Comprehensive Immigration Reform = Comprehensive Betrayal

The United States' immigration laws were enacted to protect innocent lives and the jobs of American workers. The Senate's immigration bill, S. 744, would provide many more opportunities for aliens whose true identities are unknown and unknowable to obtain lawful status and official identity documents even though there is no meaningful way to determine if they are providing their true names or birth countries.

When aliens provide false information about material facts in their applications for visas or immigration benefits such as acquiring lawful immigrant status or U. S. citizenship, they are committing fraud. Fraud can be thought of as being a lie put on paper to provide the liar with a benefit to which he  would not be entitled if all of the actual facts were known by the decision making authorities.

The 9/11 Commission identified fraud as the preferred method for the majority of terrorists the Commission identified as operating in the U. S. in the decade leading up to the September 11 attacks. Such fraud has also played a major role in enabling subsequent terrorists to enter the U. S. and embed themselves in the United States, yet S. 744 would make it far more difficult for aliens who commit fraud to be prosecuted for their crimes.

Under S. 744, an alien could only be prosecuted for committing most forms of fraud if they did so at least three times. This would include those who alter or produce counterfeit identity documents such as U.S. passports.

By comparison, today such fraud can be prosecuted if an alien commits fraud once. While there is a provision in S. 744 that would enable aliens who are proven to be involved in terrorism to be prosecuted for one such instance of fraud, this would mean that any suspected terrorist would be alerted to the fact that he is known to U.S. government agencies as being a terrorist.

This could easily compromise an investigation into an ongoing terrorist plot. The obvious question is “Why?” Why would the “Gang of Eight,” the bill's original authors, be so hell-bent on providing illegal aliens with lawful status that they would be willing to undermine national security in addition to providing unfair competition for struggling American workers and their families.

This certainly creates one of many “How dare you!” issues with which those in the Senate who voted for this legislative detritus need to be confronted.

S. 744 would also provide millions of illegal aliens with equal standing in an over-flowing labor pool of unemployed American and lawful immigrant employees who are desperate to find decent jobs with which they can support themselves and their families.

Additionally, S. 744 would provide many more high-tech foreign workers with the ability to legally work in the United States, even as American and lawful immigrant high-tech workers are finding it increasingly difficult to find jobs in their chosen professions for which they have the education and experience.

The July 19, 2013 Economic Times published an article entitled: 'New US immigration bill to benefit Indian skilled workers'

Here's an excerpt from that article:

"The Senate bill that has been the subject of discussion in India, has provisions that very much benefit Indian workers seeking employment in the United States. The bill will nearly triple the number of H-1B workers by a considerable amount," the official said.

"Since the largest share of H-1B workers is from India, we anticipate that the expansion of the program would certainly benefit many skilled Indian workers."

In 2007 the Programmers Guild posted an infuriating video, covertly made, of lawyers coaching other lawyers in the ways of gaming the immigration system to not find American workers.

There's nothing in S. 744 that eliminates fraud. Instead, the bill aids and abets fraud which in turn  betrays the immigration system's integrity as well as national security and the American Dream for millions of beleaguered American workers and their families.