It’s no secret that the Social Security program faces a very real threat of running out of money. Thanks to impressive advancements in the medical world, the ratio of workers to retirees is now decreasing too quickly, and the future availability of retirement funds for millions of Americans is in serious doubt. Internal agency assessments predict that the program’s trust fund reserves will be completely depleted by 2034 unless significant reforms are enacted before then.
Of course, many open-border advocates use this as an opportunity to call for more mass-immigration, including amnesty for millions of illegal aliens, to immediately boost the number of workers in the United States.
Only in the stagnant swamps of Washington, DC, could a public policy with the word “temporary” in its title gain a sense of permanence, but that is exactly what has happened to Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
TPS was a benevolent policy enacted in 1990 to provide temporary safe haven to those who were visiting or temporarily living in the United States – such as tourists or students – when civil strife or a natural disaster suddenly struck back home, making their immediate return either very difficult or dangerous.
After both parties received, at best, C-minus grades from voters in the midterm elections, a lame-duck Congress will reconvene next week to take care of unfinished business. By far, the most important matter for Congress to address is funding the government for the remainder of the fiscal year — a formidable task in itself. But it will be hard to resist the temptation to sneak in legislation on a few unpopular pet issues now that members are no longer accountable to voters.
Proponents of unchecked immigration have a long history of labeling anyone and everyone who advocates for limits on immigration and for the rule of law. In the early 2000s, it began with the Southern Poverty Law Center labeling just about every organization calling for reducing immigration or enforcing immigration laws as “hate groups.”