One more scam in the "Gang of Eight" immigration reform bill needs to be exposed and understood by the public, congressmen, reporters, and opinion leaders: any of the promises to secure our national borders can be canceled later by a Congress in the future -- or simply ignored. Even what is actually written in the law can later be revoked or left unenforced by the Executive Branch.

But once amnesty is granted to specific individuals, the amnesty can never be taken back -- including all of the later benefits one might claim. When specific people (identified by a category) gain the right to "Registered Provisional Immigrant" (RPI) status, that status cannot be taken away later. For example, if Republicans gain control of the Senate in 2014, they cannot undo amnesty.

Illegal aliens will obtain a legal "property right" under court precedents such as Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254 (1970). In 1970, the U.S. Supreme Court in Goldberg v. Kelly decided that welfare benefits become a vested property interest for those who qualify within the terms of the statute. This is so even though Congress had no obligation to offer the welfare benefits in the first place. Yet Congress did. So it became a vested right. Therefore, welfare benefits cannot be taken away from people without due process of law (meaning specific allegations of wrongdoing proven in a legal hearing).

Now, those who climbed through America's window illegally (normally called breaking and entering) will immediately gain a permanent, vested legal right to live and work in the United States. As soon as the bill is signed, amnesty becomes final for illegal aliens, along with their families. An estimated 33 million to 46 million future Democrats would result from amnesty to 11 million trespassers.

Technically, first the Department of Homeland Security has to file a work of fiction -- a plan about how it would secure the border if it had any intention of actually doing so. You can be sure that this term paper has already been written, probably by National Council of La Raza -- "the race" -- or by other liberal activist groups. Then, six months after DHS submits this fantasy plan, amnesty is granted, irrevocably. The plan to secure the border will then be filed next to the crate seen at the end of the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. There is no obligation for the plan to actually be implemented, obviously.

Promises now to secure the border are no better than a man promising he will marry a woman sometime later while insisting that she really ought to sleep with him tonight. Once the morning dawns, the deed is done, but the promise to get married later is not enforceable. The temptation to get the immediate benefit is strong. Yet any obligation to follow through later and do the honorable thing is sorely lacking.

This is a serious problem, because we know that the political establishment doesn't really want to stop the flow of cheap labor. Employers want to drive down wages by flooding the labor market with an excess of workers. It is laughable to suggest that it would help the economy to add more of what the U.S. already has too much of -- unskilled labor. Adding to a surplus won't expand the economy. For liberals, the temptation to bring in specific foreigners with a different culture to "fundamentally transform America" will also remain a motivating factor.

Part of the con job is that the "Gang of Eight" immigration bill creates a new "Registered Provisional Immigrant" status. But RPI status is essentially everything that you could ever want in a green card without calling it a green card.

Snake oil salesmen in Congress are boasting that illegal aliens can't get a green card until this or that happens to get tough on the border. And so what? RPI = amnesty. RPI is a new word so people won't understand what is going on. The trumpeted amendment by Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and John Hoeven (R-ND) is nonsense. Once a person gains the new RPI status, the once-important green card suddenly loses relevance. It just doesn't matter if trespassers can't get a green card until this or that happens.

Furthermore, while individual trespassers can enforce their rights to the new RPI status provided by statute, no one will be able to force the government to comply with border security requirements. The government is already ignoring the existing law on immigration, and states like Arizona have been trying in vain to get the existing law enforced.

The IRS already knows who most of the illegal trespassers are and where they live and work. Illegal aliens usually commit identity theft to work illegally in the U.S. When their unwitting employer files payroll reports with the IRS, the IRS computer talks to the Social Security Administration computer, and the SSA computer spits back a "mismatch file.



"When the names don't match the Social Security number, we have a list of probable lawbreakers committing identify theft. However, nothing is being done with this information -- not even to require the employer to investigate. Yes, of course, the list requires further research to find out why there is a mismatch, obviously. But we could shut down illegal immigration right now if we wanted to.

The 1986 amnesty bill, called Simpson-Mazzoli, already promised, in 1986, the same border control and security that the "Gang of Eight" is promising us now.

It is already the law, passed in 2006, that 700 miles of physical barriers must be built along the Mexican border. The " Secure Fence Law of 2006 " is being totally ignored. So why should we trust that new laws will be implemented when existing laws aren't being implemented?

A 1996 law already requires creation of an entry-exit visa system. Right now, we process visitors when they arrive. But we don't know if they leave or not. One of the big selling points for the "Gang of Eight" bill now is a system to check visitors out when they leave the country. That way we will know who is still here, after his or her visa has expired. But a law passed in 1996 already requires this, in 8 USC § 1365b.

The number of border patrol agents doesn't matter, because President Obama won't let them do their job as it is. Border agents have sued the Obama administration to allow them to actually do their job stopping illegal aliens from breaking and entering the country.

E-Verify is already the law. Employers are required to check an applicant's Social Security number with a government computer system. But implementation has been weak. So the "Gang of Eight" promise that they really mean it this time.

It is a recurring pattern that those who want to expand government try to sell us the same horse multiple times. And they always want to add new laws to deal with the problems caused by their refusal to enforce the existing laws. This astonishing pattern cuts across many topics and is worth watching out for.