03
Feb

Comprehensive Immigration Reform Would Swamp Agencies; Guarantee Fraud

Published on February 3rd, 2014

By Joe Guzzardi
February 3, 2014

If you believe its bluster, Congress may soon pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Although 20 million Americans can’t find a full time job, 92 million Americans have opted out of the labor force, and food stamp dependency has doubled since 2008, legislators seem determined to flood the labor market with  more workers. House Majority Speaker John Boehner’s recently released immigration principles, if passed, would during the next decade result in 12 million more green cards to existing illegal immigrants and 20 million work visas for foreign-born workers. 

Processing millions of green cards and visas is a task well beyond the federal government’s capability. If the Department of Health and Human Services can’t roll out a working website with a two-year lead time, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration couldn’t possibly contend with millions of applications, all submitted at approximately the same time.

In his letter to Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Ken Palinkas warned that immigration reform would “overload the system” which is already forced to rubber-stamp applications and is denied the resources to properly vet applications as they arrive. Palinkas, the Immigration Services Union president who represents 12,000 adjudication officers,
said that quantity, and not quality, is the administration’s immigration goal.

Urging Goodlatte to meet with his officers, Palinkas also said that the current automatic approval system is a threat to national security, and costs taxpayers billions without imposing the screening standards consistent with federal law. Palinkas described USCIS as the visa clearing house for the world instead of the first line of defense against terrorism and fraud in the nation’s immigration system. 

Summarizing, Palinkas predicted that unless rigorous new oversight guidelines accompany a reform bill, criminals and other undesirables would be approved for legalization and might remain in the country indefinitely. 

Palinkas’ prophesy is no idle threat. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act granted legal status to Mohammed Uddin, a Pakistani national who crossed the border illegally in 1984. During the IRCA amnesty, Uddin fraudulently applied for and received a Special Agricultural Workers exemption. Nearly three years later, immigration agents exposed Uddin’s deception and in 1990 denied a renewal of his SAW permit. Nevertheless, 23 years later, Uddin remains illegally in the country. He’s managed a chain of East Coast retain stores, a job an American would do, and married an illegal immigrant. Together, they have four American-citizen children. The chance that Uddin will be deported is slim to none.

Immigration legislation must not pass before enforcement is locked down tight. IRCA’s co-authors agree. In an interview with the Washington Post, Senator Alan Simpson and U.S. Rep. Romano Mazolli said that the 1986 act’s failure is directly tied to the refusal of Republicans and Democrats to consistently fund enforcement and border security, the bill’s two key provisions. As a result, said the two former congressmen, 30-years later illegal immigration continues unabated with no end in sight.

The Senate bill which passed in June and the House bill under consideration promise enforcement—but not before legal status is granted to the 12 million illegal immigrants. “Plans” or “provisions” to enforce the border are not the same as actual in place enforcement. Without enforcement first, IRCA’s mistakes are guaranteed to reoccur, an eventuality that the U.S. cannot afford.

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Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow whose columns have been syndicated since 1987. Contact him at [email protected]

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