Paving the Road to Amnesty

By Zach Swartz | December 2009 | View the Full Report (PDF)

Executive Summary

After winning the 2008 election, President Obama has surrounded himself with individuals who support granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens living in the United States. Over the past year, members of the Obama administration — including the President himself — have repeatedly made clear their support for and intention to push amnesty legislation through Congress. Previous debates over amnesty legislation have revealed overwhelming public opposition to any type of plan to legalize the illegal alien population. Knowing this, the Obama administration will likely attempt to make their amnesty proposal more palatable to the American people by tying the legislation to empty promises of immigration enforcement.

The Obama administration’s record on enforcement thus far, however, tells the American people everything they need to know about the administration’s commitment to immigration enforcement. In less than one year, President Obama has undermined nearly every enforcement measure available to him, including:

• Delaying — on three separate occasions — a requirement that federal contractors use the federal E-Verify system to ensure that their employees are legally authorized to work in the United States and not illegal aliens;
• Gutting worksite enforcement operations by allowing illegal aliens to remain in the workforce to compete with American citizens and legal immigrants for jobs;
• Undermining the 287(g) program, which allows federal officials to train state and local law enforcement agencies in the enforcement of federal immigration laws, by forcing agencies who participate in the program to focus on removing “dangerous criminal” aliens, as opposed to all illegal aliens;
• Failing to utilize the National Guard to secure our porous borders; 
• Advocating passage of the PASS ID Act, legislation that would gut uniform security requirements for State-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards and re-establish many of the security and immigration loopholes that allowed the 9/11 hijackers to carry out the attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center; and
• Altering the immigration detention system in such a way that will almost certainly lead to an increase in the number of illegal aliens who abscond after apprehension.

Accordingly, the Obama administration has not only failed to effectively secure America’s borders and enforce immigration laws, but has also taken affirmative steps to disable enforcement. All of this administration’s efforts are geared toward allowing illegal aliens to live, work, and collect public benefits as the administration seeks the political opportunity to formally legalize their status in the United States.