The Legacy of the IRCA Amnesty

     

 By Rick Oltman, SF Immigration Examiner (Part V of VI)

The Third World Ear is a term used to explain how the talking heads in the U.S. government are heard outside our country when they talk about immigration and amnesty.  What we hear is pandering to the business community, letting the end users of illegal aliens know that nothing will be done to secure the border that will cut off their steady supply of cheap labor and new customers.  The comments are usually made to a Hispanic audience, or supporters of open borders.  Phrases about “coming out of the shadows” or “jobs Americans won't do" are really messages to the business community not to worry.  It’s pandering by proxy.
However, any seemingly off the cuff remark by a President or a high administration official about a “path to legalization”is really meant as an encouragement to come. The Third World Ear hears that there is going to be another amnesty and today with modern technology, the internet, social media and many governments happy to see their young men leave for America and ultimately send money back home, any kind of talk of amnesty perks up ears around the world.

And, there are about 5 billion people on the planet who have it worse off than the poor souls enduring the slaughter in Mexico, as incredible as that sounds.  If they believe they can make it, they will do anything they can to flee the brutal grinding poverty that oppresses them and try to get here, because they look forward to getting that amnesty.

Expectation is the worst legacy of the 1986 IRCA.  It fuels all movement toward our borders because of the continuous talk of another amnesty. 

If Congress does get serious about another amnesty, not wanting to alarm the American people or motivate them to respond at the ballot box, the government probably won’t call it an “amnesty.”  It will be some Orwellian Newspeak term, like the Dream Act, but everyone in the world will know the Oldspeak word; amnesty.  And it would be devastating for America.

It would also be impossible to administer.  Compared to the 3 million they dealt with in 1986, the number seeking amnesty today could be over 30 million people.  Bill King suggests it could go as high as 50 million because of fraud.  It would simply be impossible.

Alan C. Nelson, Commissioner of I.N.S. for President Reagan, remarked about eight years after the ’86 Act, “We believed in the amnesty, we thought it would work.  I thought it work.  It didn’t.  It should never be done again.”