While in Mexico, President Obama Promises Amnesty Next Year

While in Mexico, President Obama Promises Amnesty Next Year
Last week, while meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Guadalajara, Mexico, President Barack Obama predicted Congress would pass an amnesty bill next year to legalize more than 12 million illegal aliens who are presently in the United States. (ABC News, August 11, 2009 and The Los Angeles Times, August 11, 2009).

While in Mexico, President Obama stated: "Secretary Napolitano is coordinating these discussions, and I would anticipate that before the year is out we will have draft legislation along with sponsors potentially in the House and the Senate who are ready to move this forward, and when we come back next year, that we should be in a position to start acting." The President also conceded that overcoming the opposition of the American people to an amnesty bill would be difficult, saying: "Am I going to be able to snap my fingers and get this done? No. This is going to be difficult." (ABC News, August 11, 2009). The Los Angeles Times even suggested that passing the bill would "prove [to be] a major political test."

Mexican government officials were upset with this timing. According to media reports, Mexican Senator Carlos Navarrete of the "leftist Democratic Revolution Party" responded to Obama's announcement by saying: "This is not good news," and also stated "we can hope that Latino Congress members who have taken on this initiative [of immigration reform] will maintain their activism in this matter." (The Los Angeles Times, August 11, 2009).

The people who should be the most upset by this announcement, however, are the American people, particularly those who are out of work. America has a real shortage of jobs, and the idea that Congress would consider amnesty legislation, thereby giving illegal aliens the ability to openly compete for scarce jobs, is not in the best interest of the American worker. (See FAIR's Report Amnesty & Joblessness, July 2009). In fact, earlier this year, Vice President Joe Biden even suggested that America's economic situation is at odds with President Obama's goal of signing amnesty legislation. (See FAIR's Legislative Update, April 6, 2009).

More recently, The New York Times opinion page expressed just how dire America's job situation is. Op-Ed columnist Bob Herbert wrote that "the American economy does not seem able to provide enough jobs — and nowhere near enough good jobs — to maintain the standard of living that most Americans have come to expect." Herbert's column states that the U.S. economy has lost 6.7 million jobs since December 2007 and that the economy has fewer jobs today than it did in 2000, despite the fact that the "labor force has grown by around 12 million workers since then." Coincidentally, nearly 12 million illegal aliens are in the United States, with nearly 8.3 million in the workforce. Herbert also stated that "[n]o one is predicting a recovery in the foreseeable future powerful enough to replace the millions of jobs that have vanished," further calling into question the wisdom of any amnesty legislation and undercutting any calls for a "guest worker" program as part of any immigration bill. (The New York Times, August 10, 2009).

DHS April Report Attacking True Immigration Reformers as "Extremists" Further Discredited
The "intelligence assessment" on "Rightwing Extremism" issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in April was further discredited last week, this time by information provided by DHS. (DHS Report, April 7, 2009). The April assessment painted millions of American citizens, including many of America's "returning veterans" as "extremists," and categorized Americans concerned with unchecked illegal immigration as a threat. (FOXNews, April 17, 2009; See also FAIR's Legislative Update, April 27, 2009).

The American public, including organizations that represent generations of America's veterans like the American Legion, were outraged by the DHS assessment. (FOXNews, April 24, 2009). Democrats on Capitol Hill also said they were "dumbfounded" by the DHS report, and others questioned the reliability and sources behind the report. Despite questions about the reliability of the report, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano stood behind it. (The Washington Times, April 16, 2009).

This past week, DHS responded to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by Americans for Limited Government (ALG), and their response reveals that DHS's "assessment" was not based on actual intelligence. (Americans for Limited Government, August 13, 2009). Instead, DHS's disclosure reveals that they relied not on primary sources or investigations to draft the report, but exclusively on secondary sources, including some that are highly questionable. (DHS Interim Response to FOIA Request, August 5, 2009).


The FOIA request submitted by ALG asked DHS for federal records related to the extremism report, including "all data and all studies, reports, or other documents regarding data created or reviewed by the Department in general to draft the report." (ALG FOIA Request, April 17, 2009). In response, DHS provided ALG with a list of "website links for…217 pages of publicly responsive material." The list shows that DHS relied on spurious sources — including heavy use of materials from the Southern Poverty Law Center and "WhatDoesItMean.com" — in issuing its "Rightwing Extremism" report. (DHS Interim Response to FOIA Request, August 5, 2009).


The SPLC is well-known for slanderously attacking groups and individuals who advocate for the enforcement of immigration laws. The SPLC neither has definitions for the labels it freely slaps on organizations, nor provides any sources or footnotes to support the conclusions made in its "reports." Prior to a House Judiciary Committee hearing on "the Public Safety and Civil Rights

Implications of State and Local Enforcement of Federal Immigration Laws" (See FAIR's Legislative Update, April 6, 2009), the SPLC submitted a letter to Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) that provided erroneous information about FAIR. At the actual hearing, Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) read parts of the SPLC letter into the record. FAIR President Dan Stein responded by sending a letter to Chairman Conyers and Subcommittee Chairwoman Lofgren pointing out the obvious falsehoods in the SPLC's letter. Two days after Mr. Stein's letter was sent to Mr. Conyers and Ms. Lofgren, the SPLC was forced to correct a number of the claims they made in their original letter. (For more information on the SPLC, see FAIR's Inquiry into the Methods and Tactics Employed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and FAIR's Journalist Alert.)

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