DeMint: Amnesty Supporters Ignore Cost to Taxpayers

On Monday, Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint said those in Washington who stand to benefit from awarding amnesty to illegal immigrants ignore the $6.3 trillion dollars over the next 50 years it would cost taxpayers. 

Discussing the Heritage Foundation’s report on the cost of amnesty, DeMint said the organization’s study concluded that illegal immigrants who get amnesty under the proposed Senate bill would get $3 in benefits for every $1 in taxes paid. 

DeMint said it was “clear” that those in Washington and in Congress who stand to “benefit from an amnesty” are unwilling to “consider the cost” of the provision. He said those who wrote bill, like those who drafted Obamacare, played ” their normal tricks” by hiding some expenses “outside the ten-year window” to get a more favorable score from the Congressional Budget Office. 

“We should not repeat past mistakes… by creating a bill that provides amnesty with only promises for solutions,” DeMint said. He claimed that amnesty would make the illegal immigration problem worse by attracting more illegal immigrants to the United States, hoping for another round of amnesty. 

DeMint said the Senate’s immigration bill was a “large incomprehensible bill like Obamacare.” He noted Obamacare just created more federal programs while its proponents claimed it would lower the deficit; similarly, proponents of amnesty falsely claim illegal immigrants will pay more into the system than they take out.

DeMint said the amnesty bill would open up the government checkbook to set up a “massive bureaucracy to administer this plan.” He noted, though, that the federal bureaucracy would be “incapable of administering this plan” in a way that “does not allow huge amounts of fraud.” 

The former South Carolina senator also emphasized that the country’s borders “have not been secured for decades despite promises from Washington,” while the federal government “punishes” states who try to enforce their borders. 

He also said America needs an immigration system that attracts “workers our economy needs and encourages patriotic assimilation,” advocated a piece-by-piece approach to fixing the country’s immigration system, and said amnesty ultimately is unfair to immigrants who are in or waiting to come to the United States lawfully.