Fed Up Americans
Published on November 27th, 2010
Edward Schumacher-Matos in a recent Washington Post article tells us that “Latinos are fed up with congressional delays over comprehensive immigration reform.” And the down payment for soothing their ire is that we wink at their massive disregard of our immigration laws by passing the DREAM Act, which would amnesty about two million illegal-immigrant “young people” (ages up to 35, according to the bill). Most Americans, on the other hand, are fed up with amnesties for illegal immigrants. The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) amnesty of 1986 was sold to us as a unique event in our history, never to be repeated, since it would solve the problem. Expectations were that about one million illegal immigrants would gain legal status via IRCA. Instead, the numbers were 2.7 million, boosted heavily by fraud. And six post-IRCA amnesties have aggregated another three million direct beneficiaries. Nevertheless, after all that, at least 10 million illegal immigrants reside within our borders. History is clear: Amnesties beget further amnesties. They solve nothing.