No Amnesty in Proposed Comprehensive Immigration Reform Legislation

In 1986 President Ronald Reagan* got Congress to pass an amnesty for undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. at that time.  Because of that, many people believe that Comprehensive Immigration Reform is another plan to grant amnesty to undocumented immigrants now living in the U.S. Indeed the media even sometimes portrays Comprehensive Immigration Reform as amnesty.  But it is not amnesty.

According to Merriam-Webster, amnesty is “an act of an authority (as a government) by which pardon is granted to a large group of individuals.”  Pardon is “the excusing of an offense without exacting a penalty.”  

However, Comprehensive Immigration Reform would exact a penalty -- undocumented immigrants would be required to pay a fine for breaking the law.  In addition, they would be required to:

• Pay any back taxes (in fact, 50-75% of undocumented immigrants already pay taxes)
• Pass a criminal background check (during the immigration peak, U.S. crime dropped over 30%)
• Learn English
• Have a job
  

The real question then is who pays the penalty.  Under Comprehensive Immigration Reform, the undocumented immigrant must pay the fine.  Without Comprehensive Immigration Reform, we, the taxpayer, pay the cost of deporting undocumented immigrants.   That costs the U.S. taxpayer well over $1 billion per year -- the cost during the peak deportation year when 300,000 undocumented immigrants were deported.  And, at that rate, the last of the 12 million undocumented immigrants here now will be deported in 40 years.

Of course, without the border protections and employer penalties for hiring undocumented immigrants that are also part of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, there will be many more undocumented immigrants who will have come into the U.S. over that period.

While justice and compassion are good reasons to support Comprehensive Immigration Reform, simple economics adds a more pragmatic reason.

* As an individual, Ronald Reagan was very convinced of the benefits of immigration, even undocumented.  "This view was apparent in Reagan's public statements well before he became President. In one of his radio addresses, in November 1977, he wondered about what he called 'the illegal alien fuss. Are great numbers of our unemployed really victims of the illegal alien invasion, or are those illegal tourists actually doing work our own people won't do? One thing is certain in this hungry world: No regulation or law should be allowed if it results in crops rotting in the fields for lack of harvesters.' As a Californian, Reagan understood the role of immigrant labor in agriculture." (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114773982558453625.html)