7 Reasons Obama’s Amnesty For Under 30 Illegals Is Terrible Policy

7 Reasons Obama’s Amnesty For Under 30 Illegals Is Terrible Policy
By John Hawkins
6/22/2012

1) It's illegal: Since there are currently no work permits for illegal aliens, handing them out would require a change in the existing law. If this were a dictatorship like North Korea or Cuba, Dear Leader Barack Obama could simply issue a decree and change the law. Here in America we're a republic which means that he unquestionably, uncontroversially cannot issue work permits for illegal aliens without a bill passing through Congress. His attempt to do so may seem like a small matter to some people, but it sets an extremely dangerous precedent that undermines democracy in our country.

2) Refusing to enforce the existing law sets a terrible precedent: As Obama himself has admitted, he "swore an oath to uphold the laws on the books." He is breaking that oath to try to give amnesty to illegals. Imagine the chaos that will reign if this becomes standard practice. Suppose Mitt Romney wins. Could he end the death tax or corporate taxes by telling the IRS not to enforce them? What about putting an end to hate crime laws or the endangered species act by simple choosing not to enforce them? This is the can of worms Barack Obama is ripping wide open with his imperial decree.

3) This is a temporary solution designed to be a permanent fix: Barack Obama is asking illegal aliens to sign up and apply for work permits. However, since his policy doesn't have the force of law behind it, if Mitt Romney's elected, he could hand those same applications to ICE for use in tracking down illegals to be deported. In fact, that's exactly what Mitt Romney should do (Good luck with getting him to do it) since illegal aliens are by definition breaking the law and the penalty is deportation. In any case, the American people and businesses cannot effectively make long-term decisions based on important policies that can change the second a new party gets into power. Replacing laws with illegal presidential decrees creates instability and unreliability that makes for bad policy that helps paralyze the country.

4) There is no realistic way to verify the program: Illegals often use phony names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and documents. The whole idea that the government can reliably verify the documentation from hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people like this to prove they were here before they were 16, have graduated from high school, haven't broken any laws, have lived here five years, and are under 30 is absolutely laughable. What will inevitably happen is that the bureaucrats handling it will quickly conclude that it's futile to try to sort through this mess. They'll also have to face legal challenges for people who are denied and so they will just rubber stamp every application that doesn't have egregious errors in it. In other words, this process has no realistic hope of success before it even begins unless you define "success" as simply allowing just about every illegal who puts in an application to stay in the United States.

5) Billing this as a way to help children is a dodge: First of all, thirty year olds are not children. They're adults and if they're eligible for this program, it means they're adults who've been knowingly breaking this country's laws for 12 years. Someone like that is not worthy to receive American citizenship in the first place. Oh, but what about the real children who will be helped by this program? What about a 14 year old who was brought here five years ago by her parents? Well, can't you see the obvious set-up here? What happens when the 14 year old's parents are caught? Then, when the law is enforced, people will claim we're "breaking up families." Of course, that's a dumb argument we don't apply to other criminals. After all, putting burglars (who have kids) in jail breaks up families, too. Still, this policy is designed from the get-go by proponents of illegal immigration whose ultimate goal is to allow even more illegals to stay here.

6) This will encourage illegal immigration: If you can pass for 30 years old or younger and you've ever considered coming to America illegally, now is the time. All you have to do is get here, get some phony documentation, and chances are you'll get to stay in the country indefinitely with a work permit. There are undoubtedly tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of illegals on the way here to take advantage of Obama's stupidity. Moreover, what's the long term message we're sending with this program? It tells legal immigrants that they're complete morons for being dumb enough to obey our laws and it tells illegals that despite all the tough talk, if they break our laws for a long enough period of time, eventually our politicians will come along and reward them for it.

7) Americans will lose jobs: We have an unemployment rate that's over 8% and the economy seems to be stalling out again. In a rational world, we would probably dramatically slow down the number of legal immigrants we're allowing to come here in order to give our soft economy more time to absorb already unemployed Americans. Instead, Barack Obama wants to give hundreds of thousands, if not millions of illegal immigrants work permits so they can take jobs that would otherwise go to Americans. Whatever happened to putting Americans first?
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To read another article by John Hawkins, click here.