Should More Illegal Immigrants Receive Amnesty?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns open borders as a tactic to push amnesty. In the past, both Democrats and Republicans were against open borders and used the term “illegal alien” to identify anyone who crossed the border illegally but not now. First, Democrats insisted that illegal aliens be identified as “undocumented immigrants.” Now, the White House calls them “newcomers.”

Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, wrote a series titled “Three Reasons the Left Wants Open Borders.” In his third article, he wrote that he had already covered ideology and electoral politics, and then he wrote about extortion. 

By turning on the taps of illegal immigration, open-borders proponents hope to create bargaining chips to negotiate amnesties and increased immigration flows. Since he took office, Joe Biden has paroled a million and a half inadmissible aliens under bogus premises, caught and quickly released into the U.S. the better part of 7 million more, and allowed at least 1.8 million more to evade Border Patrol – the “gotaways.”

As Jason Riley wrote in The Wall Street Journal last year, “The White House knows that an overwhelming majority of the people coming aren’t fleeing persecution but are economic migrants gaming our asylum laws. They know that there will be no serious effort to deport people whose claims are denied.”

Nonetheless, the roughly 10 million inadmissible foreign nationals who the White House calls “newcomers” will be new leverage to push immigration “reform,” which means massive amnesties and new “pathways” into the U.S. outside and on top of the legal immigration system authorized and numerically limited by Congress. Biden’s threat is to leave the taps wide open.

Under this pressure, wavering conservatives might concede to ineffective or even counterproductive legislation like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s D-N.Y., bill that claimed to be a solution but did nothing to reduce the illegal flow. Fortunately, it failed on Thursday.

Hankinson called the failed bill “a trap” and quoted House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) as stating correctly that the bill “would actually codify many of the disastrous Biden open-border policies that created this crisis in the first place.” The failed bill, if made into law, would make “it difficult for a future conservative president to reverse,” according to Hankinson. He then provided some history.

… The relevant lesson is the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. The deal was that about 3 million illegal aliens would be amnestied, but that the government would work to stop the flow of illegal immigrants and keep another amnesty from happening again. To achieve this, employers would have to confirm the legal status of people before hiring them or face penalties.

The first part of the bargain (the amnesty) happened, but the second part did not in any comprehensive manner. Almost 40 years later, the number of illegal aliens present in the country is perhaps five times as great as in 1986.

President Joe Biden and/or his administration claim that Biden needs the bill to be passed to give him the “power” to secure the border. However, former President Donald Trump used the same power available to Biden to secure the power. Biden does not need more “power” and should not be given it.

Forty years ago, Congress promised to secure the border if 3 million illegal aliens were amnestied. The border is not secure yet. Therefore, there should be no discussions about amnesty for more illegal aliens. First, secure the border. Second, revamp legal immigration as needed.