The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its report on Sens. Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin’s S. 1615, the DREAM Act. The report shows that their legislation would add $26 billion to the deficit over a ten year period. According to the CBO:
The bill would affect direct spending by conferring eligibility for federal benefits — health insurance subsidies and benefits under Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), among others — provided that those applicants met the other eligibility requirements for those programs.
The CBO also found that the DREAM Act would increase chain migration numbers:
S. 1615 would cause around 80,000 more people to receive LPR status — as the immediate relatives of the direct beneficiaries of S. 1615 who naturalize — than would be the case under current law. In subsequent decades, some of the additional people who would receive LPR status through chain migration would arrive from abroad.
I oppose the DREAM Act and urge you to do the same.
Greg Raven, Apple Valley, CA
