Senate Parliamentarian Tanks Amnesty for Millions of Illegals in Reconciliation Bill Yet Again

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Dec 17, 2021

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has ruled that the third Democratic attempt to include amnesty measures in the planned budget reconciliation bill is illegal, failing to qualify for the budget purposes reconciliation powers are reserved for. MacDonough made the ruling on Thursday afternoon, following two earlier rulings on potential amnesty plans.

Reconciliation is a Senate privilege that allows yearly federal budget legislation to pass with a simple majority of votes, as opposed to the 60 normally required to evade the filibuster. Democrats had hoped to include a measure to provide legal residency and eventual citizenship for more than six and a half illegal immigrants in the Biden administration’s reconciliation package, which delegates more than $2 trillion in spending for a range of Democratic policy priorities.

Democrat Senator Dick Durbin seemed to suggest the party was running out of ideas to include amnesty for illegals in a reconciliation package, with any further immigration proposals amounting to a ‘Plan D.’ The ‘Plan C’ the parliamentarian shot down Thursday would’ve shielded any illegals who were in the United States before 2011 from deportation, and provided them with an automatically renewable five-year work visa.

The rulings of the Senate Parliamentarian are not binding, but it’s highly likely that an attempt to ram through immigration through congressional budget powers would be brought to a halt in the federal court system, potentially tanking other elements of Biden’s Build Back Better legislative agenda. Progressives have fiercely attacked the parliamentarian for pointing out the legal truth, hoping to abuse the limited reconciliation powers of the Senate for partisan political purposes.

Moderate Democrat Joe Manchin has also committed that he won’t vote for reconciliation legislation that includes measures the parliamentarian has deemed illegal, making the inclusion of any amnesty proposals in the reconciliation package difficult.

In spite of the amnesty provision facing a likely political death, the Build Back Better reconciliation package contains an unlimited cheap labor visa provision for Big Tech.

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