US Immigration Law History

In an August 18, 2011 Washington Reuters article - Republicans have said that if passed the DREAM Act would effectively constitute amnesty and encourage illegal immigration and criticized the idea that the administration should implement similar policies on its own. "Every amnesty encourages more illegal immigration, costs taxpayers who pay for government benefits and displaces American workers," Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican and Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said of the DREAM Act. I remembered that Reagan had initiated an amnesty program so I looked up the US history on immigration.

When the US was in World War II Mexican migrant labor began to look like a good idea (as it did in 1929) and the US and Mexican officials agreed to the 1943 Bracero Program which allowed temporary guest workers to labor in the US without any of the labor protections extended to American workers; corporations loved the program. President Reagan with the bipartisan proposed Immigration Reform and Control Act enacted November 6, 1986 granted amnesty to 3 million undocumented Mexican-American workers. The Act required employers to attest to their employees' immigration status, made it illegal to knowingly hire or recruit unauthorized immigrants, granted amnesty to certain seasonal agricultural illegal immigrants and granted amnesty to illegal immigrants who entered the US before January 1, 1982 and had resided there continuously. But corporations still wanted undocumented laborers and the government was willing to look the other way so low-income Mexicans still immigrated to the United States under this arrangement.

The Legal Immigration and the Immigration Act of 1990 enacted by President George HW Bush on November 29, 1990 constituted a major revision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 which had remained the basic immigration law. Its primary focus was the numerical limits and preference system regulating permanent legal immigration. Besides legal immigration, the eight-title Act dealt with immigration law ranging from non-immigrants to criminal aliens to naturalization. As a response to criticism of employer sanctions it expanded anti-discrimination provisions and increased the penalties for unlawful discrimination.

President Clinton enacted the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 and immigration bills were passed annually through 2001. During George W. Bush’s tenure there was a lot of talk of a comprehensive immigration bill but he could never get one passed. Bush did on November 15, 2002 use an Executive Order to deal with undocumented aliens in the Caribbean Region (such as setting up a facility at Guantanamo Bay or any other appropriate location). January 12, 2004 he used a Proclamation to Suspend Entry to Immigrants or Non-Immigrants of Persons Engaged in or Benefiting from Corruption. October 18, 2005 he signed the Homeland Security Appropriation Act for 2006 and on October 26, 2006 he signed the Secure Fence Act. The Border Protection, Anti terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 (HR 4437) was seen by many as the catalyst for the 2006 US immigration reform protests and it along with others bills failed to pass. As such Congress has not passed an immigration reform bill since 2001. 

The US Supreme Court on June 16, 2008 ruled (5–4) "that someone who is here illegally may withdraw his voluntarily agreement to depart and continue to try to get approval to remain in the United States." The lawsuit is about 2 seemingly contradictory provisions of immigration law. One prevents deportation by voluntary departure from the country; the other section allows immigrants who are here illegally but whose circumstances changed, to remain in the US and build their case to immigration officials. The case was in regard to Samson Dada, a Nigerian citizen who overstayed beyond the expiration of his tourist visa in 1998 and immigration authorities ordered him to leave the country as he had agreed to leave voluntarily.

The Department of Homeland Security reported the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the US in January 2010 was 10.8 million—the same as in January 2009—but down from 11.8 million in January 2007 (39% entered in 2000 or later and 62% were from Mexico). Reuters on February 2, 2011 reported - US Census Bureau data noted the number of illegal immigrants in the workforce remained steady at around 8 million. A senior demographer at PEW Research told Reuters "What we have seen in the past is that the flow of unauthorized immigrants, particularly from Mexico, has been very closely tied to the state of the US economy. We've seen large drops in the inflows when the US went into a recession and large increases when the US economy was booming.

The US government is finding itself in the same situation it was in back in 1929, 1943, 1986 and 1990 (3 of the 4 had Republican presidents) - with corporations dependent on Mexican migrant labor. The newly elected Mexican President said he’ll focus on making their streets safer and work to grow their economy so there shouldn’t be as many people coming from Mexico if he succeeds. It’s bad enough the weather is ruining our crops but Americans need to get off their duff. And, Congress needs to end its 11 year drought on immigration reform.