Reid: Reward Lawbreakers or I’ll Shutdown Government

By Joe Guzzardi
September 12, 2014

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is threatening that unless illegal immigrants get a presidential amnesty, he’ll force a government shutdown. You read that correctly. To avoid a federal closure, Reid wants all those who entered the United States illegally, overstayed their visas or defrauded immigration authorities to get work permits, photo IDs and social security numbers. If they don’t, then Reid will penalize millions of taxpaying, law abiding Americans.

Here’s the back story. Just before Congress left on its August recess, the House passed two immigration bills. The first one provided less funding for the Central American border surge than President Obama and Senate Democrats wanted. The second, and more significant bill, would block Obama from issuing future executive orders that would remove aliens from deportation. Republicans persuasively argue that Obama’s 2012 deferred action for so called childhood arrivals precipitated this summer’s border crisis. Led by Ted Cruz and Jeff Sessions, Senate Republicans are demanding a vote on the bill that insures Obama doesn’t proceed with more amnesties issued by fiat. If Reid allows a vote, however, it would force incumbents to go on the record before the November mid-term election. As Senator Cruz said: “Senators who support amnesty, or those here illegally, let them look in the eyes of their constituents before Election Day, and say, ‘this is what I support, you let me know if you agree or not.’”

Although Obama has waffled on his spring vow to give administrative amnesty to at least 5 million illegal immigrants, the debate between the House and the Senate over how much authority the White House may have is intensifying. For that reason, as well as whether such a maneuver would kill the probability of an eventual congressional compromise, Republicans and some Democrats have urged Obama to abandon his idea altogether. Obama has suggested that he would merely delay and not, as he’s pledged, act before November. Since Americans overwhelmingly reject Obama’s immigration-related job performance even the promise of executive amnesty could lead to defeat for enough Senate Democrats to turn control of the upper chamber to the GOP. If Republicans have the majority in both chambers, the probability of an expansive immigration reform bill passing in the 114^th Congress likely drops precipitously.

For Americans, the immigration stakes are high. Harvard Professor George Borjas, a leading immigration scholar, estimates that having had to compete with the 30 million temporary and largely unskilled workers as well as the new permanent residents who have come to the U.S. since 2000 has cost American workers $400 billion in lost wages. Add to Borjas’ conclusion the discouraging data from Bureau of Labor Statistics which reported that in August the economy created only 142,000 new jobs, many of them low-paying and in the temporary sector. With 92 million Americans not in the labor force and the 62.8 percent participation rate at its lowest level in 36 years no one, least of all a blustering Reid, can make a convincing case that the U.S. needs more workers.

When asked about an Obama amnesty, Reid replied that he hopes the president “goes real big.” Reid is callously indifferent to American worker displacement and the stagnant wages of those lucky enough to still have a job.

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Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow whose columns have been nationally syndicated since 1987. Contact him at [email protected]