can be constructed across the Mexican-U.S. border. This provision, for all intents and purposes, denies the U.S. border states the right to build such a structure.
The courts of the border states are already overloaded with border disputes. Add to this the expected ACLU and Mexican government lawsuits that will be forthcoming. President Vicente Fox is already traveling throughout some Western states, building his case before large groups of his native people.
The problem of illegal immigration must be corrected if the United States is to survive. However, this bill is not the solution.
S.2611, CIRA, is grossly flawed. The U.S. House of Representatives must garner the courage to kill S.2611. Killing this Senate bill should come as no surprise. The Senate has been killing vital House bills on energy reform for the past decade.
Failing the entire rejection of the bill, the following items will still remain unacceptable and must be removed.
1. Amnesty must be rejected. Amnesty rewards illegal behavior and flies in the face of American values.
2. The “family unification policy,” the most deadly part of the law, which has thrown America’s immigration program into complete disarray, must be abolished.
3. Any reference to consultation between Mexico and the United States with respect to a barrier across the U.S.-Mexican border must be rejected. The United States is mature enough to make this decision on its own.

* * *

I welcome your comments at eralphhostetter@yahoo.com.