The complicated mess we have with illegal immigration and how to solve the problem -- More on the 1986 legislation.
A 5-25-07 post noted:
If you grant legal status to those here illegally without first securing the border, millions more will flood into our country illegally. That's exactly what happened with the flawed immigration law that was passed in 1986, and our country has been paying the price ever since.
TIME said this about the 1986 legislation:
[T]he failed amnesty of 1986 [is] widely viewed as the genesis of the current crisis. The moment newly legalized farmworkers realized they had better options, they left for the cities instead of staying in low-paying agriculture jobs. Their exodus from the fields opened the door to an even larger wave of illegal immigration.
And another article in TIME gives us these details about the legislation:
The immigration overhaul in 1986 was supposed to have fixed the root problem of an uncontrolled influx by making it illegal for U.S. employers to hire undocumented workers and offering an amnesty to illegal immigrants who had been here for five years at that point. Instead, the best estimates suggest that since then, the number of illegal immigrants has more than tripled.
The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act made it illegal for employers to knowingly hire undocumented workers and imposed penalties of up to $11,000 for each violation. But lawbreakers are rarely punished. In 2005 the government issued just three notices of intent to fine companies for employing illegal workers, down from 178 in 2000.
It's easy to understand why the idea of an amnesty [sparks] such a negative reaction. The country tried one with the 1986 law. Nearly 3 million people took advantage of it, and the amnesty was followed by an explosion in illegal immigration.
If you grant legal status to those here illegally without first securing the border, millions more will flood into our country illegally. That's exactly what happened with the flawed immigration law that was passed in 1986, and our country has been paying the price ever since.
TIME said this about the 1986 legislation:
[T]he failed amnesty of 1986 [is] widely viewed as the genesis of the current crisis. The moment newly legalized farmworkers realized they had better options, they left for the cities instead of staying in low-paying agriculture jobs. Their exodus from the fields opened the door to an even larger wave of illegal immigration.
And another article in TIME gives us these details about the legislation:
The immigration overhaul in 1986 was supposed to have fixed the root problem of an uncontrolled influx by making it illegal for U.S. employers to hire undocumented workers and offering an amnesty to illegal immigrants who had been here for five years at that point. Instead, the best estimates suggest that since then, the number of illegal immigrants has more than tripled.
The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act made it illegal for employers to knowingly hire undocumented workers and imposed penalties of up to $11,000 for each violation. But lawbreakers are rarely punished. In 2005 the government issued just three notices of intent to fine companies for employing illegal workers, down from 178 in 2000.
It's easy to understand why the idea of an amnesty [sparks] such a negative reaction. The country tried one with the 1986 law. Nearly 3 million people took advantage of it, and the amnesty was followed by an explosion in illegal immigration.
posted by Sid Cottingham | 4:37 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home