Citizenship for 4,000 Liberian illegal aliens … snuck into a 3,430-page defense bill

“Invade the world, invite the world.”

That is essentially the foreign policy and national security strategy of the bipartisan elites in recent years. That principle was enshrined in a massive 3,400-page defense authorization bill that just passed both houses of Congress and received Trump’s praise and promise of signing it. No, this is not the 2,000-page set of omnibus bills full of bad provisions, including amnesty for MS-13 traffickers. This is another massive bill full of provisions nobody has read. One of them is an amnesty provision.

The defense bill contains no provision to rectify our mistakes in Afghanistan, nothing about arming our soldiers on bases after the Pensacola terror attack, nothing about refocusing our military mission on our border, and nothing about ending military training and aid for dubious and often unreliable actors in Afghanistan and in Lebanon. So what does it contain? An amnesty for Liberian illegal aliens that was likely missed by almost every single member and the president himself.

Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) is one of the many amnesty programs concocted by the executive branch over the years. Aside from the statutorily grounded humanitarian deferments of removal for various classes of illegal aliens, such as Temporary Protected Status (TPS), DED was fabricated by President Bush specifically to shield Liberian illegal aliens who claim they can’t return to their home country. President Trump promised to end this lawless program created in 2007, which would end amnesty for 4,000 Liberians, but in March he agreed to extend it for another 12 months. Now, the NDAA, if Trump follows through with his promise to sign it, will give them a permanent pathway to citizenship.

On page 2,659 of the NDAA conference report is the Orwellianly named “Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness.” It bars their removal and offers a pathway to citizenship to any Liberian here illegally since before November 2014.

Liberia has overcome its civil war and is now prospering. Now is the time to repatriate its citizens so they can help rebuild their country.

This bill establishes a terrible precedent, namely that any time a president lawlessly creates an amnesty program for illegal aliens, Congress will come in and codify it, the exact opposite of how the legislative process works. Isn’t it sad that the numerous immigration enforcement laws that are not enforced by the executive branch and the courts don’t seem to be of concern to Congress, while benefits for illegal aliens who violate law get approval from Congress? American citizens last: Who saw that coming in a national defense bill? What about immigration “fairness” for Americans?

How many other anti-security provisions are in a 3,400-page national defense bill? We have no way of knowing, nor does the president.

Both the omnibus and the NDAA are the last two remaining leverage points of the president for his first term. Sadly, we got nothing but a lump of coal. The president wrongly tweeted out that we got “all out priorities.”

If by that, he means amnesty, endless social engineering in Afghanistan, and the socialist paid family leave for government workers who already have more generous benefit packages than taxpayers, then he’s right. Other than that, he can do better. He must do better.

This is the perfect opportunity for the president to veto both the omnibus bills and the defense bill by demanding that the public discover and debate the new provisions in these bills that are thousands of pages long. At its core, this is what the president was elected to stop. There will be no government shutdown if the NDAA doesn’t pass quite yet. An extra few weeks of sunshine won’t harm anyone, except for those working against the security of the American people.

Mr. President, don’t reward those impeaching you with all their budget and policy priorities. Make your veto pen great again.

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