Could the Senate-passed bill on immigration reform decrease the deficit and pad your pocketbook, all while granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants?
The answer is no, according to Heritage’s Derrick Morgan, vice president of Domestic and Economic Policy.
“This is going to increase the deficit,” Morgan said on Fox Business in response to the White House’s claims on the benefits of immigration reform.
The White House claims that the Senate-passed bill would reduce the deficit and at the same time would increase wages. Morgan said that the claim is fantasy.
“We know that in immigration there will certainly be winners and losers. It’s not going to help everybody, that is for sure. In fact, the CBO projects that you’ll see wage decreases among some classes of workers.”
Morgan said that it is unrealistic to think that the 4.5 million immigrants waiting in line, plus the 11.5 million illegal immigrants in the country could be processed efficiently.
During the interview, Morgan listed three steps that Congress should take to fix the immigration problem, because he said that immigration has been positive for America.
“First, you would want to make sure the border is secure. Second, you want to make sure that we are doing workplace enforcement. Then, if you fixed the legal immigration system to make it easier for those that follow the rules to come into the United States legally.”
Morgan said, “If you did those three things you’d take care of a lot of the problems and then you could deal with the more difficult problems later on.”
Watch the video to find out the rest of the five falsehoods from the White House.
Crystal Goodremote is currently a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please click here.