House Immigration ‘Principles’ Bad for All Americans

As was widely anticipated, House Majority Leader John Boehner released his immigration principles, an all-too tedious rehash of deceptive Gang of Eight talking points. Promises will be made but broken before the ink dries on President Obama’s signature, assuming bills reach his desk.

Boehner’s principles are depressingly predictable and overly familiar in their deceit and deception. In concert with Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, Boehner’s plan would, despite talk of “triggers,” grant amnesty before enforcement, increase the already unprecedented level of legal lesser-skilled immigration to the U.S. that has contributed to wage stagnation and helped put 20 million Americans on the unemployment line.

The so-called principles would also eventually provide the proverbial “path to citizenship” to a majority of the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants, thereby contributing to more damaging chain migration. To Boehner, by the way, they aren’t aliens or illegal immigrants. They are “individuals living outside the rule of law.”

In the meantime, according to Boehner, the aliens would have “provisional” or “probationary” legal status, possibly the biggest lie; once legal status is conferred, there’s no going back to being illegal.

Boehner didn’t speak to ending anchor baby citizenship, completing the fence between Mexico and the U.S., or eliminating many of the hurtful visas that add to population growth and serve little practical purpose. Among those Boehner could have targeted for elimination are the diversity and religious worker visas, and the now infamous “special talent” O visa that brought Justin Bieber from Canada to the U.S.

For 20 years, Americans have been lied to about immigration. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act was much like the Gang of Eight bill and Boehner’s principles – promises of enforcement that would never be fulfilled. Most Americans, especially those in the vanishing, struggling middle class, would gain nothing if Boehner’s principles were enacted.

But although the road ahead to defeat the House will be long and hard, it’s too early to despair. Principles aren’t bills. No final legislation has been drafted; no votes have been taken; and no single thing has been settled.

There’s still time to stall Boehner in his tracks. Go to the CAPS Action Alert page here to FAX Congress to tell your representative that amnesty is bad for all Americans.