DREAMageddon: Vote Set for Saturday UPDATE: Going Down

Update: DrewM over at AOS says the DREAM Act is going down in the Senate.  It has only picked up one GOP vote, and a number of swing Democrats have torpedoed it.  So Harry Reid gets his “the other guys are monsters” narrative, but the rule of law lives to fight another day.

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Now that the tax deal and omnipork are done, Sen. Harry Reid is putting the DREAM Act on the docket for a vote this weekend.  We should be clear about what the DREAM Act is. It’s an amnesty, an invitation to lawlessness, and an abuse of the American taxpayer.  With the individual mandate and ObamaCare, the pork-laden 2009 “stimulus,” the bailouts, and assorted other Democratic policies over the past two years, the American taxpayer has run up against an awful lot of abuse.  The DREAM Act turns that abuse up to 11.

Sen. Jeff Sessions has listed 10 reasons the DREAM Act must die.  Here’s a taste:

• The DREAM Act Is NOT Limited to Children — Applicants can be up to the age of 29
• The DREAM Act Will Be Funded On the Backs Of Hard Working, Law-Abiding Americans — CBO failed to assess costs for education, increased levels of unemployment due to the addition of workers to the workforce, and increases in potential applicants because of loopholes.
• The DREAM Act PROVIDES SAFE HARBOR FOR ANY ALIEN, Including Criminals, From Being Removed or Deported If They Simply Submit An Application — Burden of proving inaccurate information on a DREAM Act application is on the Department of Homeland Security.

Mickey Kaus:

You’ve heard of “comprehensive” reform? DREAM is non-comprehensive reform. It doesn’t even have the basic enforcement provisions—employer sanctions and fancy new ID cards—that were part of the earlier, failed “comprehensive” bargain, which wasn’t a very good bargain (in part because nobody was sure the enforcement schemes wouldn’t be immediately undermined by lawsuits from the same organizations who supported “comprehensive” reform). DREAM is all amnesty, no prevention. Maybe that’s because its backers care about amnesty but not prevention.

Essentially, what the DREAM Act would do is it would legalize roughly a couple million people who aren’t in the United States legally, without providing any boost for border and immigration security whatsoever.  None.  This, plus the fact that the newly legalized could in turn bring in relatives via chain migration, makes the DREAM a potential border and budget buster.  This, we do not need.

The DREAM Act’s supporters will bring up the fact that most who are eligible didn’t cross the border illegally on their own, their parents brought them here.  For the most part that’s true, and also irrelevant.  The American taxpayer also didn’t choose to bring anyone here illegally, but it’s been done, and rewarding illegality will only beget more illegality. We have the 1986 amnesty, and what has followed in the decades since, as proof enough of that.  The American taxpayer should not have to pay for the illegal acts of others.  To put it in a bit more basic terms, two wrongs don’t make a right, and the DREAM Act does a great deal of wrong to the American taxpayer. And it’s patently unfair to legal immigrants who follow our laws every day.

It’s tempting to throw up our hands and assume that if Reid is bringing it up for a vote, he has the votes in hand to pass it.  Not so fast.  Reid and the Democrats generally have been getting serious static from the Latino left, and especially from what Allah’s calling their “self appointed pope,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez.  It’s possible that Reid is bringing DREAM up so that, in the event it’s voted down, he can look Gutierrez in the eye and say: “See, I tried.”  And then the two can lock arms with La Raza et al. and blame DREAM’s failure on those horrible Republicans.  With Latinos souring on the Democrats like the rest of America because of the economy, and with many Latinos rightly determining that their values are best represented in the Republican Party, the Democrats have to act hard and fast to hang onto the Latino left and demagogue security issues generally.  Putting DREAM up for a vote, and having it crash due to Republican (and Democratic, but they’ll conveniently overlook that) resistance, gives them a narrative to sell: We tried, the other guys are monsters, keep voting for us.  Of course, passing it gives them an even better narrative to sell: Not only did we reach for your DREAM, we grabbed it!  So keep voting for us!

In the end, this whole exercise is about votes and power on the anti-law side of things, and it’s about twisting the law and national security to serve the partisan interests of the left.  And if there’s any notion that President Obama is really really moving to the middle after this past week, think again:  He’s building an email list by peddling the DREAM Act via Organizing for America.

Bottom line: Once again we the people have to fight Washington’s lawlessness.  It’s still not too late to ring up fence sitting senators and persuade them that passing a de facto amnesty with zero enforcement won’t be done in the dark and won’t pass without sparking another round of voter rage.  NumbersUSA has the list to call.  Red state Democrats are your best bet.