Ryan/Goodlatte Immigration Deal: Temporary Reduction to Immigration Coupled with DACA Amnesty

A plan composed by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) has been released to Breitbart News, showing that immigration will temporarily be reduced while an amnesty is provided to potentially millions of illegal aliens.

The legislation, obtained by Breitbart News, would eliminate two of the four categories of the “chain migration” process — where newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. — which has imported more than 10.5 million foreign nationals to the country in the last decade.

Married children and siblings of newly naturalized citizens would no longer be allowed to enter the country simply because they have family living in the U.S. The 23,400 visas for the married children of newly naturalized citizens would be moved into a “merit-based green card program” that would hold them in an escrow-style account for five years.

Also held in that escrow account are the 55,000 visas that derive from the Diversity Visa Lottery program, which would be eliminated. Since 2005, nearly 510,000 foreign nationals have won the Visa Lottery to come to the U.S.

The legislation would provide a slight reduction to immigration levels for about six years until illegal aliens enrolled and potentially eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program can begin taking those visas which would be converted into Green Cards.

Immigration levels, though, after the first six years of the amnesty would go back to current legal immigration levels where the U.S. imports more than 1.5 million immigrants every year.

Some experts told Breitbart News that the amnesty will lead to an ultimate small reduction in immigration to the U.S., while others said the amnesty will not result in any net reduction to immigration.

The parents of newly naturalized citizens, including the DACA illegal aliens, would be allowed to enter the country, as the legislation does not eliminate that chain migration category.

The amnesty portion of the legislation, additionally, would go far beyond allowing DACA illegal aliens to remain in the U.S. The plan extends giving Green Cards to the children of foreign guest workers, a component that experts say is a gift to the big business lobby.

Standards for illegal aliens to obtain the DACA amnesty remain low, only requiring that illegal aliens be enrolled in school or have obtained a high school diploma or a GED. Experts have previously told Breitbart News that these standards are open to fraud and abuse by a likely surge of illegal immigration at the southern border should the amnesty plan pass the House and Senate.