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 Editorials | Issues | October 2006 
Failure of Act was Wide Ranging
 Daniel González - Arizona Republic
| | Illegal immigrant labor fuels a number of profitable American industries in addition to agriculture. |
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 taught the country several lessons.
Granting amnesty to undocumented immigrants doesn't solve illegal immigration and employer sanctions are meaningless unless they are strictly enforced.
The 1986 amnesty legislation also showed that even the strictest work-site and border enforcement is doomed to failure without addressing the U.S. economy's strong demand for immigrant labor.
Now, as Congress passes bills allocating billions of dollars to build more border fences and hire thousands of additional border patrol agents, many fear the government hasn't learned from the mistakes of the past.
Here are the factors that led to the 1986 bill, what the legislation was intended to accomplish, why it failed and, finally, the main lessons that can be applied to the current debate:
The buildup
What was happening with illegal immigration prior to 1986?
By the mid-1970s, concern over illegal immigration was mounting. The Border Patrol was apprehending more than a million people a year, and there was concern undocumented immigrants were taking jobs from Americans, driving down wages and lowering labor standards. There was pressure from labor unions to crack down on unscrupulous employers, and a chorus in Congress was growing that the U.S. needed to gain control of the border. There also was concern Mexico was using the United States as a safety valve for its economic shortcomings.
Why was illegal immigration growing back then?
The same reason as now: jobs. Experts say the expanding U.S. economy, along with an aging, more highly educated population, meant the country needed more workers for low-skilled jobs, and Mexico wasn't creating enough jobs to keep up with its population growth. The end of the Bracero program in 1964 eliminated legal channels for Mexican farmworkers to enter the U.S. But the workers kept coming. Immigration also increased unintentionally after the Immigration Act of 1965, which ended national-origin quotas that favored European countries and opened the door to more immigrants from poor non-white countries.
What led to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986?
Amid mounting public pressure, Congress created a commission in 1978 to study the effects of immigration. The commission's recommendations, issued in 1981, became the basis for the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. It became known as the Simpson-Mazzoli bill after the two sponsors, former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyoming, and former Rep. Romano Mazzoli, D-Kentucky.
The bill
What was the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 intended to accomplish?
President Reagan and other supporters said the reforms would close the door to illegal immigration, protect the sovereignty of the U.S. and help the country regain control of the border.
How was the 1986 act supposed to solve the problem?
The legislation called for a three-pronged approach: Amnesty, tighter border security and employer sanctions:
Amnesty was aimed at two sets of undocumented immigrants: those already rooted in the U.S. and agriculture workers. Supporters said undocumented immigrants would be allowed to come out of the shadows, pay taxes and climb up the economic ladder. Critics feared it would spur more illegal immigration, and unfairly reward lawbreakers.
Border security called for a 50-percent increase in Border Patrol agents, up from the nearly 3,700 deployed at the time.
President Reagan described the employer sanctions as the bill's "keystone." The sanctions created fines for knowingly hiring unauthorized workers and criminal penalties for repeat offenders. The fines ranged from $250 to $10,000 for each unlawful worker. Reagan and supporters said cracking down on employers would deplete the job magnet drawing undocumented immigrants to the U.S.
A massive failure
Did the 1986 act curb illegal immigration?
No. Illegal immigration accelerated after 1986. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates there are now 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., about triple the estimated 3 million to 5 million in 1986. Since 1986, undocumented immigrants have settled in states across the country, rather than primarily in border states like California and Texas, because immigrants have found jobs in industries besides agriculture.
Why did illegal immigration continue?
Because the job magnet wasn't turned off. The government never followed through on the promise to crack down on employers. The government at times tried to come down hard, but then backed off after outcries from employers and powerful lawmakers. That's what happened in the late 1990s, when immigration investigators targeted the onion industry in Georgia and the meatpacking industry in Nebraska.
Didn't the worker verification system help screen out unlawful workers?
Not really. The more than two dozen documents acceptable under the system create confusion, and make it highly vulnerable to fraud. To get jobs, undocumented workers simply have to buy fake documents. Employers are not required to verify the documents, so it's hard to prove they knowingly hired an unlawful worker.
Most employers assume even fake documents are real, to comply with the anti-discrimination portion of the 1986 law.
Employers face fines or even criminal penalties if they hire unauthorized workers, but some employers have faced discrimination lawsuits for firing workers they thought might be undocumented. The result was a huge loophole for undocumented immigrants and employers.
What are some of the other factors that allowed illegal immigration to continue?
There is a growing consensus that illegal immigration continued because the 1986 law didn't recognize the demand for low-skilled immigrant labor. The law didn't create more channels for low-skilled workers to come legally at a time when the economy was expanding, and there were fewer American workers. As a result, immigrants came illegally to meet labor needs. Without them, those jobs would have gone unfilled, and the economy wouldn't have been able to grow as quickly.
Immigration control advocates, however, fiercely dispute the idea that low-skilled immigrants are an integral part of the U.S. economy. They say cheap immigrant labor is expensive once education, health care and other costs are factored in.
What happened to the undocumented immigrants who got amnesty?
About 3 million people applied for amnesty and nearly 2.7 million were approved. About 1.7 million applied through the program for rooted undocumented immigrants who entered before 1982, and about 1.3 million applied through the program for agriculture workers, far more than the 250,000 expected. Many ineligible people gained amnesty through forged documents and other fraud, sometimes aided by unscrupulous employers.
Back to the future
What is the government doing now to solve illegal immigration?
The Department of Homeland Security in September awarded a $67 million contract to Boeing Co. to begin building the first phase of a "virtual fence" in southern Arizona made up of high-tech surveillance towers. The system eventually could stretch along the entire U.S. border with Mexico and Canada and cost $2 billion.
The House and Senate also passed a bill that sanctions the building of 700 miles of double fencing along U.S.-Mexico border. The two sides have been gridlocked since the spring with the House favoring a hard-line approach that includes stiffer work-site and border enforcement while the Senate and President Bush support a comprehensive plan that includes a path to citizenship and a guest worker program for low-skilled immigrants.
What is at the heart of the debate?
One side still sees illegal immigration as a law enforcement issue. Weak enforcement of employer sanctions, coupled with amnesty under the 1986 law, encouraged undocumented immigrants to keep coming. The other sees illegal immigration as an issue of supply and demand. The 1986 law failed because it didn't open more legal channels to feed the U.S. economy's demand for low-skilled immigrant labor.
What lessons can be applied to the current debate?
Advocates on both sides agree that employer sanctions must be strictly enforced, and they must include a mandatory, fraud-proof verification program for employers.
Supporters of a path to citizenship say a legalization program that asks people to prove how long they have been in the country by submitting rent receipts, affidavits and other documents will again be vulnerable to fraud. They suggest requiring applicants to earn legal status by working, paying taxes and learning English.
Advocates of broad immigration reform say the 1986 law showed enforcement alone won't curb illegal immigration. Currently, the government only sets aside 5,000 green cards a year for low-skilled workers. Without adding more visas for future flows of low-skilled immigrants, the failure of the 1986 law is destined to repeat itself. |
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