The Democrats’ massive budget reconciliation package, finally revealed on Monday, includes a plan to give mass amnesty to “millions of” illegal aliens in the United States, according to The Hill.
The $3.5 trillion spending package will provide $107 billion for the Senate Judiciary Committee to determine the fastest route for providing blanket amnesty, with a deadline of September 15th to come up with such a solution. The bill itself does not single out any particular group of illegals or preferred methods, but instead orders the committee to provide “lawful permanent status for qualified immigrants,” as well as handing out green cards to “millions of immigrant workers and families.”
The bill’s proposal represents a drastic expansion of Democrats’ prior amnesty efforts, which previously only covered so-called “Dreamers,” illegal aliens who came to the United States as minors. New proposals put forward by Democrats in the House of Representatives have also called for giving amnesty to illegals who work on farms, illegals who hold jobs that have been declared “essential” during the pandemic, and illegals who have already been granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS). This would ultimately account for roughly 10 million illegals who would immediately be given amnesty under the new plan.
Republicans in the Senate have tried to negotiate the amnesty down to just 700,000 by encompassing only those who would have qualified under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) plan, an executive order signed by then-President Barack Obama which was recently overturned by a federal judge in Texas. Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have specified that their counter-proposal would only affect the 700,000 who applied during the Obama Administration, and not the 1.3 million who attempted to apply during the Trump Administration.
In response, Democrats referred to debunked economic arguments claiming that illegals are good for the economy, with Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) saying that “the deportation of hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients who are helping our nation’s economy recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic makes little sense.”