Tillis-Sinema Plan: Amnesty for 2 Million Illegal Aliens, More Foreign Workers in American Jobs

A plan by Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) would permanently bring millions more foreign workers into the United States labor market, via amnesty and green card provisions, for employers to hire over qualified Americans.

The Tillis-Sinema plan, a summary of which has been obtained by Breitbart News, would provide “Conditional Permanent Residence (CPR) Status” to about two million illegal aliens who have lived in the U.S. “since June 15, 2018, were under 18 when they entered the U.S., and were no older than 38 on June 15, 2012.”

Eventually, those illegal aliens with CPR status would be eligible for green cards and, after five years, naturalized American citizenship. Experts tell Breitbart News that the number of illegal aliens who would get amnesty under the plan is likely to be much higher than the approximate two million pitched by Tillis and Sinema.

Those given naturalized American citizenship would be barred from participating in the process known as “chain migration” where newly naturalized citizens can sponsor for green cards an unlimited number of foreign relatives.

In addition, the plan seeks to bring hundreds of thousands more foreign workers to the U.S. labor market to hold American jobs by imposing a “recapture employment-based visas” system. Tillis and Sinema estimate that some 200,000 employment-based green cards would become available for foreign workers under their plan.

These immigration expansion components are coupled with enticing pay raises for U.S. Border Patrol. Specifically, the plan would boost Border Patrol salaries by 14 percent and a requirement that 600 additional agents are hired every year “until staffing needs are met nationwide.”

Asylum reforms are also included in the plan, such as preserving the Title 42 border control for a year, barring illegal aliens from future immigration benefits if they fail to show up to their scheduled asylum court hearings, and more funds for deportation efforts for illegal aliens who are not eligible for asylum after having been released into the U.S. interior.

The National Border Patrol Union Council suggested in a post that they would be open to considering such a plan and thanked Tillis and Sinema for their work on the issue. The union has previously, on a number of occasions, denounced amnesty as a driver of waves of illegal immigration.

Meanwhile, a coalition of far-left House Democrats have said they will oppose the Tillis-Sinema plan because it includes too many federal immigration enforcement components.

“We cannot at this time, in good conscience, support the current framework,” Reps. Luis Correa (D-CA), Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), and Chuy García (D-IL) said in a joint statement.

The mass migration lobby is hellbent on getting an amnesty through the lame duck Congress as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), vying to be Speaker in the new Congress, has repeatedly said that he will not consider any plans providing amnesty to illegal aliens.

Matthew Perdie / Breitbart News, Jack Knudsen / Breitbart News

Prior independent analysis has shown that amnesty, in addition to more immigration, is a net loss for Americans’ job security and wages.

In 2013, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis stated that the “Gang of Eight” amnesty plan would “slightly” push down wages for American workers. Another CBO analysis, published in 2020, stated that “immigration has exerted downward pressure on the wages of relatively low-skilled workers who are already in the country, regardless of their birthplace.”

Other research finds current legal immigration to the U.S. results in more than $530 billion worth of lost wages for Americans.

Recent peer-reviewed research by economist Christoph Albert acknowledges that “as immigrants accept lower wages, they are preferably chosen by firms and therefore have higher job finding rates than natives, consistent with evidence found in US data.”

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.