Amnesty Is Not Infrastructure

August 2, 2021 5 min read Download Report

Authors: Lora Ries, Mark Morgan and Mike Howell

Summary

The $1.2 trillion bipartisan “infrastructure” deal merely paves the road for Democrats to pass the largest amnesty for illegal aliens in American history. Even absent this planned societal transformation, the bill is bad policy, as it is not focused on actual “hard” infrastructure. Congress should pump the brakes on this wasteful infrastructure package that will ensure amnesty for up to 22 million illegal aliens and put an end to the historic Biden border crisis.

Key Takeaways

While the nation is in the midst of a purposefully created and worsening border crisis, the Senate is laser focused on quickly passing a radical infrastructure bill.

Democrats have tied the leftist, so-called infrastructure package to mass amnesty for illegal aliens via budget reconciliation.

Congress should pump the brakes on the wasteful infrastructure package that will set the stage for amnesty and put an end to the historic Biden border crisis.

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The Issue

Senate Democrats have said that a bipartisan infrastructure deal is a condition for passing a reconciliation bill that includes mass amnesty.“We have to have total agreement on both before we move either, ”Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY)declared.“[I]f a bipartisan infrastructure bill falls apart, everything could fall apart,”said Joe Manchin (WV).

House Democrats, on the other hand, say that reconciliation must happen before they will move a bipartisan infrastructure bill. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA) said:“We will not take up the infrastructure bill until the Senate passes the reconciliation measure.”With amnesty and infrastructure inextricably linked, the Senate should not proceed with the infrastructure bill.

By passing a bipartisan infrastructure bill, the prospects of successful passage of the reconciliation bill, which only requires a simple majority vote, increase drastically. Agreeing to this wasteful bill removes leverage for reconciliation negotiations and deducts more than a trillion dollars in costs from the reconciliation bill, thereby making it easier to pass.

Radical and Dangerous: The U.S. Citizenship Act

Congress should be doing everything in its power to stop this historic Biden border crisis, not making it worse by offering a reward for illegal border crossing.

The nation isin the midst ofthe purposefully created and worsening Biden border crisis. Already this year, more than one million illegal aliens have been apprehended, many of whom have been released into the country under unlawful “catch and release” policies.

Untold more have been able to evade apprehension while the Border Patrol is devoting resources to processing and transporting illegal aliens into the interior of the country.

The White House has called on Congress to include the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, the most radical immigration bill ever introduced, in a reconciliation package.

The act would grant amnesty to virtually every illegal alien in the country, estimates of which range from 11 million to 22 million. It also includes measures that encourage asylum fraud, increase all types of legal immigration, and erase the line between illegal and legal immigration.

The act is primarily an electoral strategy for leftists who believe that it will result in more favorable voter demographics to quickly flip red states to blue states.

No Focus on Actual Infrastructure

Even absent the planned radical transformations, the “infrastructure” bill is bad policy that is not focused on actual infrastructure.

Yet, before the text of the bill has even been released, 17 Republican Senators have already agreed to advance the $1.2 trillion bill.

Disclosed parameters of the legislation demonstrate that it is an infrastructure-in-name-only package packed with Amtrak earmarks, leftist climate-change funding, and subsidies for electric vehicles.

Wasteful spending of this magnitude will only make recent inflation spikes worse.

Congress should pump the brakes on the wasteful infrastructure package that will set the stage for amnesty and put an end to the historic Biden border crisis.