Chuck Schumer said he wanted “illegal aliens” to register with government or face deportation, and he opposed calling them: “undocumented workers”

When you recall President Donald Trump’s promise of no income taxes for couples earning less than $50k, which turned out to be a measly $24k, you conclude that he made a promise he couldn’t or wouldn’t keep.

The President’s once trumpeted plan to reduce visa immigration has also gone by the big business-approved wayside. Instead, the Don last week doubled the number of H-2B visas, so now even more low-wage foreigners can compete unfairly with American workers – slashing wages to insure more profits for the investor class.

But Trump is not the only one to break promises. Other Republicans come to mind, especially George H. W. Bush:

Read my lips: no new taxes

Breaking promises is part of politics for both parties, but if someone deserves first prize for promises broken, it’s hard to beat Senator Chuck Schumer, when it comes to immigration:

All illegal aliens present in the United States on the date of enactment of our bill must quickly register their presence with the United States Government —and submit to a rigorous process of converting to legal status and earning a path to citizenship— or face imminent deportation…

… illegal immigration is wrong— – plain and simple. When we use phrases like “undocumented workers,” we convey a message to the American people that their Government is not serious about combating illegal immigration, which the American people overwhelmingly oppose…

People who enter the United States without our permission are illegal aliens, and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who entered the United States legally.

To the advocates for strong, fair, effective, and comprehensive immigration reform, I say to you that the American people will never accept immigration reform, unless they truly believe that their government is committed to ending future illegal immigration— and any successful comprehensive immigration reform bill must recognize this fact.

– Senator Charles Ellis “Chuck” Schumer (D-NY)

The comments by the Democrat Senator sound like the words of candidate Trump on the 2016 campaign trail. Has Chuck lost his mind?

No – Chuck is very sane. You might even say: calculating, measuring the lay of the land, saying what donors and voters want to hear – sort of a chameleon capability.

The comments above are from a major address at the Sixth Annual Immigration Law and Policy Conference, sponsored by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., and Georgetown University Law Center. Schumer was outlining principles of a bill he planned to introduce in Fall 2009.

The video below is about nine minutes and offers more details on an immigration reform plan that many Americans would endorse today, although it no longer represents the views of Democrat Party leadership, including Senate Minority Leader Schumer.

Full text of Schumer’s 2009 address (30+ minutes) has been taken down from Senate website, but is archived here

While Schumer does not publicly agree today with his 2009 principles, he does seem to be the capable politician. Nothing proves this more than his success over Trump with the 2019 spending bill passed last week by Congress.

“They (GOP) sold out the President and their own voters because the President won’t ever get the 55 miles of border fence he wanted,” explained Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies:

Trump was willing to play ball with Congress and to take less than his full demand of $5.7 billion, but even on that, they screwed him. The broader public, that wants the border enforced, also got the shaft in this bill.

I don’t think it is because of malice on the part of Republicans. They were duped, because they were distracted by the offer of more H-2B visas, which is what they care about, and by being able to say there is some money for the fence, even if it will never be built.

The GOP legislators were duped by Democrats, because they wanted to be, Krikorian said:

They fooled themselves, because they said “We’ve got money for 55 miles of wall, and all the rest are just details and we can’t be bothered with that.”

… they aren’t interested enough in the details of enforcement to know what the Democrats were up to. They just don’t think it is important and they did not focus on it.

The H-2B expansion sought by Republicans was added in the last ten pages of the 1,169-page border security bill. In 2017 and 2018, similar language caused the Department of Homeland Security to add 15,000 extra H-2B work visas.

Roughly 1.5 million visa workers are employed in white-collar jobs that are also sought by U.S college graduates.

The spending bill has a poison pill, besides limiting funds for the “barrier.”

This time the “fake news” is about a “fake wall.”

The measure gives Texas municipal officials a veto of Trump’s border wall until at least September, Krikorian said:

Extra fencing is only in South Texas and the local governments – which are monolithic Democrat – have a veto over any fencing … so there won’t be any fencing that is built. The claimed 55 miles is a fake – there won’t be anything built because the local government will veto construction.

“Build that Wall” is starting to sound like “Read My Lips.”