Chuck Schumer Says the Quiet Part Out Loud on Immigration  

Commentary

December 5, 2022

Crowd of people waiting in line vector silhouette isolated on white background

By Dale Wilcox

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has a plan to legalize tens of millions of illegal aliens, and his selling point is quite revealing.

Standing outside the Capitol building days after the midterm elections, Schumer declared that a mass amnesty is necessary because Americans are not reproducing at high enough levels.

“Now more than ever, we’re short of workers. We have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to,” Schumer said. “Our ultimate goal is to help the DREAMers but get a path to citizenship for all 11 million, or however many undocumented there are here.”

Schumer gets a lot wrong in his statement, including his claim that there are only 11 million illegal aliens currently living in the U.S. In reality, there are significantly more. A 2018 study from Yale and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimated that there were 22.1 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. at the time. That number has certainly skyrocketed over the last four and a half years, especially since Joe Biden took office.

Roughly 5.5 million illegal aliens have entered the country since Biden assumed the presidency, according to an analysis from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Schumer’s proposal, if enacted, would legalize tens of millions of illegal aliens. The economic and social upheaval that would result from awarding amnesty to that many illegal aliens would be untenable for any country, especially one with the economic and political challenges the U.S. has right now. To propose such a disastrous idea based on fudged numbers would cause nothing but harm to the country.

The most damning aspect of Schumer’s proposal, however, is his justification for it. Schumer’s remarks that American birthrates are declining is objectively true. The fertility crisis in America is a major problem. One would think when one of the most powerful elected officials in the country gives a speech in front of the Capitol about this problem, he would be proposing ideas to make it easier for Americans to have children and start families.

At the end of the day, Schumer’s mass amnesty proposal is not meant to benefit Americans, but to further his political and ideological agenda.

Instead, Schumer proposes leaving American families out to dry, and replacing them with families from other countries. Many Americans have been demonized for objecting to, or even simply noticing, the significant changes to America’s social structure as a result of excessive mass migration. Just days after his party lost full control of the federal government in the midterm elections, Schumer was in front of the Capitol boasting about those same changes, and hardly a word of criticism could be heard from the corporate media. The double standard on the immigration debate continues to be an absurdity.

While this latest amnesty proposal is unlikely to become law anytime soon, one shudders to imagine what would happen if it did. With tens of millions of new workers to compete with, wages for working Americans would plummet. The border would become flooded even more than it is now, with aspiring migrants rushing to the U.S. to get their piece of the amnesty pie. It would lead to millions of new registered voters, and candidates would pander to a new voting bloc over the needs of other U.S. citizens.

One thing it wouldn’t do is make it easier for Americans to start families or obtain good paying jobs, or elect political leaders who truly represent them. In fact, it would make all of those goals much harder for Americans to achieve. Put simply, this amnesty proposal would be a disaster for all Americans who aren’t major donors to Chuck Schumer.

At the end of the day, Schumer’s mass amnesty proposal is not meant to benefit Americans, but to further his political and ideological agenda. It is unpatriotic and unconscionable, and it should be soundly rejected.

Dale L. Wilcox is executive director and general counsel for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration

Also published at The New American, December 5, 2022.

Get Connected

Sign up for our email newsletter to stay up to date with immigration reform in the United States.

Attorneys United for a Secure America (AUSA) is a non-partisan affiliation of talented attorneys dedicated to pursuing cases that serve the national interest when it comes to immigration law.

If you are interested in joining the network, visit the AUSA website.