Peter Kirsanow, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, says discussion of an amnesty for illegal aliens should be halted until a wall is secured along the U.S.-Mexico border and major cuts to legal immigration are enacted.

In a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan, Kirsanow warned of the impact an amnesty for millions of illegal aliens who are enrolled and eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program would have on working and middle-class Americans and, specifically, black Americans.

Kirsanow writes:

The negative impact of illegal immigration on unskilled and low-skilled American workers has been established by various studies and discussed in numerous hearings, including, but not limited to, a 2008 Commission briefing. The testimony at the briefing indicated that illegal immigration disproportionately affects the wages and employment opportunities of African- American men. [Emphasis added]

…

Illegal immigration has a disparate impact on African-American men because these men are disproportionately represented in the low-skilled labor force. The Census Bureau released a report on educational attainment after the Commission issued its report. This report, released in February 2012, found that 50.9 percent of native-born blacks had not continued their education beyond high school. The same report found that 75.5 percent of foreign-born Hispanics had not been educated beyond high school, although it does not disaggregate foreign-born Hispanics who are legal immigrants from those who are illegal immigrants. However, Professor Briggs estimated that illegal immigrants or former illegal immigrants who received amnesty constitute a third to over a half of the total foreign-born population. Foreign-born Hispanics who are in the United States illegally are disproportionately male. African-Americans who have not pursued education beyond high school are also disproportionately male. These poor educational attainment levels usually relegate both African-American men and illegal immigrant men to the same low-skilled labor market, where they must compete against each other for work. [Emphasis added]

Kirsanow urged Ryan and the Republican-controlled Congress to hold off on a DACA amnesty until a border wall is built along the U.S.-Mexico border, E-Verify is mandated nationwide to ban employers from hiring illegal aliens, and legal immigration levels are seriously reduced to boost American working and middle-class wages.

Before the federal government decides to grant legal status to illegal immigrants, due deliberation should be given to what effect such grant will have on the employment and earnings prospects of low-skill Americans generally and black Americans specifically. I submit that granting such legal status is not without substantial costs to American workers. Given these costs, I respectfully members of Congress to confirm that you will:

  1. Withhold agreement on any DACA deal until border wall funding is secured.
  2. Withhold agreement on any DACA deal until E-Verify requirements are extended to all U.S. employers.
  3. Withhold agreement on any DACA deal until the RAISE Act is passed by both Houses of Congress.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, President Trump promised his voters that no consideration of an amnesty would begin without cuts to legal immigration and a border wall built, as Breitbart News has noted.

As part of a last-ditch effort to pass amnesty ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, sources tell Breitbart News that GOP leadership is sketching out a plan that would allow a vote on a standalone amnesty for DACA illegal aliens that is not contingent on cuts to legal immigration.

Currently, the U.S. admits more than 1.5 million legal and illegal immigrants every year, with more than 70 percent coming to the country through the process known as “chain migration,” whereby newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. In the next 20 years, the current U.S. legal immigration system is on track to import roughly 15 million new foreign-born voters. Between seven and eight million of those foreign-born voters will arrive in the U.S. through chain migration.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.