Response to Durbin's Amnesty Bill

By Nathan Inks

On October 18th Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which would allow the Secretary of Homeland Security to cancel the deportation of an illegal immigrant and change his/her status to that of a citizen, as long as the alien fulfills 6 requirements. (1) The alien must first have entered the U.S. before his or her 16th birthday and (2) must be under 30 years of age. (3) The immigrant cannot be inadmissible or deportable under the Immigration and Nationality Act. (4) He or she must have been admitted to an institution of higher education or has graduated from high school or received a GED. (5) The candidate must not have ever been deported. (6) Lastly, the immigrant must have “demonstrated good moral character.”

After the immigrant fulfills the above requirements, he or she will be placed on a conditional permanent resident status for 6 years. While under this conditional status, the immigrant must fulfill 5 more requirements: (1) continue to demonstrate “good moral character”; (2) continue to fulfill the above requirements; (3) continue residence in the U.S.; (4) receive a degree from an institution of higher learning or serve in the military for 2 years; and (5) list the high school(s) he or she attended. However, if the conditional status would cause “hardship” on the alien or his or her relatives living in the U.S., the Secretary may waive the college/armed forces part of the conditional status.

In addition to allowing for the changing of the alien’s status, this bill would force the Attorney General to not deport any illegal immigrant who is at least 12 years old and enrolled in a school, as long as he or she meets the first set of requirements.
Although the essentials of this bill have been introduced several times attached to other bills, the DREAM Act itself has never been introduced as a stand-alone bill. Fortunately, up to this point, none of the bills that this has been attached to have passed, but this does not reduce the amount of fear that this type of legislation instills in me.

Frankly, this bill scares me—it has gone past the traditional “Pay a fine and back taxes and you can stay” amnesty bills and says, “Get a GED and go to college and you’re good. Oh, and behave while you’re here too.” The bill has so many loopholes that it will be incredibly easy for illegal immigrants to become citizens without even having to follow the “intent” of the bill.
The first problem that I have with this bill is the ambiguity of the phrase “good moral character” which many have defined as not having a criminal record, but it does not say that (and I for one would like to know how somebody who illegally came into the country could possibly classify themselves as having “good moral character)”. The problem will come when some illegal alien challenges his drug charge because he personally thinks that drugs are not immoral. At first the judge tells him that he must still be high from the crack and the alien is taken off the list of people not to get deported, but the immigrant takes his case to the ACLU who gets one of their million-dollar lawyers to argue his case. The team winds up winning and sets a precedent that drug charges do not count against an immigrant as a violation of the “good moral character” clause. And this is the one of the least damaging hypothetical disasters that the country could endure because of this bill.

The second problem with this bill is that all the immigrant has to do to pass the first “phase” is to enroll in college and get a GED. So while Durbin wants the immigrant children to get an education, all they really have to do is study for and pass a test—nice plan Senator. Then again, at least this loophole would provide the taxpayers a break. I can envision it now: The ACLU sues a school because they refuse to teach a calculus class in Spanish, thus they are discriminating. They win their court case and schools are required to offer most classes in English and Spanish, and who knows what other languages may be added. How many high school calculus teachers did you know that could speak Spanish—not that many, right? So that means more teachers, and more teachers means more taxes.

Yet another problem that I have with this bill is that the alien can plead that he was unable to complete the requirement that he must receive at least a bachelor’s degree or serve 2 years in the armed forces because doing so would cause “hardship” on him or his family. So we have an immigrant who cannot get into college because he cannot afford it, so he says that he will enroll in the military. Trouble is, his mother does not want him to risk his life for the country that he is stealing tax payer money from, so he pleads his case saying that since he cannot afford college, his only option is the military, and this would cause “hardship” on his mother. Well who defines hardship? He wins his case, and is now a citizen of the U.S., finally paying taxes at least.
Perhaps the scariest situation would be avoided if the immigrants did not decide to plead “hardship” and began enlisting in our military. What is Senator Durbin thinking? He wants us to let a person with limited to no records who has only lived in the country for 5 years and received a GED or high school diploma into the military? Where is the national security in this? How can we do background checks on someone we know nothing about? In an age where the Chinese are hacking our Department of Defense network, is it really wise to allow illegal immigrants into our military? This would be the perfect opportunity for spies to infiltrate our military, and gain citizenship while doing it, assuming they do not get caught, unless Senator Durbin wants to add in a loophole to protect spies as well.

If this bill or any like it ever passes, it would be not only a disaster for the tax payers and the school systems, but it would also be a grave mistake in terms of our national security. And what I will never understand is why people defend these immigrants who are breaking the law. They are illegal immigrants. The word illegal seems to have lost its meaning to not only the general public, but also many of our Senators. If we want to stop this invasion and ultimate destruction of our country, we must take action and start deporting these aliens. Immigration is a great part of America, but we cannot allow for illegal immigration to run rampant and wild.