Obama misrepresents immigration bill

June 12, 2013

By John Seiler

I read President Obama’s speech yesterday on the immigration reform bill. He said some inspiring words about the achievements of immigrants.

What he did not do is come clean about what’s in the bill. For one thing, he didn’t mention that the bill, on which the U.S. Senate voted yesterday 84-15 to consider, is an incredible 1,922 pages long.

S. 744 grandiloquently is called the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013.” But what’s in it?

When a bill is that long, that means nobody knows what’s in it. When Nancy Pelosi pushed Obamacare into law in 2010 when she was House Speaker, she said, “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.” YouTube here.

And remember, bills don’t just interpret themselves. Bureaucrats do. Just three years into Obamacare, 15,000 pages of regulations have been added. That’s just for starters. The same thing would happen with the immigration bill.

Here’s what Obama said about the actual bill:

“This week, the Senate will consider a common-sense, bipartisan bill that is the best chance we’ve had in years to fix our broken immigration system.  It will build on what we’ve done and continue to strengthen our borders.  It will make sure that businesses and workers are all playing by the same set of rules, and it includes tough penalties for those who don’t.  It’s fair for middle-class families, by making sure that those who are brought into the system pay their fair share in taxes and for services.  And it’s fair for those who try to immigrate legally by stopping those who try to skip the line.  It’s the right thing to do.”

Actually, here’s some actual wording from the bill, pages 897-8:

19 (c) FUNDING.—Section 217(h)(3)(B) (8 U.S.C.
20 1187(h)(3)(B)) is amended—
21 (1) in clause (i)—
22 (A) by striking ‘‘No later than 6 months
23 after the date of enactment of the Travel Pro-
24 motion Act of 2009, the’’ and inserting ‘‘The’’;
VerDate Mar 15 2010 22:
25 Jun 06, 2013 Jkt 029200 PO 00000 Frm 00897 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6203 E:BILLSS744.RS S744 sroberts on DSK5TPTVN1PROD with BILLS898
•S 744 RS1S
1 (B) in subclause (I), by striking ‘‘and’’ at
2 the end;
3 (C) by redesignating subclause (II) as sub-
4 clause (III); and
5 (D) by inserting after subclause (I) the fol-
6 lowing:
7 ‘‘(II) $16 for border processing;
8 and’’;

If the president really considers this a “common-sense” bill, then we should be able to quiz him on all its 1,922 pages. He’s a smart guy who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago and headed the law review at Harvard Law. We’ll give him a week to brush up on it.