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.
Folks on Capitol Hill spend a lot of time thinking up clever acronyms for their bills. In the case of the Equal Access to Green cards for Legal Employment (EAGLE) Act, the acronym is not only clever, but descriptive. Aside from being the symbol of our nation, the eagle is a predator known for raiding the nests of other birds and making off with their eggs and chicks – which is a perfect metaphor for H.R. 3648, sponsored by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).
With the turn of the calendar and the unofficial start of the 2024 campaign cycle, President Biden took two steps designed to quell the growing furor over his handling of the raging, self-inflicted border crisis.
President Biden, who came to office two years ago with some of the lowest levels of illegal immigration in modern history, largely ignored the historic border crisis he created by devoting only a few lines to it in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
In a Friday victory lap to show that their policies are working, the Biden administration revealed that there were 156,274 border encounters last month. The White House proudly noted that the new numbers reflect a sharp drop after the 251,978 illegal aliens encountered in December — which marked a record at the border.
America’s surging illegal alien population now costs U.S. taxpayers $151 billion a year. An exhaustive study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform finds that an estimated 15.5 million illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children consume about $182 billion a year in federal, state and local benefits and services, which are offset by only $31 billion in taxes paid. The net 2022 cost of illegal immigration represents a 30% increase over the 2017 cost of $116 billion.
Proving the adage that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, America’s policy of allowing unaccompanied alien children, known as UACs, who arrive at our border to enter and remain here is inflicting grievous harm on the children themselves and on communities across the country where they are placed.
In an alternative universe – otherwise known as Capitol Hill – the 8.9 million largely low- and unskilled, illegal migrants who have poured across our borders since President Biden took office is still not enough to satisfy the insatiable demands of the U.S. business lobby for low-wage labor. As legislators race to approve some funding mechanism to keep our federal government operating past 11:59 pm on Saturday, they have somehow managed to find the time and the chutzpah to champion provisions that will massively expand the number of temporary low-skilled guest workers that will be available to business interests.
Thirty-two months and nearly 9 million illegal border crossings (including “gotaways”) into President Biden’s term in office, his administration has finally acknowledged that there is a crisis at our border. On October 5, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it will waive 26 laws to “install additional physical barriers and roads (including the removal of obstacles to detection of illegal entrants) … to deter illegal crossings in areas of ‘high illegal entry’ into the United States”
Israel’s expected ground offensive in Gaza has yet to begin, but we are already hearing calls for the Biden administration to welcome Gaza residents to the United States using immigration parole authority. Doing so, in the midst of an already raging migration crisis, would be both illegal and ill-conceived.