What a true amnesty for illegal immigrants would look like

Last updated on: June 15, 2014 at 9:59 pm by Jane the Actuary

What a true amnesty for illegal immigrants would look like 2014-06-15T21:59:00-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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(This comes out of comments to another post, but I wanted to separate this into another discussion.)

Is legalization of illegal immigrants “amnesty” or a “path to citizenship” or something else?

Think of “amnesty” in any other context: it doesn’t mean extra privileges to violators, but simply removing penalties.

A “library amnesty” like this one in Chicago (the first hit in my google search) means that fines are erased for individuals who return books, regardless of how overdue they are. But — they don’t get to keep the books.

A parking-fine amnesty like this one in Arlington Heights doesn’t clear one’s record of parking fines; it simply makes it possible to pay the fine at the original amount, not the increased late-pay amount.

The Carter amnesty of draft-dodgers? Yes, it waived penalties completely — but didn’t provide any extra benefits to the dodgers.

Which means that, in the case of illegal immigration, a “true” amnesty would be a limited action: remove the penalties associated with overstaying visas/entering illegally/reentering after deportation, which stand at 3 years’ or 10 years’ ban from entering the country, depending on the length of the illegal stay. This would enable people who are, but for this penalty, eligible to apply for some form of legal stay, to do so: those married to American citizens, students eligible for a Student Visa, and the so-called “best and brightest” DREAMers that the media likes to portray as ready to cure cancer could apply for H1-B visas.

What about individuals eligible to apply for residency under some other category, but one with waiting lists — that is, family reunification visas for extended family rather than spouses and children? Personally, I think it’d be do-able to persuade even hard-liners to agree to provide residency permits which are exclusively limited to residency, not work eligibility.

And I’d really like to see enforcement-first and enforcement-only proponents, as a sign of good faith, support such a “true amnesty.” They can even say, “I support a real amnesty. Our opponents support mass legalization.”

Of course, this isn’t the complete answer. Like the majority of Americans, I’d be fine with a legalization program only as the final component of a program of real, meaningful border security, workplace enforcement, and actions against identity theft/false IDs and under-the-table work. And, separate from this, we need better decisions about the number and type of immigrants we admit each year — both with a eye to the question of how immigration fits into the overall rate of population growth, and what sort of balance between highly- and poorly-educated immigrants is best for our country in the long run.

Having said this, is a “true amnesty” politically feasible?

According to this Daily Caller article from back in March,

Representatives Steve Pearce (R-NM) and David Valadao (R-CA) have introduced a bill with Representative Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) and five other Democrats that would exempt immediate family members of U.S. citizens from the bars.

And according to this Cato piece from April, even Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, would support removing these 3/10 year bans.

What happened to this bill? I can’t figure this out, actually. Presumably Democrats aren’t pursuing it because they want the whole, mass legalization, not a partial one. What about the GOP? Don’t know. Are there political/procedural risks, ways in which this bill could be a fist step towards machinations that can’t be allowed to happen?

(Note: this is, partly, a repeat and rephrasing of something I wrote back in the fall.)

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