Talking Points: Amnesty
1. Amnesty is not immigration reform.
- It will not solve the problem once and for all.
- The 1986 amnesty granted legal status to three million illegal aliens, and today, the estimated illegal
- alien population has quadrupled to about 11-12 million.
- The 1986 amnesty did not stop illegal immigration; it encouraged more illegal immigration.
2. Amnesty does nothing to secure the borders.
- The Department of Homeland Security does not have an official metric for determining whether the borders are secure.
- Granting amnesty will not only fail to secure the border, it will make securing the borders harder as a wave of illegal aliens flood the border hoping to partake in the new amnesty.
3. Granting Amnesty to illegal aliens undermines the rule of law.
- It rewards law breaking and is inherently unfair to individuals all over the world who are patiently waiting in line to come to the U.S. legally.
4. Amnesty hurts American workers.
- It will increase competition for scarce jobs.
- Adding millions of illegal aliens to the workforce will exacerbate the depressed labor market, depress wages, and make it more difficult for the 20 million unemployed/underemployed U.S. citizens and legal immigrants to find employment.
5. Amnesty hurts the American taxpayer.
- A 2013 Heritage Foundation study found that amnesty would cost U.S. taxpayers at least $6.3 trillion over the next 50 years.
- The cost of amnesty will be significantly greater given the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, which makes newly amnestied aliens eligible for subsidized health care.
6. Granting amnesty will not grow the U.S. economy.
- It will do nothing to increase the number of individuals paying into the economy, and will only increase the number of individuals eligible for government assistance.
- Amnestied aliens will continue to work in unskilled jobs, will not be net taxpayers, and will continue to send money back to their country of origin in the form of remittances instead of spending it on the U.S. economy.
- Amnesty may slightly increase the wages of illegal aliens who were paid less than minimum wage, but Americans will be forced to pay taxes to subsidize these newly legalized aliens, who may be immediately eligible for many state and local benefits, and later for federal benefits.
7. Granting amnesty endangers national security.
- Granting amnesty to approximately 11-12 million illegal aliens through a process that will overwhelm our immigration agencies is an invitation to fraud.
- It also invites terrorists to sneak through the system and get documents and passports while ensuring that ordinary criminals stay underground.