and the English version:
Immigration
and Amnesty
One
of the more contentious issues to be dealt with in the upcoming policy debates
over comprehensive immigration reform will be legal status for the estimated 11
million undocumented immigrants now living in the country. President Obama has
already taken some steps to at least partially address the issue, offering
“deferred action” for undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. as children,
and more recently tweaking rules for undocumented immigrants who return to
their home country for visas, allowing them to return immediately if they have
citizens in their family, rather than have to face a 10 year waiting period.
The
last time the United States had a large-scale amnesty for undocumented
immigrants was with the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). At that
time, immigration reform was being propelled by concerns about undocumented
immigrants that had begun during the Carter administration in the late 1970s.
In 1977 President Carter submitted a proposal to Congress that called for
employer sanctions, an increase in border patrol agents, and legalization for
unauthorized immigrants. Congress didn’t
take up the bill at the time, and it would take recommendations from the Select Commission on Immigration and
Refugee Policy to get Congress to introduce legislation in 1982 as the
Simpson-Mazzoli Act. There was
resistance to the bill from all sides.
Immigrant advocates feared employer sanctions would lead to
discrimination against Hispanic workers.
Business interests were against strong employer sanctions. Unions
thought a guestworker program would undermine employee protections. Compromises
were made and IRCA finally passed in 1986.
Implementation was a mixed bag, particularly in the area of employer
sanctions.
What can this history tell us about today’s push
for comprehensive immigration reform?
Passage of this type of legislation can take time. At this point, we only have proposals, and it
is likely that the Senate and/or the House will introduce legislation in the
next month or two. Various interests have already begun to encourage their
bases to contact legislators, either in support of or against the potential
legislation. In the end, if something
does pass, it is likely to be a compromise. What will happen to legalization in
this kind of scenario? Senator Marco
Rubio is already finding it hard to sell the idea of a pathway to citizenship
for undocumented immigrants to his Senate Republican colleagues who consider it
an “amnesty.” Many House members are also critical of the proposal put forward
by Rubio and the Senate “gang of eight.”
Immigration advocates are going to have to fight
very hard to keep a path to citizenship in any comprehensive immigration reform
package. The current Senate proposal already throws hurdles in the way by
requiring a commission of lawmakers and community leaders to certify that the
border is secure before those who are given probationary status can apply for
permanent legal status. However, the
ultimate passage of the 1986 act led to legalization for nearly 3 million – the
impact on those people and families is incalculable. The stakes are high, and it will take ongoing
public pressure to get a result which recognizes the human cost of failure.
