Senate Bill Would Quintuple Rate of Legal Immigration and Expand Welfare State to Accommodate Amnesty

Heritage Foundation Reports Confirms NumbersUSA Concerns About Hagel-Martinez

WASHINGTON, DC – Two new papers released by the Heritage Foundation confirm NumbersUSA’s estimates of unprecedented increases in legal immigration and costs to taxpayers if the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S. 2611) becomes law. The papers, authored by Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow in Domestic Policy Robert Rector, estimate an increase in legal immigration of 103 million persons over the next 20 years (i.e., fully one-third of the current U.S. population) and increased government spending of at least $46 billion per year.

“The Hagel-Martinez bill is a double-edged sword that would have devastating economic, social, national security, and environmental impacts on the United States,” said NumbersUSA Executive Director Roy Beck. “Time and time again, studies have shown that an increase in legal immigration is linked to increases in illegal immigration. A dramatic increase in legal immigration coupled with an amnesty also will usher in an era of unprecedented illegal immigration. The result would be the creation of a transnational welfare outreach program, as anyone dissatisfied with their life elsewhere would be allowed to enter the United States unabated and to stay unchecked at the expense of U.S. citizens.”

In his paper, “Amnesty and Continued Low Skill Immigration Will Substantially Raise Welfare Costs and Poverty,” Rector writes, “Half of all adult illegal immigrants in the U.S. have less than a high school education. In addition, recent immigrants have high levels of out-of-wedlock childbearing, which increases costs and poverty.” Rector predicts that, if the Hagel/Martinez proposal were to be enacted, it “would be the largest expansion of the welfare state in 35 years.”

In “Senate Immigration Bill Would Allow 100 Million Legal Immigrants Over the Next Twenty Years,” Rector has found that foreign-born residents now make up approximately 12 percent of the population – a figure which has not been approached since the early 1900s. If CIRA were to be enacted, however, and 100 million new immigrants stream in over the next two decades, that percentage would be closer to 25 percent, a level which, Rectors notes, has no precedent in U.S. history.

The full text of Rector’s papers can be found at: http://www.heritage.org/

A chart by NumbersUSA comparing the numerical impacts of the major immigration bills in Congress can be found at: http://www.numbersusa.com/PDFs/SpecterHagelMcCainFristNumbersComp050106.pdf

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