Call Them What They Are: Illegal Aliens
By Ed Koch

The push is on for providing amnesty to the estimated 12 to 20 million illegal aliens in this country. The supporters of this effort include President Barack Obama, former president George W. Bush, Senator John McCain, Majority Leader Harry Reid and New York Senator Chuck Schumer. Senator Schumer is now chairman of the immigration subcommittee previously chaired by the late Senator Ted Kennedy, a major amnesty proponent.

Amnesty supporters see themselves as taking the high road and claim that amnesty opponents are opposed to immigration, when nothing could be further from the truth. Many amnesty opponents actually support expanding legal immigration. Currently, the U.S. has the highest legal immigration in the world. Every year, we allow 750,000 immigrants to enter the country legally and make them eligible for citizenship within five years. Two hundred and fifty thousand aslyees are also permitted to enter annually. Those legal immigrants have the
right to work and earn a living; the asylees are eligible to work six months after applying to work. If we need more immigrants, as many think we do to expand the workforce of our graying population, then we can easily increase the number of legal immigrants.

If we give the current illegals amnesty, you can be sure that 20 or so years from now, there will be a clamor for another amnesty bill as the illegals will continue to pour in.

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