What's at Stake

Amnesty

Giving legal resident status to illegal aliens in 1986 had these effects:

The amnesty set off a rush of new illegal entry and encouraged others not to leave at the end of their authorized stay.

In the first ten years after its enactment, the amnesty cost the American taxpayer $78.7 billion in net direct and indirect expenses. Additional costs continue to accrue.

It sent a message abroad that the United States was incapable of—or disinterested in—enforcing its immigration law and established the hope for others that they might gain legal residence by illegal entry or visa overstay.

Nearly three million illegal aliens, most of whom were poorly educated and poorly skilled were made eligible for sponsoring a new flow of immigrants. These further immigrants generally arrive with a similar lack of qualifications to participate fully in our high-skills, high-education, high-wage economy. Thus, they contribute to our society's seriously growing income inequality and shrinking middle class.

It established the permanent right of these aliens to stay in the United States and receive benefits like other legal immigrants regardless of whether there was a need for their labor.

The size of the amnesty was so large that the Immigration and Naturalization Service was swamped by so much work that it could not adequately screen out undesirable aliens and ones who did not qualify for the amnesty.

The INS estimates there are now six million illegal residents, but acknowledges that the number may be significantly higher. Researchers working with the 2000 Census results believe the illegal alien population may be as large as eleven million, and Census Bureau officials agree that official estimate is too low. Since the 1986 amnesty wiped the slate clean for the bulk of the illegal alien population, the far larger illegal alien problem today is testimony to the fact that the 1986 amnesty weakened our ability to discourage illegal immigration.

Because the illegal alien situation today is so much worse than in 1986, the negative effects would be many times worse.

Guestworkers

Seasonal crop agricultural employers and some service sector employers have become so dependent on illegal alien workers that they are pushing for assured access to these workers through a program that would give their workers legal work status but not legal permanent residence. A new guestworker program, like the Bracero program for Mexican workers in the middle of the past century, would have the following negative consequences:

It would perpetuate the lowering of real wages in sectors where there are today large numbers of illegal aliens. Further foreign workers would push down wages and working conditions still further. Those hurt worst by the cheap labor competition are America's poorest workers, both U.S. citizens and legal residents.

The availability of a large supply of unskilled labor has undermined the incentive for employers to adopt modern mechanization and labor-saving innovations. As a result, our competitors abroad have moved ahead of us.

At the end of the Bracero program, the workers' experience working and living in the United States provided an opportunity for many of them to stay illegally rather than return to Mexico. With no effective system to deny jobs to illegal workers, a guestworker program for unskilled workers—who stand to lose enormous benefits if they return home—will only exacerbate the illegal alien problem, not supplant it.