Tuesday, June 05, 2007

CBO Says Immigration Bill Won't Stop Illegal Immigration

Not that anyone should be surprised, but, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the Senate's bill will only cut illegal immigration by about 25%.

The bill's new guest-worker program could lead to at least 500,000 more illegal immigrants within a decade, said the report from the CBO, which said in its official cost estimate that it assumes some future temporary workers will overstay their time in the plan, adding up to a half-million by 2017 and 1 million by 2027...

And in a blow to President Bush's timetable, the CBO said the "triggers" -- setting up the verification system, deploying 20,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents to duty and constructing hundreds of miles of fencing and vehicle barriers -- won't be met until 2010.

Those triggers must be met before the temporary worker program could begin, and Mr. Bush had hoped to have them completed about the time he leaves office in January 2009.

Border enforcement first. Amnesty afterwards.