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The high cost of executive amnesty
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Barack Obama has announced the particulars of his executive amnesty for an estimated five million of the many more foreigners who broke our laws to get into the United States. This amnesty will, of course, become a magnet for more illegals to work the same racket, hoping for the same reward.

Obama’s action makes us wonder if he really wants to terminate the rule of law and replace it with rule by executive fiat. His executive action gives the lawbreakers exactly what they sought when they violated our laws.

Thanks to a New York Times expose, we know that details of this grab for extremist executive power were developed in tightest secrecy by a small group headed by Jeh C. Johnson, Secretary of Homeland Security.

Our burdened middle class, already losing jobs to cheap labor waiting “in the shadows,” will now be faced with competition from poorer, hungrier newcomers. Their children will be crowded into our public schools carrying diseases not before known in the U.S. such as EV-D68, a polio-like virus.

We should build the border fence that was voted for by Congress years ago and signed into law by President George W. Bush in front of TV cameras. The fence should be designed not only to keep out illegals, but for the humanitarian purpose of keeping those travelers away from long stretches of desert that are death traps because of bandits and lack of water.

Obama’s executive amnesty will not only save the illegals from deportation, but will make them full participants in our taxpayer-subsidized Social Security and Medicare systems. White House spokesman Shawn Turner confirmed that “if they pay in, they can draw.”

Robert Shapiro, who had been a Clinton adviser, admitted that the recipients of Obama’s amnesty will draw more money out of the system than they contribute, like other Social Security recipients who work low-paying jobs. Heritage Foundation poverty expert Robert Rector predicts that Obama’s executive amnesty for $4 million will cost U.S. taxpayers $2 trillion, i.e., total benefits minus what the illegals pay based on expected earnings of an individual with the typical illegal’s level of education.

The minute Obama’s executive amnesty goes into effect, tens of thousands of American workers will be in jeopardy of losing their jobs. Obama’s executive amnesty gives employers a significant financial incentive to lay off Americans and hire an illegal whom Obama has just made a legal resident.

Here’s the way this scheme works. Current law states that all employers of 50 or more employees must provide Obamacare health coverage for their employees or pay a fine of $3,000 a year per employee.

But employers are forbidden to provide Obamacare coverage for the new illegals just admitted by Obama. That gives employers a $3,000-per-employee incentive to hire illegal aliens rather than native-born workers.

As Dick Morris said, “It will be a great line to feature on your resume: you came here illegally but are not eligible for Obamacare.” That should put illegals at the head of the line of job applicants.

As Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) commented, Obama’s amnesty gives employers a $3,000-per-employee incentive to hire illegals. He “just moved those who came here illegally to the front of the line, ahead of unemployed and underemployed Americans.”

I didn’t make up this nonsense. It was confirmed by a Department of Homeland Security official, and the White House declined to comment. We certainly hope the new Republican Congress will show some fight to protect middle-class jobs against this $3,000-per-employee incentive for businesses to hire illegal aliens rather than native-born workers.

The Congressional Research Service advises us that Congress has the power to defund President Obama’s executive amnesty. A report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, Congress’s research arm, states: “In light of Congress’s constitutional power over the purse, the Supreme Court has recognized that “Congress may always circumscribe agency discretion to allocate resources by putting restrictions in the operative statutes.”

According to the Census Bureau, out of 8 million new jobs created since 2008, 6 million have gone to people who are not native-born American citizens. They won’t immediately cash in on all federal welfare handouts, but you can bet they will eventually get them.

Any “path to citizenship” is an open invitation to another amnesty. There is no such thing as a one-time amnesty, as was proved by Ronald Reagan’s amnesty. 

Phyllis Schlafly is a lawyer, conservative political analyst and author of 20 books. She is the co-author, with George Neumayr, of the New York Times Best-Seller titled “No Higher Power: Obama’s War on Religious Freedom.” She can be contacted by e-mail at phyllis@eagleforum.org. To find out more about Phyllis Schlafly and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Website at www.creators.com.