This Issue: Senate staffers from both parties met with the parliamentarian this week to make their cases for or against including amnesty in reconciliation bill.

On Wednesday of this week, Senate staffers met with the chamber's parliamentarian, with Democrats arguing that she should allow a mass amnesty in the Build Back Better reconciliation bill, and Republicans arguing against it.

According to Senate rules, the reconciliation process can be used to pass a bill that bypasses the filibuster but it must contain only provisions that pertain directly to budget matters. The parliamentarian rejected the Democrats' first two amnesty proposals.

(The Hill reports on the meeting here)

This comes on the heels of last month's projection by the Congressional Budget Office that 6.5 million illegal aliens would receive "parole," many of whom "would subsequently receive lawful permanent resident (LPR) status." The CBO went on to say that "a few million other people...would gain LPR status" through different provisions in the bill, and through chain migration as amnestied individuals go on to sponsor family members.

(The NumbersUSA estimate is that 8 illegal aliens would receive the parole amnesty.)

Parole already exists in law, though it is supposed to be used on rare occasions to allow individuals otherwise inadmissible to temporarily enter and remain in the U.S., not to shield from enforcement whole classes of the foreign-born who are already in the United States. Democrats are hoping the parliamentarian will allow "Plan C" to go forward after rejecting two attempts that included amnesties that created a "path to citizenship."

(Immigration law expert Nolan Rappaport wrote about how the parole provision "makes no sense.")

The CBO also projected that the amnesty provision in the bill would add $115.1 billion to the federal budget deficit over the next ten years and an additional $369 billion between 2032 and 2041.

(Jason Richwine of the Center for Immigration Studies credits the CBO for addressing the long-term cost of the legislation, but outlines how it didn't go far enough in tallying the costs in a National Review article.)

While there is no hard deadline, it would seem the Senate parliamentarian should make a decision soon. She is already familiar with the arguments, and the Democrats' scheme to parole illegal aliens seems more political theater designed to placate amnesty groups and the cheap labor lobby (oftentimes one and the same) rather than an attempt to build a serious case. While the parliamentarian should reject the Democrats' arguments on including amnesty in the Build Back Better package, there is no guarantee that she will.

There is also no guarantee that the so-called moderate Democrats in the Senate will vote against the bill if the parliamentarian allows amnesty to remain in. Sen. Sinema (AZ) and Sen. Manchin (WV) have gotten the most intense scrutiny on their possible reconciliation vote. Neither Senator has called for amnesty to be stripped out, even as it remains very unpopular with voters in their states [AZ poll, WV poll].

That's why NumbersUSA's mission in educating the public on what's in Build Back Better is so important. The corporate media has finally started to acknowledge that transformative immigration provisions are actually in Build Back Better. However, they present it as "immigration reform" that provides relief to the "undocumented" living in the United States instead of the largest amnesty in U.S. history. They don't acknowledge that amnesty will only encourage even more illegal immigration while the Biden Administration is demonstrating, at best, extreme reluctance to prevent illegal border crossings and has effectively suspended interior enforcement.

There is speculation that moderate Democrats are hoping for the parliamentarian to bail them out by ruling against including amnesty in reconciliation. That way they won't have to take a "yes" vote strongly opposed by their voters, nor have to buck their party's leadership by voting "no."

This isn't how the world's greatest deliberative body should operate. They should go on record and let their constituents know where they stand.

Keep up the pressure on Senate Democrats to VOTE NO on Build Back Better!

Eric Ruark, Director of Research