Yesterday I mentioned how Robert Rector is upsetting government efforts to establish a large amnesty program and included audio from Mr. Rector himself, along with links to his reports. Well yesterday afternoon, the White House responded with an e-mail, to people that they feel are “opinion leaders”. The memo attempts to totally discredit Mr. Rector’s findings. Blogger NZ Bear at The Truth Laid Bear, has posted a copy of the entire memo and preceded it with his own criticism of the White House’s effort. Many thanks to NZ for posting the e-mail he received. The White House response is titled “Setting The Record Straight: Heritage Foundation Report Overestimates Legal Immigration Increase Under Senate Immigration Bill”. But the e-mail does nothing to set the record straight. It simply attempts to spin Mr. Rector’s report and cites this Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the Hagel-Martinez bill.

The Memo from the White House tries to make 3 major points. I will list each below in a quote box and summarize Mr. Rector’s response along with my thoughts. Mr. Rector offered his response today on the Laura Ingraham Show.

1. The Heritage Foundation Report Overestimates The Number Of Illegal Immigrants Who Would Be Legalized

The White House attempts to claim that only 8 million will remain after 10 years. Far short of Mr. Rector’s adjusted estimate after a recent amendment of 66 million over 20 years. They claim that not all of the immigrants will be “able to stay permanently in the United States”. As Mr. Rector points out in his response, the bill has no defined cap for the number of people that can stay. There is simply an assumption at the White House that they will leave. We know from past immigration reform efforts that not only will they stay, but more will come. And we also know that little will be done to try and send anyone back that is expected to leave.

2. The Heritage Foundation Report Wrongly Assumes That Immigrants Will Not Leave

Mr. Rector responds to this. The government bases it’s assumptions on the migration patterns of immigrants from around the globe. But in cases of immigrants from nations with economic issues, those who come to the USA are far more likely to never leave. We know the group of people addressed in this bill will be coming from a country with plenty of corruption. So what might be true for immigrants from other nations is not true for them. They will come to the USA and they will stay. They will also bring over as many family members as they can. See the CNN report I cited in this post. Their objective is to come and stay and they don’t care about the law.

3. The Heritage Foundation Report Double Counts Some Immigrants First As Guest Workers And Then As New Legal Permanent Residents

Given the lunacy of the other points in the White House memo, Mr. Rector and Ms. Ingraham never touched on this point. Even if there was a duplication in counting some guest workers as green card holders, there still is no defined cap on the number that will be allowed. And what neither Mr. Rector or the White House include in any of their counts, is the fact that there will still be illegal immigrants. (Both Mr. Rector’s report and the CBO’s report have footnotes mentioning this.) I feel there will probably be more illegals coming in than before, given how accommodating the USA would have proven to be towards them. So any mistaken duplication of numbers does not matter, given the continued influx of illegals.

Also in his response, Mr. Rector points out that under this bill, it will be difficult to send illegals back who have fake documents showing they were in the USA during the amnesty period. Because of required adjudication. So an illegal alien that comes in now could simply have a fake document, that shows a date during the amnesty period and they will get a trial. Mr. Rector estimates the process could take 10 years, given the rounds of trials and appeals.

You can hear the audio of Mr. Rector’s response using the links below.
Laura Ingraham with Robert Rector responding to the White House - WMA Audio
(For the sake of bandwidth there will be no other formats made.)