Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) expansive amnesty plan does not fund a wall along the United States-Mexico border, nor does it reduce legal immigration levels to help raise wages for American workers – two provisions President Trump has demanded.
McCain’s amnesty plan, co-authored with Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), would give amnesty to illegal aliens who claim they have been in the U.S. since 2013, while not handing over the $25 billion required to begin constructing a wall on the southern border.
For the U.S.-Mexico border, McCain’s amnesty would not allow the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to fully secure the border until 2020, and even then, the funding for a border wall is not promised.
Additionally, McCain’s plan does not meet Trump’s requirements that any plan giving amnesty to illegal aliens enrolled and eligible for the President Obama-created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program reduce legal immigration levels to give relief to America’s working and middle class.
The amnesty plan, instead, does not end the process known as “chain migration,” whereby newly naturalized citizens can currently bring their foreign relatives to the U.S. as legal immigrants.
This makes chain migration is the largest driver of immigration to the U.S. — making up more than 70 percent — with every two new immigrants bringing seven foreign relatives with them.
Every year the U.S. admits more than 1.5 million foreign nationals, with the vast majority deriving from family-based chain migration, whereby newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. In 2016, the legal and illegal immigrant population reached a record high of 44 million. By 2023, the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the legal and illegal immigrant population of the U.S. will make up nearly 15 percent of the entire U.S. population.
McCain’s amnesty plan also does not eliminate the Diversity Visa Lottery, another requirement by Trump. Under the Visa Lottery, 50,000 random foreign nationals are imported to the U.S. every year after placing their names in a lottery system to win a visa to come to the country.
As Breitbart News reported, since 2007, 28,783 foreign nationals from Iran, Syria and Sudan — three countries which support international terrorism — have become legal immigrants into the United States through the visa lottery, according to new State Department data.
The U.S. has brought in nearly 21,000 Iranian nationals, 2,732 Sudanese nationals, and 812 Syrian nationals on the Visa Lottery — not counting subsequent chain-migration of additional unscreened people from those countries — even though all three countries are listed as state-sponsors of terrorism.
Over the last half-decade, between 2012 and 2016, as Breitbart News reported, 72,794 foreign nationals have come to the U.S. on the Visa Lottery from countries that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has designated as terrorist-sponsors.
Trump has already called McCain’s amnesty plan “a total waste of time,” noting how the plan does not meet the popular immigration requirements set by the White House.
Mass legal immigration to the U.S. has come at the expense of America’s working and middle class, which has suffered from poor job growth, stagnant wages, and increased public costs to offset the importation of millions of low-skilled foreign nationals.
Median earning of full-time, year-round workers, 15 years and older, 1960 to 2016.
The massive importation of low-skilled foreign nationals to the U.S. has translated to a cheap labor economy that has aided in keeping American mens’ wages stagnant for at least 44 years, as Breitbart News reported. Median earnings for American men working full-time were actually lower in 2016 than they were in 2007.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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