As Border Crisis Explodes, Democrats Vote to Award Mass Amnesty to Millions of Illegal Immigrants

Washington, D.C. — Tuesday, Democrats in the House of Representatives forced passage of H.R. 6, their legislation to grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. This action was accomplished as the southern border of the U.S. with Mexico is being inundated with illegal crossings of foreign nationals from Central America and now Africa. Many of these illegal immigrants are declaring asylum and then released in the U.S. on their own recognizance to appear at a court hearing several months or a years in the future.

Watch: America's Open Door.

H.R. 6, called the American Dream and Promise Act, creates a path to U.S. citizenship for three distinct groups of illegal immigrants now living inside the borders of this country.

The bill offers protection from deportation of of individuals who arrived illegally in this country as minors. This impacts about 2.1 million people, according to the Washington Free Beacon. The other two groups are beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and those with Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) status. About 400,000 individuals are in the these latter two groups.

The House bill, sponsored by and passed with votes of House Democrats, will be dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate that is controlled by Republicans.

Congressman Mike Conaway (TX-11) released the following statement after voting against this legislation:

“H.R. 6 is nothing more than a mass-legalization scheme from the Democrats. H.R. 6 expands DACA by reducing the criteria for eligibility, tripling the number of individuals who would be provided a green card and a special pathway to citizenship to total as many as 2.7 million people. Under H.R. 6, criminals, including known gang members, would be eligible for green cards.

“Without penalties or any sort of enforcement, H.R. 6 incentives illegal immigration by rewarding individuals who can get into this country with green cards. We cannot allow our children to be put at risk by not only allowing criminals and gang members into this country, but inviting them to stay.

“There is no doubt that our current immigration system isn’t working, but real immigration reforms must begin by completely securing our border. Without taking that important step first, any further changes will be meaningless as people continue to illegally cross into America at unprecedented rates. There is a humanitarian crisis at the border, but amnesty is not the answer.”

The White House concurred with Conaway's assessment.

"H.R. 6 would incentivize and reward illegal immigration while ignoring and undermining key administration immigration objectives and policy priorities, such as protecting our communities and defending our borders," the statement read. "The administration has put forward proposals to address the status of the hundreds of thousands of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) recipients, but only in the context of actual solutions that would address the underlying problems in our immigration system," the White House said in a prepared statement.