Desert Invasion - U.S.

GOP Immigration Plan Will Destroy America As We Know It, Allowing 217 Million New Immigrants Over Next 20 Years

By Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Pipeline News

May 15, 2006

http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=immigration151506%2Ehtm

The staff of GOP Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has completed and released the results of an in-depth impact analysis that shows that if the Senate's Republican immigration bill S. 26 11 should it become law, up to 217.1 million new legal immigrants will be cleared to immigrate into the United States over the next 20 years, a number equal to 66 percent of the total current population of the United States.

Even if the maximum levels are not reached, the increase to the U.S. population caused by S. 2611 will be at least 78.7 million in 20 years, just over 25 percent of the total current population. This lower estimate assumes that the bill's escalating caps on certain visas will not increase at all over the next 20 years; if the bill's caps are hit each year, the total number will be the higher estimate.

"Until now, most of us have focused on securing the border and deciding how to treat the illegal alien population already in the United States," Sessions said. "Few, if any, of us have looked ahead to see what the long-term numerical impact of the bill would be. My staff and I have just completed such a study, and the results are shocking."

Sessions discussed his findings at a news conference today, along with Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, who released his own analysis showing similar numbers.

"As we begin debate today on the floor, my goal is to get these numbers before my colleagues so that they can appreciate just how breath-takingly unsatisfactory this 614-page Senate bill is," Sessions said. "We know that this country is going to treat the illegal alien population fairly. However, if the Senate wants to be successful in passing immigration reform, it should produce a bill that secures the borders and the workplace and establishes a commonsense, carefully thought out, legally enforceable policy for legal immigration in the future. For our immigration system to work, the Senate bill must guarantee that today's facade of enforcement and illegal immigration flows won't exist in the future."

If the current legal immigration level (950,000 a year for 20 years or 18.9 million over 20 years) is excluded from the total, according to Sessions, the Senate bill could be described as increasing legal immigration by 59 million to 198.2 million over 20 years.

"These are actually very conservative estimates," Sessions said. "For example, for the low end, we assumed the caps would never escalate, and we only added an average of 1.2 immediate family members coming in with each alien worker. Additionally, our numerical analysis did not add in estimates of future illegal immigration flows, or include any estimates for chain-migration - the parents, brothers and sisters that new citizens can bring in on a permanent basis."

Chain-migration occurs when an immigrant becomes a citizen. Citizens have a legal right to bring in family members other than spouses and children. They can bring in their parents, their adult siblings and the spouses and children of their adult siblings.

"You can see how the potential exponential growth impact of the Senate legislation will cause consternation on the part of Congress and the American people ," Sessions said.

The Senate bill would increase permanent future immigration into the United States in several ways.

LOW SKILLED PERMANENT IMMIGRATION:

H-2C Workers: By creating a new (H-2C) visa category for "temporary guest workers" (low skilled workers) with an annual "cap" of 325,000 that increases up to 20 percent each year the cap is met, the bill allows at least 6.5 million, and up to 60.7 million new guest workers to come to the United States over the next 20 years. There is nothing "temporary" about these workers. Employers may file a green card application on their behalf as soon as they arrive in the United States, or the worker may self-petition for a green card after four years of work.

H-4 Family Members of H-2C Workers: By creating a new visa category (H-4) for the immediate family members of the future low-skilled workers (H-2C), and allowing them to also receive green cards, the bill would allow at least 7.8 million, and up to 72.8 million immediate family members of low-skilled workers to come to the United States over the next 20 years.

HIGH SKILLED PERMANENT IMMIGRATION:

H-1B: The bill would essentially open the borders to high-skilled workers, as well as low-skilled workers. By increasing the annual cap of 65,000 to 115,000, automatically increasing the new cap by 20 percent each year the cap is hit, and creating a new exemption to new cap for anyone who has an "advanced degree in science, technology, engineering, or math" from any foreign university, the number of H-1B workers coming into the United States would undoubtedly escalate. The 20-year impact of this escalation could be anywhere from 1 million to 20.1 million. H-1B workers are eligible for green cards and would be allowed to stay and work in the United States for as long as it takes to process the green card application.

STEEP INCREASES TO ANNUAL GREEN CARD LIMITS:

Family Based Green Cards: The bill would increase the annual cap on family based green cards available to non-immediate family members (adult sons and daughters, adults siblings, and the spouses and children of adult siblings) by more than 100 percent, upping the current cap of 226,000 to 480,000 a year. Immediate family members are already able to immigrate without regard to the family based green card caps. The 20-year impact of this change would be an increase of 5.1 million non-immediate family member green cards.

Employment Based Green Cards The bill would increase the annual cap on employment-based green cards by more than 500 percent, upping the current cap of 140,000 to 450,000 until 2016 and to 290,000 thereafter and exempting all immediate family members that currently count against the cap today (spouses, children and parents) from the newly escalated cap. The new exemption would result in an average of 540,000 family members receiving green cards each year of the first 10 years, and an average of 348,000 family members receiving green cards each year of the second 10 years. The 20-year impact of this change would be an increase of 13.5 million employment-based green cards, for a total of 16.3 million employment-based green cards issued over the course of the next 20 years.

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