A Republican-led bill that would give amnesty to the nearly 800,000 illegal aliens shielded from deportation by the President Obama-created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program is the first legislation on the issue that would make E-Verify mandatory for all U.S. employers, thus barring illegal aliens from the American workforce.
DACA Amnesty
The legislation known as “Securing America’s Future Act” spearheaded by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) would allow DACA illegal aliens to remain the U.S. on 3-year renewable work visas that would allow them to use existing avenues to gain American citizenship.
A DACA amnesty has concerned Breitbart readers, Trump supporters, and amnesty critics alike, as they see it is a path towards amnesty for the entire illegal alien population, which ranges between 12 to 30 million.
Though the DACA amnesty is a break from President Trump’s campaign promises, in which he said, “There will be no amnesty” in August 2016, the legislation includes many of the president’s pro-American immigration principles by reducing legal immigration levels to raise Americans’ wages and dramatically reducing illegal immigration, not just through funding Trump’s proposed border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Mandatory E-Verify
Under the Goodlatte bill, E-Verify — the system that prevents employers from hiring illegal aliens over Americans — would be mandatory throughout the country, making it the first DACA-related legislation to include this provision.
As Breitbart News reported, mandatory E-Verify was a part of Trump’s pro-American immigration principles but has since been ignored by the administration in DACA negotiations and meetings.
NumbersUSA’s Rosemary Jenks told Breitbart News that this was one of the main reasons why her organization, which advocates for immigration in the interest of Americans, is supporting the Goodlatte legislation, despite its provision giving amnesty to DACA illegal aliens.
“The game-changer on illegal immigration is mandatory E-Verify,” Jenks said, explaining how nearly half of illegal aliens are individuals who have overstayed their visas and thus, the E-Verify system is necessary to keeping them from taking American jobs.
The legislation also makes overstaying a visa a federal misdemeanor.
“Basically, if President Trump wants a bill that will keep his campaign promises, as far as moving towards immigration policy that serves the national interest, and gets his DACA fix, this is it,” Jenks said. “This is the Trump immigration bill.”
The mandatory E-Verify provisions in the bill are so potent that even if illegal aliens use stolen Social Security numbers to get jobs in the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would be required to alert Americans that their Social Security number is being used in the workforce.
Mandatory E-Verify is easily the single most popular immigration reform with Americans. For example, a recent poll by Pulse Opinion Research found that nearly 60 percent of likely voters want mandatory E-Verify to be part of a deal on DACA, if a deal is made and finalized.
Months ago, when likely American voters were asked by Pulse Opinion Research if they supported mandatory E-Verify, a majority of 68 percent said yes. Another 71 percent of voters said businesses should be required to hire from pools of Americans with the highest unemployment rates before importing cheaper, foreign workers through various visa programs or hiring illegal aliens.
Ending Chain Migration
The Goodlatte bill fulfills another reform that Trump has demanded, which is ending the process known as “chain migration,” whereby newly naturalized citizens can currently bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S.
Under the legislation, chain migration — which has imported more than 9.3 million foreign nationals to the U.S. in the last decade — would be ended and confined to only spouses and the minor children of newly naturalized citizens. Another provision creates a temporary visa program for the parents of naturalized citizens that claims will come at no cost to American taxpayers.
The number of extended-family foreign nationals who have resettled in the U.S. in the last decade is greater than the total combined population of Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, and Cleveland, the White House has noted in a new ad campaign that seeks to explain and end chain migration.
In recent polling by Pulse Opinion Research, nearly 60 percent of Americans said they wanted to see an end to chain migration included in any deal that gives amnesty to the nearly 800,000 DACA illegal aliens.
Border Wall
The legislation fulfills Trump’s single most important campaign promise: The construction of a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The border wall has been stalled in the prototype stage for months now, but the Goodlatte bill would authorize the construction of the border wall while adding 5,000 new U.S. Border Patrol agents, as well as 5,000 new U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents.
During discussions this week at the White House, Trump told his DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen that he wanted the border wall built in a year and for less than the $18 billion the agency had estimated it would originally cost.
“There’s no reason for seven years, also,” Trump said as he looked and motioned at Nielsen. “I heard the other day, please don’t do that to me. Seven years to build a wall?! We can build the wall in one year.”
“Yes sir,” Nielsen responded.
More Immigration for Big Business Lobby
The most “unfortunate” part of Goodlatte’s legislation, according to Rosemary Jenks, is that it increases employment-based immigration by 45 percent. While ending the Diversity Visa Lottery program, whereby 50,000 foreign nationals are randomly allowed to come to the U.S. every year, the Goodlatte bill gives businesses 55,000 more foreign workers to import every year to take American jobs.
Additionally, the legislation creates an entirely new work visa program for the agricultural industry to keep wages low and outsource American jobs. The provision will likely allow for one million new low-skilled foreign nationals to be brought to the U.S. every year.
“It’s unfortunate for American agricultural workers, at the same time, a lot of jobs will open up for Americans in other fields because of mandatory E-Verify,” Jenks told Breitbart News. “This is all a balancing act. We’ve really struggled with this,” Jenks said of supporting the bill, despite its amnesty clause.
Due to these increases in immigration for the big business lobby, which has long lobbied for a continued flow of foreign nationals to the U.S., legal immigration levels would only be reduced from the more than one million immigrants who enter the country every year to about 800,000 a year.
This is not as significant of a cut in legal immigration levels to benefit Americans as other DACA-related bills have proposed, like one that reduces legal immigration to 500,000 immigrants a year.
But Jenks says that due to the mandatory E-Verify elements of the bill and security reforms that would further reduce illegal immigration, she believes legal immigration will reduce by more than 260,000 immigrants a year in eight to ten years.
Amnesty Backlash
Trump has been blasted in recent days by even his most ardent supporters for even considering an amnesty for DACA illegal aliens.
New York Times best-selling author and populist conservative columnist Ann Coulter, whose most recent book explained why Trump’s presidency was necessary for America’s working and middle class, slammed the president for his consideration of amnesty.
“This DACA lovefest confirms a main thesis of Michael Wolff’s book: When Bannon left. liberal Dems Jared, Ivanka, Cohn & Goldman Sachs took over,” Coulter wrote in a post.
Additionally, the parents and relatives of Americans who have been killed by illegal aliens, commonly referred to as “Angel Moms,” pleaded with Trump to keep his campaign promise and oppose all amnesties for illegal aliens.
Sabine Durden, an Angel Mom, whose son Dominic was murdered by an illegal alien, posted online a plea to Trump to stick to his pro-American immigration agenda.
A DACA amnesty would put more citizen children of illegal aliens — known as “anchor babies” — on federal welfare, as Breitbart News reported, while American taxpayers would be left with potentially a $26 billion bill.
Additionally, about one in five DACA illegal aliens, after an amnesty, would end up on food stamps, while at least one in seven would go on Medicaid.
At the southern border, a DACA amnesty has the potential to trigger a border surge that could triple the number of illegal aliens pouring through the border. Since DACA’s inception, more than 2,100 recipients of the program have been kicked off because they were found to either be criminals or gang members.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
