The United States admits more legal permanent immigrants every year than the rest of the world combined. More than 1 million people come here legally every year. We are the most welcoming country in the world.

The angst on both sides of the aisle about the electoral reasons to pass immigration reform misses the point entirely. It does highlight, however, what's wrong with Washington. We shouldn't pass legislation because it's politically expedient. Instead, we should do what is right for the country.  In my opinion, the Senate's amnesty-first immigration bill is not in the country's best interest.

Talking about immigration reform raises several questions. Does it make us more secure? The border security provisions in the Senate bill don't actually secure our border. A lot of grand claims, but so many purposeful loopholes and waivers ensure they will have marginal effect. In fact, just like the 1986 amnesty, it almost guarantees that we will be having this same debate again in 10 years.

Most important, is it good for our economy? Legalizing 11 million immigrants, most of whom are blue-collar workers, will have significant effects on parts of our labor market. The influx of new legal workers will undercut the wages of blue-collar Americans, many of whom are already having a hard time getting by in a tough economy. Not to mention its effects on the 22 million people who are unemployed.

We also need to consider what effects this will have on the president's health care law. Will these 11 million immigrants be eligible for government health care subsidies? How many hundreds of billions of dollars will that cost?

If these new immigrants don't qualify for ObamaCare subsidies, then businesses cannot be fined for not providing health care to these workers. That would give businesses an incentive to hire these amnesty recipients instead of citizens to avoid costly fines, and give immigrants an edge over job-seeking Americans.

Neither outcome seems like a reasonable solution, yet none of the pro-amnesty champions are discussing the problem.

If we are going to reform our immigration system, we should do it by passing legislation that will be good for the country, not designed in a way to get votes in the next election.