The bipartisan national-security establishment from the past three administrations is urging Congress to pass legislation before the end of the year that would give amnesty to roughly 3.3 million illegal aliens.
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), 13 national security officials asked that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) DREAM Act be quickly passed through the House and Senate.
Authors of the letter include:
- Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
- Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta
- Former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter
- Former Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez
- Former Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano
- Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
- Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Michael Hayden
- Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John Brennan
- Former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Michael Morell
- Former Secretary of the U.S. Air Force Deborah Lee James
- Former Supreme Allied Commander Europe James Stavridis
- Former Secretary of the U.S. Navy Richard Danzig
- Former Secretary of the U.S. Army Eric Fanning
The 13 officials write in the letter:
We are writing to urge Congress to pass the Dream Act of 2017 and to do so before the end of the year. This bipartisan legislation would allow young immigrants brought to the United States as children to earn lawful permanent residence and eventually American citizenship. Last month, the last renewal applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program were accepted, marking the official end of the program. Some of the 22,000 Dreamers who did not renew their status are already losing their work authorization and protection from deportation. The negative human consequences of the program’s termination are beginning to unfold now.
Under the President Obama-created DACA program, nearly 800,000 illegal aliens have been shielded from deportation and given work permits to remain in the United States. In September, though, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the DACA program would officially end on March 2018.
Since Sessions’ announcement, the Republican establishment, Democrats, the open borders lobby, the cheap labor industry and the big business lobby have pushed to craft and pass an amnesty for DACA illegal aliens.
The establishment figures say they want to see the amnesty for illegal aliens be passed through Congress and signed by President Trump “as quickly as possible.”
With every day that passes, these Dreamers are getting closer to the reality of deportation. We urge you to pass the Dream Act of 2017 as quickly as possible to provide permanent protection for Dreamers and relieve this deserving group of the uncertainty created by the President’s decision to rescind DACA. We should leave no man or woman behind. Let that be our guiding principle.
The DREAM Act is one of the largest amnesties for DACA illegal aliens that have been crafted thus far in Congress, allowing not just those on the DACA rolls to permanently remain in the U.S., but also those who are eligible for DACA.
The amnesty legislation would apply to roughly 3.3 million illegal aliens in the U.S., according to the Migration Policy Institute, and would set at least 1.7 million of those illegal aliens on a pathway to U.S. citizenship.
Once given U.S. citizenship, illegal aliens are then allowed to bring their foreign relatives to the U.S. in what is known as “chain migration.” As Breitbart News has reported, a DACA chain migration could range from a mass migration of 9.9 to 19 million foreign nationals entering the U.S. over the next few decades.
Though the national security establishment from the past three administrations desperately want to see an amnesty passed quickly, Americans are increasingly opposed to the idea.
A recent Morning Consult/POLITICO poll revealed that fewer than 30 percent of Americans said an amnesty for DACA illegal aliens should be a priority for Congress, Breitbart News reported. Fewer than 25 percent of swing-voters say a DACA amnesty is a priority, while even less than 50 percent of Democrats agree.
Since DACA’s inception, more than 2,100 DACA recipients saw their protected status revoked for being involved in gang activity or suspected/convicted of a felony. Due to a loophole in the DACA program, more than 39,000 illegal aliens have been able to obtain Green Cards and more than 1,000 naturalized.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.