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Immigration Sanctions: Time for Reform
| Article
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18409 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1990 |
1,906 Words |
| Author
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Annelise Anderson
Annelise Anderson is a senior research fellow at the Hoover
Institution, Stanford University, California. |
Immigration policy - this time, how many and whom to admit - is once again before Congress. But the most important issue is whether to repeal employer sanctions - the legislation passed in 1986 that made it illegal for employers to knowingly hire illegal aliens and established criminal penalties for doing so.
There are three basic reasons for repealing this legislation: (1) The problems it was supposed to address are far less severe than many people believed when the legislation was passed - or even nonexistent; (2) the legislation is only minimally successful; and (3) the legislation poses increasing threats to civil liberties and has already been shown to be a cause of discrimination against those who look and sound foreign.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 was passed to deal with the problem of illegal aliens - primarily people who had crossed the border without going through immigration but also those who had overstayed a temporary visa. The idea was that if it was not possible to get a job, the main reason for coming to the United States - or staying - would be gone.
The politicians who supported employer sanctions and the reporters who covered the issue (especially for television) promoted two claims: that the number of illegal immigrants was enormous and that they were taking jobs from Americans. The United States had supposedly lost control of its borders - a misleading claim since it never had control of its borders. We were supposedly subject to a flood, a rising tide, a startling surge, a living scandal of illegal immigrants who would cause strife, violence, and
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