The DREAM Act is the sort of piecemeal immigration-reform legislation that drew the support of Republicans when Bush was president but is now part of Obama's radical socialist agenda. In recent days, the DREAM Act, which would offer a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought here as children and are either poised to graduate from college or join the military, has been narrowed considerably in an effort to appease Republicans who have since turned against the bill. The process of becoming a citizen now takes about 13 years -- 10 years of conditional nonimmigrant status, then three years of legal permanent residency. You also essentially have to avoid getting in any kind of legal trouble during that time. The bill now only applies to undocumented immigrants brought here before the age of 16 and who are no older than 29 on the date of enactment.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, it also cuts the deficit by 1.4 billion over the next 10 years by bringing in more tax revenue. From Andrea Nill:
The increase in authorized workers would affect individual and corporate income taxes, as well as social insurance taxes. On balance, those changes would increase revenues by $2.3 billion over 10 years, according to estimates provided by the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT).
CBO and JCT estimate that enacting the bill would reduce deficits by about $1.4 billion over the 2011-2020 period. That result reflects an increase in on-budget deficits of about $1.4 billion over that period and a decrease in off-budget deficits of about $2.8 billion over the same period. Only the on-budget effects are counted for purposes of enforcing the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010.
I'm not going to pretend like this actually matters -- cap-and-trade and the Affordable Care Act also cut the deficit. Deficit reduction is only a priority for the GOP when it provides an excuse to block key Democratic priorities. But it's worth pointing out that this legislation, which provides a laborious path to citizenship for the most educated, Americanized subgroup of immigrants in the country who also happen to be here through no fault of their own, also happens to cut the deficit, and passing it is still a long shot. Not because it's bad policy but because Obama supports it.
