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Ed Meese: Senate Bill is Amnesty
Reagan-era Attorney General Ed Meese, who helped shepherd the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act through Congress, has weighed in on the current Senate debate over how to handle the 12 million illegal aliens who have entered the country in the intervening years. Noting that today's Senate immigration proposals bear a remarkable resemblance to the old reform, Meese writes in the New York Times: "President Reagan called this what it was: amnesty." Indeed, the former top lawman says: "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.'" Beyond the amnesty debate, Meese predicts that the plans currently being touted in the Senate won't be any more effective than the old law.
Story Continues Below "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." The former AG recalls that immediately after the 1986 reform was passed, there was a drop in illegal immigration. But after about six months the problem "returned to normal levels and continued unabated. Ultimately, some 2.7 million people were granted amnesty, and many who were not stayed anyway, forming the nucleus of today's unauthorized population." Meese urges President Bush and Congress not to repeat the mistakes of the past, counseling that any real immigration reform must begin by "securing the border and strengthening enforcement of existing immigration laws."
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Homeland/Civil Defense
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