The Gang of Eight illegal immigration Amnesty Bill’s Big Lie

Among the many misrepresentations, falsehoods, deceptions, and outright lies told by supporters of the Gang of Eight bill, the biggest involve border security.

Put simply, there is no border security in the bill. It’s a mirage. The bill only requires the DHS secretary to present a plan to secure the border. Meanwhile, the amnesty for 11 million illegal immigrants isn’t merely a plan, it’s a reality.

The bill’s various border-security “triggers” are little more than “boob bait for the bubbas,” providing no guarantees whatsoever that any steps will be taken to secure the border. In fact, the enforcement mechanisms are far weaker than the security requirements in previous immigration bills. The border promises to be an even bigger sieve a.fter passage of the bill than before.

By Peter Kirsanow
May 27, 2013 9:04 AM
national review

Consider: The Secure Fence Act of 2006 mandated that the DHS secretary “achieve and maintain operational control over the entire land and maritime border of the United States.” The law directed DHS to install 700 miles of double-layer fencing along the 1,930-mile southern border to keep out “terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics and other terrorism.” By 2011, only 36.3 miles of fencing had been erected, yet President Obama declared that border security is “now basically complete.”

The administration’s contention that 36.3 miles of fencing along a 1,930-mile bolder renders the border secure is bad enough. But under the Gang of Eight bill it gets worse. The bill’s border-security metrics are so nebulous and invest so much discretion in the DHS secretary as to be utterly meaningless. As Senator Ted Cruz told Secretary Janet Napolitano during the April 22 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the bill, “Madame Secretary, it seems to me that if border security is to be measured by an amorphous, multifactor subjective test, that this Committee knows to a metaphysical certainty that DHS will conclude that border security is satisfied.”

Exactly right.

The bill, after amendments, is now over 1,000 pages long. They could’ve easily reduced it to just a single page with one word: “Amnesty.”