The Biden administration made a show of proposing sweeping legislation that would legalize virtually all illegal aliens and enact a variety of measures to weaken immigration enforcement and increase legal immigration beyond the current level of about 1 million a year. This was no vague statement of principles—congressional staff received a fifty-nine-page, section-by-section summary of the bill.
In the midst of a devastating pandemic, a wrenching economic slowdown, and political instability, the White House signaled that its top priority is amnesty for illegal aliens.
But the bill has yet to be actually introduced in Congress. And it may never be.
That’s because, with an almost evenly divided Congress, it has no chance of passage. The bill was proposed on the president’s first day in office to satisfy a campaign pledge and as a gesture of solidarity with the party’s most radical anti-borders activists.
This is not to say there will be no congressional push for the tripartite immigration goals of the left (and its corporate and libertarian fellow-travelers): amnesty, hobbled enforcement, and more immigration. But the administration, congressional Democrats, and activists confessed to Politico recently that a series of smaller measures is more likely. . . .