The Democratic Party took another step toward the goal of creating a permanent governing majority in the United States on Tuesday, as President Joe Biden announced a mass amnesty for more than half-a-million illegal immigrants — a move one U.S. senator said aims “to make certain that Democrats are in charge for the rest of our lifetimes.”
Biden’s executive action would grant any illegal immigrant married to a U.S. citizen and resident in the U.S. for at least 10 years the privilege of “Parole in Place” (PIP) — remaining in the United States rather than facing deportation, as required by federal law. It then puts them on a path to citizenship. They can also receive a green card during the three years in which they may apply for lawful permanent resident status, allowing them to take jobs in the U.S. economy legally. Current law already allows the spouses of American citizens to apply for citizenship, but they must return to their home country while completing the process. Tuesday’s action applies to an estimated 500,000 adults, as well as 50,000 stepchildren under the age of 21 living with American citizens.
It is not clear how many illegal immigrants who identify as homosexual and contracted a legal same-sex marriage with a U.S. citizen would benefit from the program.
The latest action proves that Biden “will defy the Supreme Court. He will defy Congress. He will defy the rule of law,” said Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Monday. “He’s going to do it and wait for somebody to challenge him. … You cannot execute an immigration law change without coming to Congress.”
Experts say Biden has no constitutional authority to unilaterally confer citizenship, and the move also violates statutory law. Under section 212(d)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, “Parole in Place” has only been recognized for the immediate relatives of enlisted soldiers or veterans.
“Rather than stopping the worst border crisis in history, President Biden has overreached his executive authority to use an unconstitutional process, circumventing voters and their elected representatives in Congress, to send a message that amnesty is available to those who enter illegally into the United States,” said James Massa, CEO of the immigration watchdog group NumbersUSA, in a statement emailed to The Washington Stand. “The action is unconstitutional. The timing is unconscionable.”
Biden’s executive amnesty announcement came 12 years to the day that President Barack Obama instituted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. After Congress refused to pass the DREAM Act, which would have provided amnesty for those who came to the United States illegally as children, Obama took executive actions that treated the bill as if it were law.
Republicans have accused the Obama and Biden administrations of favoring illegal immigrants over U.S. citizens, from the subways of New York City to the railroads of East Palestine, Ohio.
“The story of Dreamers is a story of America,” asserted Vice President Kamala Harris this week. “Lawmakers must pass legislation that creates a path to citizenship.” For his part, Biden declared, “I am committed to providing Dreamers the support they need to succeed,” boasting that last month his administration “took the historic step of expanding access to affordable, quality health coverage to DACA recipients through the Affordable Care Act.”
“Joe Biden wants to be the president of illegal aliens, but I will be the president for law-abiding Americans — every race, religion, color and creed,” said President Donald Trump, who has promised to invalidate the agreement and initiate mass deportations. “When I am elected, Joe Biden’s illegal amnesty will be ripped up and thrown out on the very first day we are back in office,” he told a raucous crowd in Racine, Wisconsin, Tuesday evening.
The White House “fact sheet” on the law-evading action claims, “President Biden believes that securing the border is essential.” Yet his administration ushered in an era of unprecedented illegal immigration, with millions of unlawful crossings taking place each year.
Analysts say his plan incentivizes additional illegal immigration and opens the U.S. to massive fraud. “Any system in which illegal entrants are rewarded to the detriment of foreign nationals doing it ‘the right way’ is a bad one, and that is what the administration is setting up,” wrote Andrew Arthur of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). The scheme’s 10-year residency requirement “is an invitation to fraud as spouses of U.S. citizens who have been here for briefer periods will start scrambling to collect (and create) documents to show longer terms of presence — and to cover up subsequent departures.”
Many of the provisions seem unworkable, say its opponents. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) asked who is going to verify whether the stepchildren covered by the action lived in the United States during the period of eligibility on Tuesday’s “Washington Watch.”
Biden, who trails Trump in the polling, is “trying to put up barriers so it’ll make it harder” to carry out mass deportations and return the rule of law, said Norman. “But that’s what’s got to happen.” Nearly two-thirds (62%) of Americans now favor deporting every illegal immigrant in America, according to a CBS/YouGov poll taken earlier this month.
Biden and the Democratic Party have “tried to normalize lawlessness,” said Blackburn. “And what happens when you try to normalize this lawlessness? You end up with chaos.”
“All of this is part of their goal to begin to legalize illegal immigrants before we get to November, because they want their votes, and they want them to count in the census,” Blackburn told Perkins. Including non-citizens in the U.S. Census redistributes eight congressional seats, mostly from Republican-leaning states to Democratic ones, according to CIS. “This is how they’re planning to backfill the population that they’ve been losing from big blue states and big blue cities.”
“They’re doing anything they can to collect power and to centralize power within the federal government, with them in charge. They’re trying to make certain that Democrats are in charge for the rest of our lifetimes,” said Blackburn.
As if to prove Blackburn’s assessment, Democrats in swing states greeted Biden’s executive amnesty in starkly partisan terms. “The road to the White House runs through Nevada, and people in my state are paying attention,” said Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.).
Although critics often conflate any discussion of changing demographics with a purportedly racist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, far-left progressives long latched onto mass amnesty as their path to permanent political power. A Service Employees International Union leader and honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America Eliseo Medina spelled out the plan during a left-wing conference:
“If we reform the immigration laws — it puts 12 million people on the path to citizenship and eventually voters. Can you imagine if you had even the same ratio, two out of three [Hispanics voting for Democrats], if we get 8 million new voters that care about our issue and will be voting, we will create a governing coalition for the long-term, not just for an election cycle?”
Medina merely repeated an electoral theory going back at least to the 2002 book “The Emerging Democratic Majority” by John Judis and Ruy Teixeira. Salon magazine cited the “Latino realignment” in a 2008 article titled “A Permanent Democratic Majority?”
“Through this sweeping executive action, which has no grounding in federal law, the president is illegally claiming the power to bypass Congress’ plenary authority over immigration policy in pursuit of a political goal as the president faces reelection,” said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
Norman said the issue goes far beyond Biden to the core of his administration. “The ones who rule him are pretty well set to control this country through illegals voting,” he told Perkins.
The Democratic administration’s simmering indifference to border security has led to numerous tragedies, including a string of violent and sadistic crimes against American citizens. New York City police Tuesday arrested Christian Geovanny Inga-Landi, a 25-year-old illegal immigrant from Ecuador, for allegedly raping a 13-year-old girl. That came just days after Oklahoma police apprehended 23-year-old illegal immigrant Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez for raping and murdering Rachel Morin, a mother of five. Police said the accused perpetrator fled his native El Salvador after committing another homicide.
Such incidents dot every corner of the United States. “South Carolina’s already been affected,” said Norman. “Every state in the country has.”
“But Biden doesn’t care about the American lives that will forever be destroyed by the illegal criminals he is importing; and Biden doesn’t care that law-abiding taxpayers, crushed by inflation, are forced to pay for free food, housing, and healthcare for illegals,” said the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt.
America’s porous border increasingly threatens national security. Officials recently nabbed eight illegal immigrants from Tajikistan who had ties to ISIS. Officers had originally caught them at the border, but then released them in accordance with Biden administration norms before the FBI eventually tracked them down.
The possibility of a serious terrorist attack on U.S. soil is “no longer speculative,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) told “Face the Nation” Sunday, “no longer hypothetical.”
Conservatives say if the open border policies continue, Americans risk losing their liberties, as well as their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
“If we lose this election, then our freedom, our sovereignty, our democracy will go down the tubes,” said Norman. “Another four years of this administration, and we will have lost every freedom we’ve had.”
AUTHOR
Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.
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