Amnesty

An amnesty is a reward to those breaking the law. Giving amnesty to illegal aliens forgives their act of illegally entering the United States and in addition forgives related illegal activities such as driving illegally and working using false documents. An amnesty results in large numbers of foreigners who illegally entered the United States being given legal status as a reward for breaking the law. Amnesties encourage additional illegal immigration into the United States.  Illegal aliens residing in the US should return to their home country and apply for residency through legal means.

The United states, for over 200 years, gave amnesty only in individual cases and never to large numbers of illegal aliens. Then in 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) giving amnesty to all illegal aliens who had evaded law enforcement for at least four years or who were working illegally in agriculture.

The 1986 amnesty resulted in 2.8 million illegal aliens being admitted as legal immigrants to the United States. Because of chain migration, those granted amnesty subsequently brought in an additional 142,000 dependents - relatives brought in to the United States to join family members now amnestied.

The amnesty of 1986 was clearly stated by Congress to be a "one time only" amnesty. Yet since then, Congress passed a total of 7 subsequent amnesties for illegal aliens:

• The Immigration and Reform Control Act (IRCA) Amnesty of 1986 - the "one-time only" blanket amnesty for some 2.8 million illegal aliens.
• Section 245(i) The Amnesty of 1994 - a temporary rolling amnesty for 578,000 illegal aliens.
• Section 245(i) The Extension Amnesty of 1997 - an extension of the rolling amnesty created in 1994.
• The Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA) Amnesty of 1997 - an amnesty for nearly one million illegal aliens from Central America.
• The Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act Amnesty (HRIFA) of 1998 - an amnesty for 125,000 illegal aliens from Haiti.
• The Late Amnesty of 2000 - an amnesty for approximately 400,000 illegal aliens who claimed they should have been amnestied under the 1986 IRCA amnesty.
• The LIFE Act Amnesty of 2000 - a reinstatement of the rolling Section 245(i) amnesty to an estimated 900,000 illegal aliens.

An amnesty benefits neither our society nor those being amnestied, but it does benefit employers who hire low-wage immigrant labor. An Immigration and Naturalization Service study found that after living in the United States for 10 years, the average amnestied illegal alien had only a seventh grade education and earned less than $9,000 a year. Amnestied illegal aliens have no sponsor to support them financially. Instead, by enacting an amnesty, Congress places a staggering financial burden on American taxpayers to support those amnestied.

The total net cost of the 1986 IRCA amnesty (direct and indirect costs of services and benefits to the former illegal aliens, less their tax contributions) amounted to over $78 billion in the ten years following the amnesty. (Center for Immigration Studies study).

Congress has paved the way for more amnesties. In 2001, Mexico's President Vicente Fox began to lobby the United States to "regularize" the status of millions of illegal aliens from Mexico living in the United States. Both U.S. political parties, in attempts to pander to the Hispanic vote, speak of amnesties in various forms for illegal aliens. The Democratic Party wants the immigrant vote and the Republican Party wants cheap labor. Neither want what is best for our country - to uphold our rule of law.

By granting amnesties, Congress has set a dangerous precedent that threatens homeland security. Our normal immigration process involves screening to block potential criminals and terrorists from entering the United States. Yet millions of illegal aliens have avoided this screening and an amnesty would allow them to permanently bypass such screening.