Senate Votes Today on Corker-Hoeven Amnesty; Amendment fails to live up to supporters' claims
The "process" used to rush the Corker-Hoeven amendment to the Senate floor exemplifies everything that is wrong with Congress and why the American people have lost faith in their leaders. Even Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Bob Woodward criticized this latest process, telling Fox New Sunday: "You can't have a Congress that is kind of going around picking this and picking that and that fails and that fails and this fails... when you pass complicated legislation and no one has really read the bill... the outcome is absurd."
The 1,200-page Corker-Hoeven amendment was drafted behind closed doors with a few of the provisions added by hand in the minutes leading up to its official introduction on Friday night. With Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announcing that he would schedule the vote for 5:30 p.m. today, moments before adjourning the Senate for the weekend, it became obvious that this would not be an open process contrary to the words of Gang of Eight front-man Sen. Marco Rubio.
"I write to express my strong belief that the success of any major legislation depends on the acceptance and support of the American people. That support can only be earned through full and careful consideration of legislative language and an open process of amendments."
-- Sen. Marco Rubio, Letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, April 1, 2013
How U.S. Senators are supposed to carefully consider a lengthy amendment and earn the trust of their constituents is beyond me. Especially when the actual amendment contradicts what its supporters have been saying all along.
"It is $3.2 billion worth of technology, planes, unmanned aircraft, sensors--all on the border, spelled out in this legislation--that ensures we have a secure border. That must be met before there are any green cards, and that is where we start..."
-Sen. Hoeven, Senate Floor, June 21, 2013
Senators Corker, Hoeven, Ayotte, and Rubio have loved to talk about this so-called "border surge" that includes the hiring of 20,000 border patrol agents and billions of dollars of equipment. But in their floor speeches, they leave out a key clause printed on page 30 of the Corker-Hoeven amendment.
If the Secretary determines that an alternate or new technology is at least as effective as the technologies described in paragraph (3) and provides a commensurate level of security, the Secretary may deploy that technology in its place and without regard to the minimums in this section.
So, in the end, the DHS Secretary can do whatever he/she wants. One must wonder if Sen. Rubio regrets making this statement about the amendment on Thursday:
"We do not just say you have to deploy this technology, we tell you where you have to deploy it. We do not even leave that to DHS."
-- Sen. Rubio, Senate floor, June 20, 2013
The amendment's supporters have also boasted about how it will require construction of 700 miles of border fencing (as already required under current law).
"700 miles of fencing on the border. These are things Republicans have repeatedly asked for as part of securing the border. We have put them right in the bill."
-- Sen. Hoeven, Senate floor, June 21, 2013
"We actually say that, where it is possible, where the terrain allows it--there are places where the terrain does not let you build a fence, but where the terrain allows it, you have to put a fence there."
-- Sen. Rubio, Senate floor, June 20, 2013
Except, once again, the DHS Secretary doesn't have to build one inch of fencing if she doesn't want to. This exit clause it printed on page 30.
Notwithstanding paragraph (1), nothing in this subsection shall require the Secretary to install fencing, or infrastructure that directly results from the installation of such fencing, in a particular location along the Southern border, if the Secretary determines that the use or placement of such resources is not the most appropriate means to achieve and maintain effective control over the Southern border at such location.
Furthermore, the amendment includes Schumer's stand-alone amendment that creates a new, permanent rolling amnesty. This would allow future illegal aliens who have overstayed their visas to apply for a green card as long as they have worked legally in the United States for at least 10 years before overstaying their visa. It's amnesty now and forever!
There are two other things we know for sure about the Corker-Hoeven amendment. First, the bill will grant legal status and work permits to 11 million illegal aliens before any enforcement kicks in. Second, it will issue 22 million green cards to new legal immigrants in the first decade.
That means, as the CBO reported earlier this week, unemployment will go up and wages for American workers will decline under S.744 - regardless of Corker-Hoeven.
CHRIS CHMIELENSKI is the Director of Content & Activism for NumbersUSA