Polling shows broad public support for giving amnesty to longtime illegal aliens. President Biden and I agree with that.
But any immigration survey in which Joe Biden and I give the same answer is asking the wrong question.
Rewarding immigration law violators, allowing them to keep what they stole (residing in the United States), is always unpleasant. But it may be part of a pragmatic approach to cleaning up the mess created by past flawed policies.
But the only way for such an amnesty to function as a policy – and to be accepted as legitimate by the public – is to address the reasons that led to the emergence of such a large illegal population. Otherwise, today’s amnesty simply overcomes tomorrow’s even greater amnesty.
Previous amnesty proposals have recognized this imperative, in words, if not in actions. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which legalized about 3 million of the 5 million illegal immigrants believed to be here at the time, was a great amnesty bargain in exchange for promises of future application, specifically the new ban on immigration. hiring illegal aliens. These promises were not kept and, in a few years, the continued non-compliance with the immigration law meant that all illegal foreigners who were amnestied were replaced by new ones.
The immigration bills promoted by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have also adopted this highly bargain approach – amnesty for those who are already here in exchange for promises to enforce the law in the future. The accounts failed because the 1986 promises were betrayed, which means that no one believed the new promises (with good reason).
That is why opposition to the amnesty projects in Congress has focused on the requirement of “first compliance”, rather than the first amnesty. Amnesty’s critics demanded that the necessary mechanisms to ensure compliance with immigration rules in the future be in place before any amnesty would begin – otherwise it would never be.
These prerequisites would include the mandatory use of the online E-Verify system to check the legal status of all new hires; a functional entry and exit tracking system for foreign visitors, to ensure that they leave when they should (most new illegal immigrants enter legally as visitors and do not leave); and full cooperation between federal immigration authorities and local authorities – that is, the end of sanctuary cities.
The radicalism of Biden’s approach is that it first rejects the application and run second in favor of run never. For those who want assurances that the president will at least enforce immigration laws after amnesty, the new government’s response is that of Judge Smails in Caddyshack: “You won’t get anything and you will like it.”
President Biden has promised to allow all current and future illegal aliens to remain here forever, as long as they avoid a felony conviction (except one related to drunk driving, which he would ignore). The huge bill he proposes would in effect repeal many long-standing measures to ensure compliance with immigration rules, such as three and ten-year prohibitions (which prevent those who are in the US illegally for six months to a year or more one year, respectively, from re-entry after departure) and the one-year period for applying for asylum.
Furthermore, the legislation sets in motion an impulse to breach the original original agreement of 1986 and make it illegal to hire illegal aliens again. Biden’s bill would not do this immediately, but rather, in the words of the summary, “establish a commission involving labor, employers and civil rights organizations to make recommendations to improve the job verification process”. Since all workers, employers and civil rights organizations that can be considered for such a commission are even opposed to the idea of demanding legal status for employment, it is obvious what the commission’s conclusion would be, paving the way for the lifting of the ban on hiring illegal aliens.
Some will no doubt argue that the necessary application has already taken place during the Trump administration. And it is true that there have been many improvements in immigration enforcement over the past four years. But they are nowhere near the prerequisites for considering amnesty, for two reasons.
First, Trump’s reforms were short-lived. Since they were all the result of executive actions, they all can and will be reversed by President Biden (and a compliant judiciary will not interfere with the degree that interfered with Trump’s actions).
Second, Trump’s immigration control advances have been incomplete. The border wall, as important as it is, is simply one tool among many, and not necessarily the most important. There is still no system for tracking entry and exit into operation, 25 years after being ordered by Congress. Despite all his supposed hawkishness about immigration, Trump was ambivalent about E-Verify and took no steps to expand its use. Deportations have not increased, while sanctuaries have multiplied, despite government efforts to combat them.
We are no closer to having the immigration prerequisites for an amnesty than we were under Obama – no doubt, we are further away, due to the scorched earth attack on the left against immigration over the past four years. Passing Biden’s immigration bill – even in a more streamlined form – would only guarantee the continuation of illegal immigration in the future.