Reclaiming Common Sense

Senator Schumer was DREAMing.

Placed Illegal Aliens ahead of Military, Citizens


The Federal Government Shutdown started at Midnight Friday Night. Most places call this the weekend. The President did his job buy submitting a Budget. The budget was proposed by President Trump. The Federal Budget Act of 1974 requires that a budget be adopted by June 30th. The House submitted their version of the Budget , H.R. 3354  July 21, 2017, almost a month after the deadline. The Congress House passed the bill, including all 12 appropriation acts,   on September 21, 2017. This column is being written four months after the House did its job. To sum Up: The President did his job, the House of Representatives did its job, and the Senate has failed to do its job. The "key sticking point" is the illegal immigration debate and the DACA situation. Senate Minority leader has said that "the President must take 'Yes' as the answer" to the DACA question. The "Schumer Shutdown" is the #SchumerShutdown because it takes 60 votes to bring the legislation to the floor. The vote for "cloture" failed Friday Night. Cloture failed 50-49 with five Democrats supporting cloture and five Republicans opposing cloture, including the Senator Majority Leader as a play to be able to reintroduce  the same same legislation. The aforementioned article includes how every Senator voted. How did we get here?


The DACA Program was created by a Memo, not by Law. Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security drafted a memo to Defer Action against Childhood Arrivals (DACA) on June 15, 2012. President "Pen and Phone" Obama could have undone the memo. There was an election November of 2012. "Elections have Consequences," as President Obama is credited to saying after he was elected the first time.


Why should we care about illegal aliens. Illegal immigrants are here illegally and committing other crimes while here. We have illegal immigrants in prison. We have illegal immigrants killing American Citizens. We have illegal immigrants killing police officers. Illegal Immigrants cost the Federal government $135 billion a year.


Illegal Inmates. The New York Times ran an article December 21, 2017 that stated that there are thousands of illegal aliens incarcerated in federal prisons. One of the most 


How many Illegal Aliens are in our country? How Many have really been deported? There are enough illegal aliens in California that they had to open Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) facilities to accommodate illegal immigrants. As of December 2016 over 800,000 illegal aliens received drivers licenses in California. The question of how many illegal aliens have been deported and who was the "Deporter in Chief" created a slight firestorm on Twitter for me this weekend.  Here are the three main articles that I referenced:

While researching this article I had a considerable number of questions. These questions allowed me to find these articles:

The point of these articles is to display that this is an on-going problem that will not be solved over the course of a weekend or a week.


What is the Cost of Inaction? There was a Fox news article that stated that there is a study that estimates the cost of illegal immigration at $135 billion a year.  That is the financial cost of illegal immigration. What is the personal cost of illegal immigration? A 2013 Study from the Heritage Foundation goes into detail.

The list could go on for more column space than is physically possible.


Kate Steinle - the reason behind Kate's Law. Kate's law is a bill that was proposed to deal with the illegal immigration problem The bill was passed in the House. It has not been passed in the Senate. Kate Steinle was killed byan illegal immigrant who was in possession of a stolen gun that "accidentally discharged" and killed Kate while she was out for a walk with her Father. The illegal immigrant moved to a sanctuary city to avoid deportation.


Immigration Overstays. There have been numerous articles written on immigration overstays and on tourist visas. One of the most infamous overstays is Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Bombers. This issue is so important that there is a H.R. 643 the "Visa Overstay Act of 2017"


Amnesty or no amnesty. There is a long history of "Amnesty" for illegal aliens. There have been seven major "amnesties" for illegal immigrants. Its seems as if this number is low. There have been minor "amnesties" given for small groups of people.


What are the solutions? Write New Laws and enforce existing laws.

  • Build the Wall
  • End Chain Migration
  • End the Immigration Lottery
  • Start Merit-based Immigration
  • Require e-verify for all employees
  • Sanction Sanctuary Cities, Sanctuary Counties, and Sanctuary States. These entities must be made unconstitutional, officially.
  • Pass Kate's Law


The Senate is moving forward with the Cloture vote to get government back to the work of governing. How do we avoid these unnecessary, unpatriotic, and irresponsible shutdowns?

  • Lock Congressional pay to the pay levels spelled out in the most recently adopted budget (in this case 2010)
  • Set spending for the current fiscal year based on the most recent revenue levels.
  • Require all budgets to balance
  • When a shutdown happens, no pay to members of Congress or their staff. All workers will be required to take vacation days. Once vacation days are consumed, pay will be docked, and not reimbursed. Congress has no days off so they will be docked immediately.
  • If a budget is not adopted by June 30th, pay will be docked.


Share this article. Do your own research. Share it with your Representative or with your Senators. 


It's the economy.