When Congress convenes for its lame-duck session on Nov. 29, it will be asked by Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid to vote on an amnesty bill deceptively called the "Dream Act" by its open-borders supporters. If passed, it will be a nightmare for the rule of law and a death knell for genuine immigration reform.
That this amnesty bill is being taken up by the lame-duck session of a Congress that has been soundly repudiated by the American people is bad enough. Lame-duck sessions ought to consider only emergency bills with broad bipartisan backing, not contentious measures that can only be passed by politicians who can ignore the will of voters. But that is eerily in keeping with the dishonest character of the long debate over the Dream Act.
I say the debate is dishonest because the bill's true intent is hidden behind humanitarian appeals, deceptive numbers and misrepresentations. Most dishonest of all is the insistence that enacting this amnesty for over 2 million individuals will not have any incentive effect for others who will rationally calculate that they can get the same thing for their children if they can smuggle them across our border.
For the past 30 years, each amnesty has been sold to Congress as "the last amnesty," and each one lays the groundwork for the next. That anyone chooses to believe the opposite is testimony to the power of self-deception.
