Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Comprehensive Immigration Reform is a progressive, big government, liberal platform that will drive the economy toward a welfare entitlement state faster than anything else with the exception of Obamacare and maybe the stimulus/bailout programs if they don't end.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform/DREAM Act http://www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/cir/index.htm

1. Legalizing Undocumented Immigrants: An Essential Tool in Fighting Poverty http://www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/cir/ClrghsRvw-Nov-Dec2008.pdf

#11 on the Sargeant Shriver National Center on Poverty Law list of Anti-Poverty recommendations to the president-elect was the item "Legalize Immigrants" I have listened to this crap sandwich for more years than I care to count and I still have the burning question remaining: How is legalizing 12 Million people who are in this country in violation of standing law going to fix poverty? These people are deeply impoverished before they get here. They lower the national poverty level. They absorb public entitlements faster than a suction pump. They have more than tripled the burden on the welfare system. They are absorbing undeclared jobs at an alarming rate with no tax revenue coming in. The burden on the systems are massive from accommodating language, culture, medical needs to child care and crime control. Crime is a way of life in their country. They bring those issues here and we are supposed to just adapt? How is legalizing all this going to address poverty? It will have the opposite effect.

2. Pulling at a Thread: Anti-Immigrant Proposals Threaten Social Security Traditions. http://www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/cir/soc_sec_pullingthread_2008-01.pdf

[Ed. Note: This page starts out with a quote from, of all people, Thomas Paine. "It is not charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am pleading for." Typical liberal thinking. Take a quote such as this out of context, which is from his Ideas Of Cooperative Individualism and Agrarian Justice. Far from the liberal idealism of social bondage. Thomas Paine wrote in his Agrarian Justice the precursor of the ideas leading to retirement assurances. The similarities stop there. Paine advocated individualism. We would call that privatized retirement arrangements. The liberals use this as an excuse to point toward social justice and the governmental guarantee of retirement accounts. You will note that Obama believes that America wasn't great until the second Social Security Act in 1965 made it virtually illegal for an individual to plan his or her own retirement. IRAs, 401(k)s and all other retirements arrangements are so closely regulated, even after the belts were loosened after the Reagan deregulations, and he wants to not only return to full regulation of personal retirement he's considering the nationalization of the entire financial retirement industry. What has this to do with illegal immigration? Everything. It's the back door to regulating all personal finances. In the end, the government will legalize everyone who sets foot in America, assign each a house, a job, a pay scale, and essentially become each person's representative payee.]

3. Confiscating Contributions http://www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/cir/cir021.htm+

Proposals requiring legalized workers to forfeit Social Security credit for their prior work and tax contributions would impoverish future citizens, burden state and local governments, frustrate efforts to correct Social Security records, and undermine immigration reform.

[Ed. Note: Tax contributions are a minimal concern. See my note below. Confiscating contributions would not impoverish anyone. They come here impoverished and do little to rectify the situation. There is a higher incidence of crime, school dropouts, unemployment, welfare, and a higher burden on society with illegal immigrants than with any other group. The only way they could burden state and local governments is through the huge pit of entitlement payments. They frustrate efforts to correct Social Security records because the government incorrectly insists upon issuing Social Security Credit. This undermines immigration reform because immigration has never worked and will not work now or in the future.]

4. Proposal to Strip Workers of Social Security Earnings Based on Prior Employment Status http://www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/cir/ensign_ss_amdmt_2007-02-28.pdf

Bad for the System and an Affront to Our Values -

Under current law, undocumented immigrants are ineligible for Social Security benefits. However, the majority of undocumented immigrants pay taxes — including payroll taxes — for years while they work to support our economy. Current law enables immigrants who later obtain legal status to be credited for work they in fact performed.

[Ed. Note: After preparing taxes for several years professionally, I can attest that this statement is false. I can count on both hands the number of Taxpayer ID numbers I issued. Most of those were issued to Non-Resident students who were working and studying here. Comprehensive Immigration Reform and Obama's DREAM Act are one in the same project. Amnesty. Pure and simple. Not only amnesty, but this goes farther than any amnesty bill has ever gone before. Illegal immigrants are supposed to file income taxes. The IRS doesn't check immigration status, in fact, they will issue a Taxpayer's ID number that looks just like a Social Security Number. Under this bill, there will be full forgiveness for non-compliance with tax law and no retroactive prosecution for tax evasion. It gives every illegal retroactive legal status with full Social Security credit (how would they prove that?), full permanent resident legal immigrant status, full rights to everything every non-citizen has rights to.

The conservative amendment: An amendment offered by Senator John Ensign (R-NV) to the Senate’s 2006 comprehensive immigration reform bill, and one likely to be offered again in 2007, is designed to prevent citizens and lawfully present immigrant workers from claiming Social Security based on earnings credited before they were authorized to work in the United States. This restriction would apply to any person who applies for a Social Security number (SSN) in the future, even after the person becomes a U.S. citizen, no matter how long he or she has worked in the U.S. and paid Social Security taxes into the system.

[Ed. Note: It should be noted that this comprehensive immigration reform, although in congress nearly every year in one form or another since the middle '80s didn't take off in its present strength until the liberals took congress under Pelosi and Reid in '06. Even under the Democrat controlled congress in the late '80s and early '90s it wasn't this strong.]

I know the liberals will argue every point. Fine. The only way to argue the core of the points is to agree with the parent site and all sites linked from it. Either believe the points and accept the DREAM Act, or disbelieve it for your own reasons. You are for it or against it. If you are for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, then you will have to admit you are for a progressive, even socialist program. It is that black and white.