Senate GOP Looks Set to Embrace Amnesty

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Mike Flynn @ Breitbart:

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee began its mark-up of the Gang of 8’s immigration legislation, considering more than 300 amendments filed on the bill. Supporters of the Gang’s amnesty legislation have a working 12-6 majority on the committee, ensuring that most Republican amendments to strengthen the bill will be rejected. In a telling first vote, however, two GOP Senators joined GOP “Gang” members and all committee Democrats to pass, by a vote of 14-4, a substitute amendment to the bill. It was a clear sign that the eventual bill will attract significant GOP support, absent a public outcry.

The first amendment offered on the “Gang” bill was a “managers’ amendment” offered by lead sponsor NY Sen. Chuck Schumer. The amendment made a number of technical changes to the bill and effectively replaced the existing nearly 900 page proposal. The language was first unveiled last week. Sens. Cornyn and Hatch joined Gang members Graham and Flake and all committee Democrats to pass the substitute.

Schumer’s amendment went beyond technical changes, however. It added almost 30 pages of legislative language to the proposal. It even created a new class of visa, allowing former immigrants on agricultural work visas who returned to their home country to immediately apply for legal status in the US. This isn’t a provision to bring illegal immigrants “out of the shadows,” but rather provides an entirely new stream of migration back into the US. The votes by Sens. Cornyn and Hatch to support the substitute suggest that a large number of Republican Senators will eventually support the Gang’s amnesty legislation.

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More reasons to call your Senators and Representatives to nix this immigration bill:

Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform

This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet. Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in.

“It starts to change the relationship between the citizen and state, you do have to get permission to do things,” said Chris Calabrese, a congressional lobbyist with the American Civil Liberties Union. “More fundamentally, it could be the start of keeping a record of all things.”

For now, the legislation allows the database to be used solely for employment purposes. But historically such limitations don’t last. The Social Security card, for example, was created to track your government retirement benefits. Now you need it to purchase health insurance.

“The Social Security number itself, it’s pretty ubiquitous in your life,” Calabrese said.

David Bier, an analyst with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, agrees with the ACLU’s fears.

“The most worrying aspect is that this creates a principle of permission basically to do certain activities and it can be used to restrict activities,” he said. “It’s like a national ID system without the card.”

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