Obama says DREAM Act hasn’t changed since Republicans supported it, only politics has
Roy Beck, president and founder of Numbers USA, which advocates for the interests of American workers in immigration legislation, acknowledged that changes to the law over time addressed "loopholes."
"I think it’s correct there were some improvements in that area," he said.
But Beck also noted that the original version of the bill set the age cap at 21. It was raised to 35 in subsequent years, then lowered back to 30.
"The age limit has varied quite a bit, and that’s not small," Beck said. "How many people are you going to be adding to the workforce to compete with Americans?"
Said Beck: "They have changed their mind on some of these things, but good for them."
He argues that the economic downturn was the driving force for many Republicans’ change of heart.
In 2001, "we we didn’t have 20 million Americans who were unemployed or forced into part-time work," Beck said. "I think through the years as the numbers got larger, they became aware of how out of sync an amnesty like this is with high unemployment."