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Amnesty By Any Other Name 5/24/2006 8:31:36 AM
Former Attorney General Edwin Meese's comparison between the current immigration bill and the one of 1986 under President Ronald Reagan. Former Attorney General Edwin Meese in a New York Times editorial compares the current immigration bill in the Senate with the one considered in 1986 under President Reagan. An excerpt of his comments:
The difference is that President Reagan called this what it was: amnesty. Indeed, look up the term "amnesty" in Black's Law Dictionary, and you'll find it says, "the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act provided amnesty for undocumented aliens already in the country."
Like the amnesty bill of 1986, the current Senate proposal would place those who have resided illegally in the United States on a path to citizenship, provided they meet a similar set of conditions and pay a fine and back taxes. The illegal immigrant does not go to the back of the line but gets immediate legalized status, while law-abiding applicants wait in their home countries for years to even get here. And that's the line that counts. In the end, slight differences in process do not change the overriding fact that the 1986 law and today's bill are both amnesties.
There is a practical problem as well: the 1986 act did not solve our illegal immigration problem. From the start, there was widespread document fraud by applicants. Unsurprisingly, the number of people applying for amnesty far exceeded projections. And there proved to be a failure of political will in enforcing new laws against employers.
Mr. Meese concluded that the only workable solution is to enforce our immigration laws and over time ensure that our population is in compliance, as post 9/11 we absolutely cannot afford laxity in this area.
