Lankford Betrays Working Oklahomans
Lankford has never been a Tea Party kind of legislator despite our allowing him to speak at at least one of our rallies. The guy is a Christian fundamentalist and hardly conservative. Yet he went overboard last week with his support of amnesty for the DACA recipients under the Obama program that Trump announced he was ending in six months. While admitting that you don't give away citizens because of an illegal act Lankford went on to author an amnesty bill with North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis. Here is the main language of the bill:
(1) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law and except as otherwise provided in this Act, the Secretary may cancel the removal of an alien who is inadmissible or deportable from the 13 United States and grant the alien conditional permanent resident status under this Act, if the alien—
(A) has been physically present in the United States for a continuous period since June 15, 2012; (B) was younger than 16 years of age on the date on which the alien initially entered the United States; (C) was younger than 31 years of age and had no lawful status in the United States on June 15, 2012; ….
(i) has, while in the United States, earned a high school diploma, obtained a general education development certificate recognized under State law, or received a high school equivalency diploma; (ii) has been admitted to an institution of higher education in the United States …
- has not been convicted of— (I) a felony under Federal or State law, regardless of the sentence imposed; (II) any combination of offenses under Federal or State law for which the alien was sentenced to imprisonment for at least 1 year;"
The bill goes on to grant amnesty to illegals that join the military even if that means the illegal competing with U.S. citizens that want that job slot. The so called "Succeed Act" offers amnesty to millions of illegal aliens if they can show they are close relatives of those who receive amnesty under Lankford's bill and if they wait for 15 years before filing for citizenship. Wow, talk about a Dreamer, evading taxation and the responsibilities of citizenship for years while pumping out millions more anchor babies.
Lankford's "SUCCEED Act" also offers citizenship to millions of additional foreigners who can earn their citizenship by waiting 15 years and by showing they are a close relative of one of the illegal immigrants who get the Lankford-Tillis amnesty. And estimated 138 million foreigners would immigrate to the U.S. thanks to this amnesty plan should it pass. An estimated 1.18 million illegals already have high school degrees and 190,000 have college degrees, another half million would be elgible once they turn 18, another 1.12 million become eligible if they get a GED, putting around 3 million illegal alien amnesties. That pales in comparison to the estimated 690,000 Obama DACA amnesty recipients, 7500 of them in Oklahoma at this time. Worse, the fifteen year delay in sponsoring foreign relatives means these new immigrants will be that much closer to social security age and gain the benefits without paying in for the fifty years that American born citizens paid into the system.
Then add the fact that each one of these millions and millions of new immigrants can themselves sponsor additional family members, an average of 3.45 family members per amnesty recipient, except for Mexico which has a 6.38 average sponsorship per immigrant. And around 21% of these new immigrants will be over 50 years old and a massive burden to society.
In addition to the trillions of dollars needed to pay for these new amnesty recipients look for the continued wage stagnation for the working poor and the middle class. Lankford blew this off by saying that the DACA illegals were already competing with Americans for jobs, a position applauded by the State Chamber of Commerce crowd and the donor class. The other author, Tillis, is an advocate for more H-2B visas and H-1B visas which bring in low skilled workers and higher skilled workers respectively. These workers come in on contract, receiving wages in their home country and while they might receive the minimum wage they under cut white collar wages and blue collar wages as the workers can't just shop around for another job and must take what is offered in their contracts or be deported.
The cost of the estimated 12 million illegals is around $116 billion per year, nearly $700.00 per working American. The average age of these DACA illegals is 24 years of age with 72% of them being over 21 yeas old. These aren't "children". They could be deported and do fine in their home country.
And the loopholes abound in the Lankford/Tillis bill, the illegals don't have to graduate, only to enroll in education courses and as long as their criminal acts add up to less than one year in prison they get a pass on their criminal history. Yet the four million Americans that turn 18 each year and being a search for a job will have to compete with this mass immigration policy and deal with the lower wages and lower chances of getting a job. The DACA amnesty program that Lankford is pushing creates new customers for big business, keeps their payroll costs down, while devaluing the labor value of American citizens and legal immigrants that played by the rules. Profit spikes, Wall Street booms as salaries are cut, state and local taxes increase to deal with the sudden influx of kids needing school, and marginalizes Americans and legal immigrants who are already struggling to make a living.
Adding to what Lankford wants to do is the nearly 3 million work visas per year handed out to foreign workers including 330,000 permits for foreign graduates of U.S. colleges. And 200,000 H-1B visas for white collar foreigners coming in to displace American citizens in the higher paying jobs, another 400,000 DACA illegals getting work permits, and the nearly 100,000 foreign workers employed by Universities in the U.S. Meanwhile adjusted for inflation wages have remained flat since the early 70's and the percentage of work place participation has declined for decades.
Lankford doesn't face re election for years but that doesn't mean he is above being held accountable. Contact his office and tell him to shut this legislation down.
