GOP Senator’s ‘Immigration Overhaul’ Would Include Amnesty

A new immigration reform plan by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) would include legalization and amnesty for the over 11 million living in the United States.

Tillis’ “immigration overhaul,” as The Wall Street Journal dubbed it, would serve as a new kind of “Gang of Eight” legislation, promising amnesty to illegal immigrants, which could eventually lead to a pathway to citizenship.

While Tillis’ legislation would increase “border security and toughen enforcement of immigration laws,” it would also grant amnesty, a type of immigration reform measure that Democrats have been demanding since the 1990s.

As the WSJ notes, Tillis’ amnesty bill “gives each party something that it wants,” reiterating that pairing amnesty will tougher border security could be the establishment GOP’s path towards passing comprehensive immigration reform.

Tillis’ legislation would essentially keep former President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) intact, allowing illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. at a young age to stay in the country legally.

“At a later stage,” lawmakers would tackle the issue of visa overstays and addressing foreign worker visas for high and low-skilled labor.

“The left will say it doesn’t go far enough toward open borders and then the other end of the spectrum, which is: ‘We won’t be satisfied until you collect everyone and send them home,’ which is just not practical nor, do I believe, in the best interests of the U.S.,” Tillis told the Journal.

Immigration experts like Mark Krikorian with the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) have taken to social media to call out Tillis’ legislation as just another Sen. John McCain-style “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill.

The “Gang of Eight” legislation was shut down after backlash from immigration groups, voters and pushback from Senators like Trump’s pick for Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, who argued that illegal immigrants should be deported for their law-breaking, rather than being granted legalization to stay.

John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.