Morning Bell: Decision Time on Immigration
by Amy Payne, Heritage Foundation, July 10, 2013
Today is a pivotal day in the immigration debate: House Republicans are meeting to hash out their path.
Pressure is coming from all sides. The Senate passed the Gang of Eight’s “comprehensive” plan, and three groups on the right are urging the House to act. President Obama is meeting today with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has said the House will not take up the same bill the Senate passed—but there is still a danger in trying to work with the Senate.
If the House simply tries to pass a bill so that it can come together with the Senate in conference—informal or formal—Congress will likely tinker around the edges of the Gang of Eight’s plan and give us the immigration version of Obamacare.
As Heritage experts have explained, Congress can address every major aspect of immigration reform and border security without a comprehensive bill.
>>> Advancing the Immigration Nation: Heritage’s Positive Path to Immigration and Border Security Reform
The plan on the table has severe flaws—and besides, we can’t even trust that laws will be implemented as they’re supposed to be.
Just look at Obamacare. The Obama Administration has delayed or changed more than a dozen aspects of that law. So promises from Senators and Representatives about how a law will work can be undone or simply never fulfilled. (That’s what happened the last time Congress granted amnesty to illegal immigrants—the promised border security provisions never materialized.)
The Senate-passed bill doesn’t secure the border.
It doesn’t stop the flow of illegal immigrants.
It doesn’t prevent visitors from overstaying their visas.
It doesn’t help aspiring Americans who are waiting in line to come here legally.
And for not doing these things, it costs American taxpayers trillions.
As House Republicans consider their course, it would be wise to look at commonsense things the country can do without saddling taxpayers with a do-nothing, trillion-dollar monstrosity.
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