White House Breaking News

At the White House press briefing, someone asked Tony about the Heritage Foundation study on the Hagel-Martinez legislation. Tony said that the administration was looking at the methodology of the study. Tony said that the White House would reserve judgement until they study it more closely.

Dick Cheney is just finishing an interview with Rush right now. Here's a paraphrase of what he said about the Heritage Foundation information:

When Rush told him of the projections of HF's study, Cheney said "I hope this study will inform the debate" on Hagel-Martinez. Rush told him that Jeff Sessions is planning on introducing this information.

UPDATE: Follow this link to read the transcript of Vice President Cheney's interview with Rush.

Here's the precise wording of the Sessions question:

RUSH: Well, let's talk about what's going on in the Senate. There are a number of bills there. The compromise bill we're being told is Hagel-Martinez, two Republicans proposing this bill. Robert Rector at Heritage and Senator Sessions, who I know you respect, both did joint analyses of this bill and what they project, using conservative estimates, is anywhere from over the next 20 years 110 to 217 million legal immigrants entering the country and illegals as part of that number being granted legal status. What is the public policy purpose for doing that in these kinds of numbers?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I haven't seen their analysis, Rush, and at this point, of course, what you have in the House bill is specifically a border-enforcement bill. What you've got in the Senate bill is a bill that goes after border enforcement but also you've got Hagel-Martinez and there's Kennedy-McCain. There are a lot of proposals kicking around. The Senate has not finalized its package yet so we don't know what's going to come out of the conference. Obviously we're going to want to look at it very carefully to make sure it does achieve the objectives the president's talked about.

RUSH: Well, if you haven't seen it, let me give you the bare essentials. Senator Sessions did his own analysis. It's a 614 page bill. I know it's gotta be conferenced, but this is a pretty radical starting point. They have anywhere from 117 to 217 million legal Americans, that's two-thirds of the population, over the next 20 years if this bill were to become law and if the president signed it as is. Now, hopefully that --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: These are people who would attain legal status?

RUSH: No, this is a combination of both. This is an increase in the number of legal immigrants as well as added to illegals who would then be made legal over that 20-year time frame and it also allows for exponential growth because these people would be allowed to bring in their family members as well, and one of the big concerns here is the strain this would put on an already stretched social safety welfare net and this sort of thing

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Mmm-hmm.

RUSH: -- and so these numbers are just striking to me. Add two-thirds of the country's population in 20 years? I don't think we can handle that financially and certainly not in an assimilation way.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Right. Well, if that's the case I would hope that would inform the debate and that Congress will consider those kinds of impacts very carefully before they finally pass something. We'll certainly weigh in on it.

Here's the link to Robert Rector's study for the Heritage Foundation .

Here's the opening paragraph of the study:
If enacted, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S.2611) would be the most dramatic change in immigration law in 80 years, allowing an estimated 103 million persons to legally immigrate to the U.S. over the next 20 years. [That's about ...] one-third of the current population of the United States.
I'd expect that part of CIRA to get radically trimmed in size.



Posted Tuesday, May 16, 2006 4:25 PM

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