Amnesty provision rightly fails

Thursday, September 23, 2010

The U.S. Senate has rightly turned back a misguided attempt to give amnesty to potentially millions of people who are in the United States illegally.

Disgustingly, Democrats in the Senate had attached the provision - the badly misnamed "DREAM Act" - to a vital national defense bill. They hoped that by doing so, they would make it impossible for Republicans to vote against the overall measure.

But it didn't work. Republican senators, joined by Democrat Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, fortunately managed to kill the measure.

Granting amnesty to illegal aliens has absolutely nothing to do with protecting our nation. To the contrary, it would reduce our national security by encouraging still more people to enter the United States unlawfully.

The defense spending bill now should be brought back up in "clean" form - without the addition of any "pet political causes" that would do nothing to ensure our national defense.