Immigration has had more impact on the face of America than any other social, political or economic influence. But the history of United States’ immigration policy can best be described in one word: schizophrenic.
Immigrants from around the world, seeking political freedom and economic stability in the United States, have been welcomed, recruited and embraced. Some have become corporate leaders. A few have been elected to high office.
Others have been ostracized, condemned, targeted for arrest and even killed.
And while the American public consistently has called on the country’s elected officials to enact stricter immigration controls, Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill and in the White House have sought to broaden America’s immigrant base through new laws, along with various amnesty and guest-worker programs for illegal aliens already in the country.
On Wednesday, President Bush proposed a new guest-worker program, which could see the legalization of millions of the illegal aliens now in the United States. Immigration experts and others said the proposal, if approved by Congress and fully implemented, would further change the face of America.
Mr. Bush’s proposal has enraged proponents of stricter immigration enforcement, who believe the federal government in the wake of the September 11 attacks should be bolstering security along U.S. borders and tracking down and deporting the millions of illegal aliens already here.
They say guest-worker and amnesty programs reward lawbreakers, granting permanent status to those who have entered the country illegally, while discriminating against those who seek legal immigration.
Supporters of Mr. Bush’s plan say it allows employers to hire the workers they need, gives illegal aliens now in the country a chance to legalize their status, and will improve relations with Mexico.
Rep. Jeff Flake, who is co-sponsoring a guest-worker bill with fellow Arizonan Republicans Sen. John McCain and Rep. Jim Kolbe, credited the president with presenting a “rational and realistic vision” of immigration reform.
“President Bush has got it right,” Mr. Flake said. “A comprehensive temporary-worker program will dramatically improve the situation at our borders.”
Liberalized immigration laws and guest-worker and amnesty programs continue to be pushed by what immigration experts call the “elites” — members of Congress, top business and labor union executives and various religious leaders.
It has been those so-called “elites,” according to the immigration experts, that have had the most immediate impact on the country’s vast immigration system, beginning most prominently in 1965 when Congress passed the landmark Immigration and Nationality Act, which ended a “national origins quota system.”
James W. Ziglar, former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), now an agency within Homeland Security, said the 1965 law “changed our immigration policy dramatically,” opening the U.S. border to immigrants from Asia and Latin America.
“But the law lacked the flexibility we needed to accommodate our own society,” Mr. Ziglar said.
“With Mexico, a labor source, on our border, it contained no quota difference for that country than it did for other countries in distant parts of the world,” he said. “And if you don’t deal with a problem, you’re going to end up with a problem.”
The problem the new law created, Mr. Ziglar said, was increased illegal immigration by Mexican nationals and others looking to follow relatives and friends who had immigrated legally to the United States for jobs — a wave of humanity that continues today.
“We have 8 [million] to 12 million illegal aliens in the country today, and a government grappling to figure out what to do with them,” he said.
It is an ongoing debate with no likely resolution, as the war on terrorism focuses the country’s attention on border security.
“Few government policies can have so profound an effect on a nation as immigration,” said Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the District-based Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). “Large numbers of immigrants and their descendants cannot help but have a significant impact on the cultural, political and economic situation of their new country.
“But America’s immigration policy is and has been in chaos, complete incoherence,” Mr. Camarota said. “We have never put up the money it takes to either run such a system or to guarantee enforcement. We have created a very large immigration system, but not the infrastructure it takes to manage it in any coherent way.”
Mr. Camarota noted that the rate of increase in legal U.S. immigration, coupled with a dramatic rise in the number of illegal aliens coming annually to the United States, “does seem to be without precedent in recent years,” adding that efforts have to be made to overhaul the system and reduce the total numbers.
“Because legal immigration is so large, it has helped drive illegal immigration,” he said. “The bigger the legal population, the bigger the illegal population. This chaos will continue until you restore integrity to the system, bring the numbers down and then decide, in a careful way, what increases are warranted.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the country’s foreign-born population in March 2002 was 32.5 million, about 11.5 percent of the total U.S. population — 52.2 percent of whom were born in Latin America. This compares to 19.7 million foreign-born residents in 1990, 14 million in 1980 and 9.5 million in 1970, according to Census Bureau records.
In addition, between 8 million and 12 million illegal aliens are believed to be living in the United States, mostly Mexican nationals, with anywhere from 1 million to 3 million more expected this year, according to U.S. border enforcement officials.
Rules changed
Described at the time as part of a “sweeping overhaul” of America’s immigration system, the 1965 act eliminated the country of origin as the basis for approving a person’s legal entry to the United States, changing America’s immigrant population from one predominantly European, nearly 90 percent, to Latin American and Asian, which now make up about 77 percent.
Beginning in the 1820s and running through 1890, a period known as the “era of mass immigration,” immigrants — attracted by reports of economic opportunity and religious and political freedom — came to the United States mainly from Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands.
Between 1890 and 1910, the vast majority of new immigrants were from Austria, Hungary, Italy and Russia. In 1924, the government enacted legislation that for the first time set limits on the number of people who could legally immigrate to the United States from specific countries. The limits were based on the number of people from those countries already living in America.
Mr. Camarota said the 1965 law came on the heels of the civil rights movement, passed by a Congress concerned that existing U.S. immigration laws discriminated against Asians and Hispanics. He said the lawmakers responded to their “new civil rights sensibilities,” but failed to anticipate the “enormous desire of immigrants to come to America” — particularly those from Mexico.
“The difference between the standard of living in the United States and almost everywhere else is so vast that the desire to come to this country is equally vast,” he said.
According to a recent Justice Department report, of the 1,063,732 persons who immigrated legally in 2002 to the United States, 219,380 were from Mexico, 71,105 from India, 61,282 from China, 51,308 from the Philippines and 33,267 from Vietnam. Those five countries accounted for 41 percent of the nation’s legal immigrants.
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Illegal immigrants
Illegal immigration, according to law-enforcement authorities and immigration experts, continues to affect the face of America — aided, in part, by various guest-worker and amnesty programs authorized by both Republican and Democratic administrations over the past 20 years.
Since 1986, Congress has passed seven amnesty proposals, targeting more than 5.7 million illegal aliens.
Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), said amnesty and guest-worker programs — like the one proposed last week by Mr. Bush — encourage additional illegal immigration.
Mr. Stein also noted that when legal migration numbers are high, illegal immigration totals also increase. He said FAIR, with 70,000 members nationwide, has sought enhanced border security, an end to illegal immigration and the establishment of legal immigration levels it believes are “consistent with the national interest” — about 300,000 a year.
“As history has proven conclusively, amnesties do not solve the problem of illegal immigration. They encourage even more illegal immigration. The message that is disseminated loudly and clearly throughout the world is that it’s time to start lining up for the next amnesty program,” he said.
“Once a pattern of dealing with illegal immigration through amnesty programs is established, there will be no end to the number of people prepared to get in on the deal,” he said.
Considered key among government efforts to revamp its immigration system was the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), a “one-time-only” deal passed by a Republican-controlled Senate, a Democratic-controlled House and approved by President Reagan as part of a compromise package between those who wanted to reduce illegal immigration and others who wanted to “wipe the slate clean” by granting legal residency to illegal aliens already in the country.
IRCA also mandated “employer sanctions,” or fines, for those who knowingly hired illegal aliens. The sanctions, still on the books, rarely have been enforced.
But the 1986 law resulted in amnesty for 2.7 million illegal aliens, mostly Mexican nationals, who had lived and worked in the United States for anywhere from 90 days for agricultural workers to a year for others. In addition, it also granted legal residency to 160,000 spouses and children of those aliens.
Law-enforcement authorities and immigration experts said the act also increased illegal immigration, as others sought to find a way into the United States to take part in the plan — many through the use of easily attainable fraudulent documents.
According to a study by the Center for Immigration Studies, the total net cost of the IRCA amnesty — the direct and indirect costs of services and benefits to the formerly illegal aliens, minus their tax contributions — after 10 years was more than $78 billion.
Mahmud Abouhalima, a leader of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing by al Qaeda terrorists, was legalized as a seasonal agricultural worker as part of the 1986 amnesty law.
Mr. Ziglar said it is unlikely the debate over immigration will ever be resolved, because U.S. sentiment about the role newcomers play in society will likely “ebb and flow with events and with the strength or weakness of the U.S. economy.”
But he believes the country must first determine if it is committed to its heritage as a nation of immigrants and as a refuge for those escaping oppression and seeking opportunity, or if such a commitment is relevant or necessary in today’s America.
He said questions also need to be addressed on how to control the flow of illegal aliens across America’s borders, what to do about the 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens in the country, and whether granting them amnesty was a reward for breaking the law.
And while continuing to address the threat of terrorism, Mr. Ziglar also said Congress and the White House must decide how the United States protects the civil liberties of its citizens and noncitizens while securing them from the threat of a terrorist attack.
“What we are witnessing today regarding immigration policy is not new. There is no issue today that hasn’t been debated throughout history,” he said. “In good times, we oversee a fairly easy immigration policy. In tougher times, immigration becomes an issue and a problem.
“It is, however, one of the most important issues this country must address, and soon.”
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