House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) says he is continuing to try to grant amnesty to illegal alien youths via his GOP version of the DREAM Act, known as the KIDS Act.
“We should not be holding kids liable for the acts of their parents,” Cantor said in an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Bob Rayner, a reporter for the Times-Dispatch, wrote that Cantor described the push for the KIDS Act, something that would reportedly legalize the status of illegal aliens who are somehow determined to have been brought to America by no fault of their own, as a “one of his priorities.”
Rayner wrote that such “priorities” would, if Cantor succeeds, “be incremental improvements in the country’s broken immigration system, beginning with the Kids Act, which would create a path to citizenship for people who were brought to the United States illegally when they were children.”
Cantor has been writing the KIDS Act for months but has not introduced it since announcing that he was working on the amnesty legislation with House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA). Goodlatte is, like Cantor, from Virginia–a state where Cantor wields enormous political power over his GOP colleagues.
Almost immediately after the announcement, Cantor had faced sharp criticism from law enforcement officials who questioned whether his forthcoming legislation would adhere to principles of national security and the rule of law in America. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) National Council president Kenneth Palinkas, for instance, wrote to Cantor, Goodlatte, House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), and House Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) asking them about a likely hypothetical situation that could happen if they granted amnesty to young illegal aliens.
“Let’s say you establish in your law that illegal immigrants must be 30 years of age or younger at the time of application, must have entered illegally (or illegally overstayed a visa) at the age of 16 or before, and must have resided in the U.S. for at least five years (it’s only 18 months for the Senate bill),” Palinkas wrote. “Let’s also assume that, unlike the Schumer-Rubio-Corker-Hoeven bill, you do not extend amnesty to those with violent criminal records and gang affiliations.”
Palinkas then asked whether or not Cantor, Ryan, Goodlatte, or Gowdy have any answer to the following question: “What is to stop the administration from simply issuing another round of non-enforcement orders (written or oral) that would eviscerate any attempted limitations in your bill? For instance, the ICE Council reports that ‘the administration’s DREAM Act is not being applied by ICE to children in schools, but instead to adult inmates in jails,” he explained. “Gang members and other criminal offenders all take advantage of the administration’s DREAM Act orders to evade arrest and deportation.'”
Cantor has been pressured by illegal aliens to grant amnesty for a long time. Recently, according to the Washington Examiner, they stormed his home demanding amnesty.
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