Exclusive — Sen. Tom Cotton Releases DREAM Act Analysis: Work Permits for Millions of Illegal Aliens, ‘Ignores Criminal Records’

 Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) will on Wednesday release a detailed analysis of the DREAM Act, showing that the leftist policy would undermine American workers’ economic opportunities and the safety of American families.

The document, which Breitbart News has obtained exclusively, reveals the push for a DREAM Act would grant upwards of 2 million illegal aliens work permits immediately and eventually full citizenship.

The document from Cotton’s office, a fact sheet exposing the detrimental impact of such a policy, opens by noting that there is a renewed push for a DREAM Act amnesty now that President Joe Biden’s broader legislative immigration plan is failing. Biden introduced a mass-scale amnesty for every illegal alien in America on the first day of his administration, but the measure has received serious blowback from Republicans who are unlikely to embrace that broad package. To overcome a Senate filibuster, Democrats would need to woo at least 10 Senate Republicans to join their ranks on amnesty — and recent reports indicate there is not a single GOP senator willing to get on board with that.

As such, the Democrats and some establishment Republicans have begun shifting the focus not just to executive actions the Biden administration can take — from the White House and from newly-confirmed Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas — but also to slimmer more focused immigration legislation like a DREAM Act amnesty.

The document is the first and most significant pushback from Republicans on the Biden amnesty plan in any respect from members on Capitol Hill. Some GOP members have given press comments and interviews, or have been working with their various colleagues and outside groups and allies to craft strategies to fight amnesty. But this next step is a serious factual deconstruction of the open borders agenda’s biggest wishlist item. It’s also a sign that while the right has been recovering from post-election shock and a variety of crises as the Biden Administration takes over, Republicans are gearing up for a fight and ready to hold the line against amnesty and open borders pushes. Expect Cotton to play a major role in leading that battle.

“Lawmakers are re-introducing the DREAM Act, a costly amnesty program that would legalize millions of illegal aliens,” Cotton’s office’s document provided to Breitbart News exclusively reads. “By granting work permits and citizenship, the bill would put illegal aliens in direct competition with Americans for jobs during the pandemic.”

The document conducts a legislative analysis of the most recent iteration of the DREAM Act, from back in the 116th Congress when it was introduced in 2019. That bill is very similar to whatever lawmakers will introduce if and when they pursue a DREAM Act strategy to break up the Biden amnesty agenda into little pieces rather than the original failing broad bill.

Citing the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Cotton’s document notes that the DREAM Act would give “work permits and eventual citizenship” to more than 2 million illegal aliens. That number includes many more illegal aliens than applied for or received former President Barack Obama’s first executive amnesty, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

“After receiving citizenship, amnesty recipients could then sponsor family members for citizenship as well, including parents who brought them to the United States illegally,” Cotton’s office notes.

The DREAM Act also, according to Cotton’s office, “ignores criminal records” of the illegal aliens being granted amnesty including whether they have “multiple criminal convictions at the federal or state level” and especially whether they committed “serious, violent felonies pled down to lesser offenses.”

“The bill even allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to issue amnesty waivers for human traffickers and those who voted illegally in our elections,” Cotton’s document says.

The DREAM Act also does not, per Cotton’s document, require any documentation from the illegal aliens being granted amnesty “to prove that the alien has been in the United States long enough to qualify for amnesty.” The only requirement, Cotton’s team notes, is “just a statement from two friends” of the illegal alien vouching for them.

The document continues by citing the CBO analysis to lay out how the DREAM Act would cost American taxpayers $26 billion to amnesty these illegal aliens, because it would “require American taxpayers to pay for health insurance subsidies, tax credits, and welfare programs for illegal aliens.”

And perhaps most importantly, the vast majority of those who would be amnestied under the DREAM Act that leftist and establishment politicians are pursuing are not even children. In fact, they are overwhelmingly adults over the age of 20 years old.

The document notes the DREAM Act “provides amnesty largely to adults, not children.”

“In fact, 87% of DACA recipients are older than 20, and approximately 130,000 DACA recipients are in their 30s, according to data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services [USCIS],” the document concludes, citing a document from USCIS.

https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2021/02/03/exclusive-sen-tom-cotton-releases-dream-act-analysis-work-permits-for-millions-of-illegal-aliens-ignores-criminal-records/

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/02/02/joe-biden-signs-order-revamping-welfare-dependent-immigration/