The affirmative sections of the handbook will serve as a resource for almost any student preparing to debate affirmative on this topic. Whether your case is specific or general, you will find the inherency, solvency, and significance evidence you need here. Mix and match one with the other to build your own case. Also, in the final section (AP) at the end you will find two very specific proposals: 1.) Pre-departure screening for foreigners traveling to the US to make sure they have the proper documents; 2.) Immigration auction where foreigners bid for the right to immigrate to the US.
I. Why people immigrate to the US AI1-3
II. Legal status of immigration regulations
A. IRCA law AI4-10, AI20-22
B. Immigration Act of 1990 AI11-15
C. Asylum application fees AI16-19
D. Detention and deportation process AI20-23
E. Numbers and quotas AI24-28
F. Visa regulations AI29-30
G. Supplemental agricultural workers AI31
H. Regulations on employers AI32
I. California laws AI33
III. General barriers to immigration reform
A. Status quo policies have failed AI34-39
B. Immigration and Naturalization Service
1. Inadequate AI40-49
2. Corrupt AI50-53
3. Bad leadership AI159-162
4. Inefficient AI163-164
5. Staff is horrible AI165-166, AI174
6. Bad financial administration AI167-169
7. No review procedures AI170
8. Bad data AI171
9. Inadequate regional offices AI172
10. Internal strife AI173
C. Government inaction on immigration AI54-55
D. American attitude of exclusivity AI56, AI175-176
E. Fragmentation and inconsistency AI57-62
F. Inadequate funding AI63-67
G. Small actions stop future reforms AI68-69
IV. Specific barriers to specific reforms
A. Refugee regulations inadequate AI70-77
B. Asylum regulations inadequate AI78-87
C. Women's issues AI88-91
D. Immigrant smuggling AI92-96
E. Haitian immigrants AI97-106
F. Language programs AI107-108
G. Mexico will not cooperate AI177
H. Mexican immigrants come from many directions AI178
I. Population planning is not part of immigration policy AI179
V. Huge numbers of immigrants come into the US AI109-158
AI-1 / Gary Stanley Becker [Prof. U. of Chicago, Fellow-Hoover Institute] February 22, 1993 "Illegal Immigration : How to Turn the Tide. " Business Week p. 23. / / PKK-VT95
Workers are attracted to rich countries because the jobs available there are much better paying than anything they can find in their homelands. And that's true even though they are usually employed as low-paid, unskilled labor in restaurants, households, agriculture, or, in a few cases, manufacturing industry.
AI-2 / Tom Morganthau [staff writer] August 9, 1993 "America: Still A Melting Pot?" NEWSWEEK. p. 21 / / PKK-VT95
Kinship to U. S. citizens known as the "family reunification policy, " has become the overwhelming favorite of visa seekers and the primary reason the pattern of immigration has shifted so hugely to the Third World.
AI-3 / Ben J. Wattenberg and Karl Zinsmeister, fellows at the American Enterprise Institute, April 1990, "The Case for More Immigration" Commentary in The Reference Shelf: Immigration to the United states, Robert Emmet Long, ed. p. 154 / / PKK-38 VT95
Nearly 90 percent of all non refugee immigrants now come to the U. S. in the name of "family unification, " a category which carries no skills or educational requirements. That has tended to give a big advantage to residents of a handful of Asian and Latin American countries where extended kinship ties are strong.
AI-4 / Elizabeth Rolph [Research Fellow RAND and Urban Institute Program Research on Immigration Policy] 1992 IMMIGRATION POLICIES LEGACY FROM THE 1980'S AND ISSUES FOR THE 1990'S. p. 16 VT95
IRCA offered legal status to aliens who had resided continuously and unlawfully in the United States since January 1, 1982. Under separate provisions it also permitted those who had worked a minimum of 90 days in the delivery of "seasonal agricultural services" between May l, 1985 and May l, 1986 to legalize. Requirements for determining eligibility and processing applications differed markedly between the two programs.
AI-5 / S. A. REID, STAFF WRITER, JANUARY 2, 1994; THE ATLANTA JOURNAL AND CONSTITUTION, "Coming To America New Americans Thank God, Government For Chance At Legal Status, " Section A; Page 10 / AGL-VT95
And they may be joined in the coming years by 2. 6 million other previously illegal immigrants who were given permanent resident status under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. After an initial 18-month wait, followed by the required five-year wait as a permanent resident, the first batch of the amnesty program's beneficiaries became eligible to upgrade their status Nov. 2. Special exceptions to IRCA regulations permitted Delice and Ferrusca to apply for naturalization earlier than usual. Delice married a U. S. citizen, and Ferrusca is in the military.
AI 6 / MONTE B. LAKE, A PARTNER IN THE WASHINGTON, D. C. LAW FIRM OF MCGUINESS & WILLIAMS, HAS PRACTICED EMPLOYMENT AND IMMIGRATION LAW FOR 16 YEARS, REPRESENTING EMPLOYERS' INTERESTS, NOVEMBER 5, 1993; LEGAL BACKGROUNDER, "Addressing IRCA's Failures And Conflicting Requirements For Employers, " Vol. 8, No. 35 / AGL-VT95
While past concerns about a national employment card with its attendant "big brother" and civil liberties concerns made it politically unacceptable, one must consider whether the political climate has changed so that it might now be made a component of IRCA. Governor Pete Wilson of California, in response to the anti- immigrant mood in California, has asked the state to engage in a pilot program using such a card. Also consider that a health care security card is an important element of the President's health care reform proposal. This card will be available only to legal residents and citizens. The premise behind the card is to simplify access to medical care for patients and health care providers. Another feature is to prevent undocumented aliens from access to medical assistance. If one examines the privacy concerns related to employment and those inherent in access to medical benefits, it is hard to say that one is more intrusive than the other. Both employment and medical care authorization cards share the purpose of ensuring that only those entitled to benefits permissible under the law receive them, while providing a simple means of excluding those who are not. It remains to be seen whether the public's demand to solve both the problems of illegal entrants and health care will lead to accepting the idea of a "national identity" card.
AI 7 / MONTE B. LAKE, A PARTNER IN THE WASHINGTON, D. C. LAW FIRM OF MCGUINESS & WILLIAMS, HAS PRACTICED EMPLOYMENT AND IMMIGRATION LAW FOR 16 YEARS, REPRESENTING EMPLOYERS' INTERESTS, NOVEMBER 5, 1993; LEGAL BACKGROUNDER, "Addressing IRCA's Failures And Conflicting Requirements For Employers, " Vol. 8, No. 35 / AGL-VT95
Current public sentiment and the political response to it suggests that Congress or the states may seek additional legislative solutions to control illegal immigration. Yet, IRCA has failed to achieve its purpose, while imposing contradictory legal requirements upon employers and fostering discrimination against workers. The prospect that a failed law may be hastily amended in response to current public attitudes, thus compounding the current problems it imposes upon employers and workers alike, cannot be ignored. This Legal Backgrounder describes the basic provisions of IRCA and the contradictory compliance challenges it imposes upon employers. Hopefully, IRCA's current problems will be addressed before legislators aggravate them in an ill-conceived legislative response to popular opinion.
AI 8 / MONTE B. LAKE, A PARTNER IN THE WASHINGTON, D. C. LAW FIRM OF MCGUINESS & WILLIAMS, HAS PRACTICED EMPLOYMENT AND IMMIGRATION LAW FOR 16 YEARS, REPRESENTING EMPLOYERS' INTERESTS, NOVEMBER 5, 1993; LEGAL BACKGROUNDER, "Addressing IRCA's Failures And Conflicting Requirements For Employers, " Vol. 8, No. 35 / AGL-VT95
The Provisions of IRCA. IRCA contains four basic components: 1) sanctions against employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers; 2) sanctions against employers who fail to properly verify employment authorization of applicants; 3) a legalization program for defined classes of illegal aliens; and 4) proscriptions against discrimination on the basis of citizenship status and national origin. The legalization provisions have almost been implemented; however, the employer sanctions and discrimination provisions continue to impose conflicting requirements upon employers that make compliance almost impossible. The centerpiece of IRCA is the employer sanctions section not for knowingly hiring undocumented workers, but for technical violations arising from a Hobson's choice.
AI 9 / MONTE B. LAKE, A PARTNER IN THE WASHINGTON, D. C. LAW FIRM OF MCGUINESS & WILLIAMS, HAS PRACTICED EMPLOYMENT AND IMMIGRATION LAW FOR 16 YEARS, REPRESENTING EMPLOYERS' INTERESTS, NOVEMBER 5, 1993; LEGAL BACKGROUNDER, "Addressing IRCA's Failures And Conflicting Requirements For Employers, " Vol. 8, No. 35 / AGL-VT95
Future Approaches to the Illegal Immigration Problem. The current public outcry about illegal immigration, along with IRCA's (Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986) failure to solve the problem while at the same time imposing contradictory legal requirements upon employers, have created a volatile political climate. This negative environment, however, could lead to positive improvements in IRCA, improvements which would help the law meet its intended purpose without placing employers in an untenable legal position. On the other hand, this environment could encourage negative, extreme changes that build upon IRCA's failed concept of onerous employer sanctions.
AI 10 / INTER PRESS SERVICE, FEBRUARY 10, 1994, "United States: Republicans Propose Stiff Immigration Reform, " / AGL-VT95
Smith spent eight months working with 31 other Republican members of the House of Representatives to draft the "Illegal Immigration Control Act of 1994. " The plan would cost over two billion dollars over the next five years, and be paid for by a new $1. 50 dollar toll on border crossings, Smith said. The initiative comes at a time when anti- immigration sentiments are growing in the United States, particularly in California, the entrance point for some one million immigrants per year and in the midst of a severe economic recession. "The welfare state has made us a magnet for illegal immigration. In California they even run a pamphlet in Spanish with all the benefits they offer, and hand it out in Mexico, almost begging people to come over, " said Minority Whip Newt Gingrich.
AI-11 / Rep. John Conyers, (Representative from Michigan. Chair Committee on Government Operations) August 4, 1993 "The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and unprepared for the future. " House Report 103-21 6, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations p. 7 / / MS-VT95
In 1990 Congress enacted a major revision of the immigration law. The Immigration Act of 1990 [IMMAC] changed the numerical limits and preference system It provided for an increase in total legal immigration, establishing a permanent annual level of at least 675,000 immigrants beginning in fiscal year 1995 (with transition levels at approximately 700 000). Preference categories were established basing priority for admission on family relate ships and needed skills. Employment based immigration increased from 54,000 to 140,000 providing for the admission of aliens with "extraordinary ability, such as professionals holding advanced degrees and religious workers. Provision was also made for diversity immigrants, " that is natives of foreign states from which immigration was lower than 50,000 over the preceding.
AI-12 / ARISTIDE ZOLBERG, Prof. Political Science, New School for Social Research, 1992; in IMMIGRATION, LANGUAGE, AND ETHNICITY, "Refugee policy in the United States and Canada" p. 90 / / MS-VT95
Congress the supporters of safe haven secures the incorporation of measures to that effect as amendments to the comprehensive Immigration Act of 1990, signed by President Bush on November 29. One provision allows the attorney general to grant temporary protected status (TPS) to aliens who, if they returned to their country, would be in danger for reasons such as violent conflict or natural disaster.
AI-13 / CHRISTOPHER MITCHELL, Prof. Politics, New York University, 1992; in WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Introduction" p. 19 \\ MS VT95
Both the supporters and the opponents of restrictionism could point with pride to elements in the 1990 Immigration Act. An overall "cap" was placed on annual family-based immigration: 465,000 per year until 1995 and 480,000 thereafter. However, a "floor" was established for family-preference visas--those for relatives other than the immediate families of U. S. citizens. Those visas cannot fall below 226,000 per year, and since there was no limit on the number of visas for citizens' immediate relations, the "cap" could be "pierced. " Another de facto victory for non-restrictionists was the raising of per-country limits for all nations from 20,000 per year to a minimum of 25,600 per year; this appeared likely to permit some increase in legal migration from Mexico and the Dominican Republic, among the nations we are studying.
AI-14 / ANDREW M. ISSERMAN, DIRECTOR OF THE REGIONAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE AT WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY, MARCH 1993; URBAN STUDIES, "United States Immigration Policy and the Industrial Heartland: Laws, Origins, Settlement Patterns and Economic Consequences, " vol. 30, no. 2 p. 242 / / AGL-10 VT95
The pressures and unforeseen consequences of the 1965 Act led to the Immigration Act of 1990. It reserved 50000 places annually for "diversity immigrants"--namely, residents of "low admission countries". The world is divided into six regions. Any region accounting for less than one-sixth of the total immigration in the previous five years is a low-admission region, and any "foreign state" accounting for less than 50000 immigrants is a low-admission state. Diversity visas are divided between low admission states in low-admission regions and low-admission states in high admission regions by a formula that considers population and the proportion , of immigration places taken by natives of high admission regions. Diversity immigrants must have a high school education or two years' experience in a job that requires training or experience.
AI-15 / CHRISTOPHER MITCHELL, Prof. Politics, New York University, 199Z; in WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Introduction" p. 18 \\ MS-VT95
As IRCA was being implemented, Congress turned back to the question of immigration preferences, which had not been revised since 1965; the result was the Immigration Act of 1990. 37 The new law set out to accommodate the concerns of many different legislators. Among other goals, the contending interests sought to admit more new workers, to continue promoting family unification, to benefit migration from Europe as well as from Asia and Latin America, to reduce backlogs in visa applications, to accommodate the beneficiaries of the 1986 amnesty program, and to protect undocumented Salvadorans in the United States. AI-20A / Elizabeth Rolph [Research Fellow RAND and Urban Institute Program Research on Immigration Policy] 1992 IMMIGRATION POLICIES: LEGACY FROM THE 1980'S AND ISSUES FOR THE 1990'S. p. 19 \\ SW VT-95 In fact, all three statutes offer a new and quite ambiguous temporary status to substantial numbers of additional immigrants. Temporary status under IRCA is intended to serve as an intermediate step as immigrants move quickly toward permanent status. However, the future of most asylees and of those accorded temporary protected status remains ambiguous, since the statutes do not provide for adjusting their status once the situation in their homelands improves. Quite possibly the entire pool of temporary residents will ultimately become permanent.
AI-16 / BILL FRELICK is senior policy analyst for the U. S. Committee, March 31, 1994, HEADLINE: Why asylum in the U. S. carries a price tag now The San Diego Union-Tribune / / PKK-LN-VT95
The long-awaited "reform" of the asylum system, announced Tuesday, in effect creates rich and poor classes of refugees, with preferences given to the well-to-do. Asylum seekers, for the first time, are expected to pay to apply for asylum and are prohibited from working legally for six months while their applications are pending.
AI-17 / BILL FRELICK is senior policy analyst for the U. S. Committee, March 31, 1994, HEADLINE: Why asylum in the U. S. carries a price tag now The San Diego Union-Tribune / / PKK-LN-VT95
The "reform" doesn't in the least inconvenience well-to-do asylum seekers who can afford an immigration attorney, pay the application fee and rely on their own resources for six months. But poor people -- and most are indeed poor -- are caught in a double (perhaps a triple) whammy. They are called upon to pay for services they need in support of a basic human right. Then they are not permitted to work to earn the money to pay for those services. Finally, if they try to fill out the applications themselves, they run the risk of being denied an interview with an asylum officer.
AI-18 / CALGARY HERALD, FEBRUARY 18, 1994, "U. S. To Charge For Refugee Claims, " GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICE, Pg. B18 / AGL-VT95
Those in search of an American haven will have to pay a processing fee of $ 130, making the United States the only country in the world to charge those who claim they are fleeing persecution, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Those with the cash will then face another hurdle, a five-month delay before they receive a work permit. The steps are aimed at deterring new applicants, and reducing the backlog of asylum claims. There are 364,000 applications in the system, a backlog that is growing at 10,000 a month.
AI-19 / BILL FRELICK is senior policy analyst for the U. S. Committee, March 31, 1994, HEADLINE: Why asylum in the U. S. carries a price tag now The San Diego Union-Tribune / / PKK-LN-VT95
"Give me your rich and well-rested . . . yearning to breathe free. " So the Clinton administration rewrites America's traditional welcome to the persecuted, requiring applicants to pay $130 for the right to seek asylum.
AI-20 / LARS SCHOULTZ, Prof. Political Science, Univ. of North Carolina, 1992; in WESTERN Hemisphere IMMIGRATION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Central America and the politicization of US immigration policy" pp. 190-1 \\ MS VT95
Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, about a million deportable aliens were located each year by the INS. Most of these were citizens of Mexico, who promptly agreed to an escorted "voluntary departure, " but many were Central Americans. Voluntary departure is an administrative term to designate a process whereby an apprehended undocumented alien agrees to forgo a formal deportation hearing and "voluntarily" depart from the United States. For most apprehended aliens this option makes good sense, since the alternative-deportation--is generally inevitable and, once deported, an alien is thereafter permanently ineligible to apply for an immigrant or non immigrant visa. s6 Accepting voluntary departure makes particularly good sense for those apprehended aliens who are allowed unescorted voluntary departure. [Many aliens are simply told by the INS to be out of the United States within thirty days. Of this group, no one knows how many actually leave. Patricia Weiss Fagen has found that officials of the INS's Office of Detention and Deportation recognize "that a large portion of people in all national groups who receive voluntary departures do not depart, at which point the under-staffed INS may or may not locate them and effect an immediate departure.
AI-21 / LARS SCHOULTZ, Prof. Political Science, Univ. of North Carolina, 1992; in WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Central America and the politicization of US immigration policy" p. 194 \\ MS VT95
The judicial process of deportation is not as straightforward as this law might suggest, however. Unless a detained illegal alien agrees to voluntary departure, the government is required to prove that an alien has no right to remain in the United States. In rebutting this evidence, an alien can call and cross-examine witnesses and, if unsuccessful, can ask for judicial review. 66 These defenses have been approved by the Supreme Court, which has issued a fairly clear ruling on aliens' rights: "There are literally millions of aliens within the jurisdiction of the United States. The Fifth Amendment, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, protects every one of these persons from deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. ''67 But because a deportation hearing is a civil proceeding, aliens enjoy few of the guarantees granted criminal defendants: no right to a court-appointed attorney, no right to suppress evidence obtained in violation of the Constitution, no right to compel witnesses to testify, no right to a Miranda warning. Moreover aliens facing deportation often cannot obtain assistance from federally funded legal assistance programs.
AI 21 / RONALD BROWNSTEIN and RICHARD SIMON, TIMES STAFF WRITERS, NOVEMBER 14, 1993; LOS ANGELES TIMES, "HOSPITALITY TURNS INTO HOSTILITY; CALIFORNIA HAS A LONG HISTORY OF WELCOMING NEWCOMERS FOR THEIR CHEAP LABOR -- UNTIL TIMES TURN ROUGH. THE CURRENT BACKLASH IS ALSO FUELED BY THE SCOPE AND NATURE OF THE IMMIGRATION, " Part A; Page 1; Column 1 / AGL-VT95
In 1986, in a surge of national concern over illegal immigrants, Congress passed the landmark Immigration Reform and Control Act. But until recently, few state leaders appeared even mildly annoyed about the law's palpable failure to stem the flow of illegal immigrants.
AI-22 / 62 U. S. L. W. 2609 United States Law Week April 12, 1994 SECTION: New Court Decisions. Digests of Significant Opinions Not Yet Generally Reported. TITLE: Aliens and Citizenship: DETENTION--. / / PKK-LN-VT95
Detention, however, is permissible only if not "excessive in relation to the regulatory goal. " U. S. v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739 (1987). Barrera has been held in four federal penitentiaries, two of which are high security institutions that entail the severest conditions for their inmates. Leavenworth, where Barrera presently resides, is an overcrowded prison featuring a massive wall with gun towers at each corner. The Bureau of Prisons describes the facilities as "correctional" and their inhabitants as "offenders"; the administrator's announced aim is "a balance between punishment, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. " No indication is given by the record here that the purpose of punishment is less vigorously pursued by the bureau when one of the inmates in its charge happens to be an excluded alien. Since his incarceration began in 1985, Barrera has been outside of a federal prison for only six months in 1992.
AI 22A / MICHAEL T. LEMPRES, WASHINGTON ATTORNEY, WAS AN OFFICIAL IN THE REAGAN AND BUSH JUSTICE DEPARTMENTS, AND AN EXECUTIVE COMMISSIONER OF THE INS, FEBRUARY 21, 1994; NATIONAL REVIEW, "Getting Serious About Illegal Immigration; Dealing With A New Us Demographic Problem; Demystifying Multiculturalism, " Vol. 46 ; No. 3 ; Pg. 52 / AGL-VT95
Interior enforcement. The principal goal here is to deny illegal migrants the jobs and public benefits that cause them to enter the U. S. in the first place. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) moved in the right direction by making it against the law to hire illegal aliens. Virtually every developed country in the world requires proof of work authorization based on citizenship status. Unfortunately, IRCA's susceptibility to fraudulent documents has dramatically undercut the law's effectiveness.
AI- 23 / 62 U. S. L. W. 2609 United States Law Week April 12, 1994 SECTION: New Court Decisions. Digests of Significant Opinions Not Yet Generally Reported. TITLE: Aliens and Citizenship: DETENTION--. / / PKK-LN-VT95
Prolonged incarceration in federal prison of excluded alien who has not been convicted of federal crime violates substantive due process guarantee of Fifth Amendment. (Barrera-Echavarria v. Rison, CA 9, No. 93-56682, 3 / 31 / 94) The United States appeals from a district court order granting a writ of habeas corpus to Barrera-Echavarria, one of the large group of Mariel Cubans who came to these shores in 1980. He has been found to be an excluded alien, and his return to Cuba has been ordered. Cuba has refused to take him back, and no other country has been identified as willing to accept him. The Immigration and Naturalization Service has had him confined in federal prisons since 1985. The district court held that the confinement was without statutory authority and, further, that continued imprisonment constituted punishment of Barrera in violation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.
AI-24 / Daniel A. Stein executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, May 29, 1993, HEADLINE: Drowning in the Labor Pool The New York Times Page 19; / / PKK-VT95
It isn't just that immigration is running at historically high levels but that some 95 percent of the immigrants come irrespective of labor-force needs. They enter under family quotas, as refugees or political-asylum seekers or under parole -- a provision that allows inadmissible aliens to remain while they attempt to legalize their presence here.
AI 25 / Nancy E. Roman staff writer May 10, 1994, HEADLINE: Florida expects surge of illegals to sail from Haiti The Washington Times / / PKK-LN-VT95
Stephanie Markas, coordinator of the asylum program for the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in New York, says there is no basis for the lawsuits. "Our immigration system is quite tightly constrained, " she says. Once nations have reached their quota, only family members of immigrants in the United States, immigrants coming to fill jobs and political refugees are admitted.
AI-26 / FRANK TREJO, STAFF WRITER, JANUARY 2, 1994; THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, "Rethinking Immigration; Near-Record Influx, Publicized Incidents Help Prompt Calls For Reform, " Pg. 1A / AGL-VT95
Recent INS estimates place the number of undocumented immigrants entering the United States at 300,000 each year. The INS estimates that 3. 2 million live in the country, with about 10 percent settling in Texas.
AI-27 / FRANK TREJO, STAFF WRITER, JANUARY 2, 1994; THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, "Rethinking Immigration; Near-Record Influx, Publicized Incidents Help Prompt Calls For Reform, " Pg. 1A / AGL-VT95
Although illegal immigration is at the center of the debate, the undocumented are just part of the issue. According to the INS, more than 800,000 legal immigrants entered the country last year. In addition, more than 100,000 refugees were allowed in and thousands were granted political asylum.
AI-28 / REENA SHAH STAMETS, staff writer, March 18, 1994, HEADLINE: The debate over illegal immigrants St. Petersburg Times / / PKK-LN-VT95
Staggering under a burden of 3-million illegal immigrants, the United States launched a monumental fix-it in 1986: clean the slate by offering amnesty to those who already had sneaked into the country, and crack down on the hiring It didn't work. Today, there are another 4-million illegal immigrants in the United States.
AI-29 / ANDREW M. ISSERMAN, DIRECTOR OF THE REGIONAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE at WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY, MARCH 1993; URBAN STUDIES, "United States Immigration Policy and the Industrial Heartland: Laws, Origins, Settlement Patterns and Economic Consequences, " vol. 30, no. 2 p. 248 / AGL-10 VT95
By 1988 there were 28 specific grounds of refusal for immigrant visas (US Department of State, 1989, pp. 110-112). The three invoked most frequently that year demonstrate the enduring nature of self sufficiency ("aliens likely to become public charge"), health ("aliens afflicted with any dangerous contagious disease"), and labour market concerns ("aliens seeking admission to perform skilled or unskilled labor for which sufficient workers are available"). In addition, mental retardation, insanity, sexual deviation, alcoholism, prostitution, polygamy, drug use and trafficking, anarchism, communism and political subversion, among others, were invoked to refuse permission to immigrate.
AI-30 / PR Newswire March 30, 1994, HEADLINE: STATE DEPARTMENT FINALIZES GREEN CARD LOTTERY RULES AMID CHARGES OF DISCRIMINATION / PKK-LN-VT95
The highest regional allocation -- 24, 549 green cards out of the 55,000 total -- is being reserved for immigrants from Europe. Another 20, 200 visas are being reserved for immigrants from Africa, with the remainder going to Asia, Latin America and Oceania, which includes Australia. While Africans do receive a high allocation of visas, this is simply a consequence of the fundamentally anti-Hispanic and anti- Asian nature of the overall allocation.
AI-31 / CHRISTOPHER MITCHELL, Prof. Politics, New York University, 1992; in WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Introduction" pp. 17-18 \\ MS VT95
The law also offered a one-year amnesty period during which undocumented aliens who had remained in the United States since before 1 January 1982 might apply for legalization. After a further eighteen months these aliens might become permanent residents, with the eventual opportunity to naturalize as U. S. citizens. To garner crucially needed votes from the representatives of crop-growing states, the law's sponsors included a provision for "Special Agricultural Workers" (SAWs) who might have arrived as recently as 1 May 1985 and who had to demonstrate three months of steady work on U. S. farms since their arrival. A total of 2. 7 million migrants from the countries listed in Table 1 applied for legal status in 1987 / 1988 under the amnesty and SAW provisions. Between 1990 and 1993 additional "Replenishment Agricultural Workers" (RAWs) may be admitted up to limits to be set by the Departments of Labor and Agriculture.
AI-32 / Elizabeth Rolph [Research Fellow RAND and Urban Institute Program for Research on Immigration Policy] 1992 IMMIGRATION POLICIES: LEGACY FROM THE 1980'S AND ISSUES FOR THE 1990'S. p. 20 \\ SW VT-95 To ensure that employers know the status of the workers they hire, the law mandates that all employers must verify the identity and the eligibility to work of each new hire by examining specified documents and attesting to such verification on a form they must re tain for future inspection. The law also specifies both civil and crimi nal penalties for noncompliance. To avoid economic disruptions, the legislation emphasizes early employer education and provides for an expedited repeal if the employer requirements prove to be unduly burdensome for employers.
AI-33 / Marcos Breton, Bee Staff Writer March 20, 1994 HEADLINE: LEGAL RESTRICTIONS FAIL TO DISCOURAGE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, Sacramento Bee / / PKK-LN-VT95
* Current laws, both state and federal, prohibit the hiring of anyone who cannot prove he or she is a legal U. S. resident. There is an exception for temporary agricultural workers.
* The law also forbids non-residents from receiving any kind of public assistance except limited Medi-Cal benefits for emergency and some prenatal care.
* A new statute that went into effect on March 1 requires the Department of Motor Vehicles to check U. S. citizenship before providing a California driver's license or identification card.
* Local officials are prohibited from enforcing sanctuary laws that prevent local law enforcement agencies from telling the Immigration and Naturalization Service about suspected felons who are believed to be in the United States illegally.
AI-34 / Samuel Francis (Staff writer) The Washington Times October 26, 1993, Pg. A17 HEADLINE: It's high time to take immigration seriously(L / N) / / MS-VT95
Laws passed in the 1980s did nothing to control either legal or illegal immigration, nothing to protect American borders and nothing to control the costs that illegal aliens impose on the taxpayer. Almost everything lawmakers did about it was camouflage, applesauce and evasion.
AI-35 / ROBERT S. GOLDFARB, Prof. Economics, George Washington Univ. , 1992; in IMMIGRATION, LANGUAGE, AND ETHNICITY, "Commentary" pp. 171-2 \\ MS VT95
Aristide Zolberg suggests that it may be useful to think of immigration policy as having a primarily negative function--the policing function of keeping people out. Such an exclusionary goal may be motivated by many underlying ones, such as avoidance of the redistribution of labor earnings and preservation of the ethnic of constituent groups.
AI-36 / Elizabeth Rolph [Research Fellow RAND and Urban Institute Program for Research on Immigration Policy] 1992 IMMIGRATION POLICIES: LEGACY FROM THE 1980'S AND ISSUES FOR THE 1990'S. p. 37 \\ SW VT-95 As might be predicted from the statutory provisions, legislation en- acted during the 1980s has paved the way for dramatic growth in immigration.
AI-37 / Marcos Breton, Bee Staff Writer March 20, 1994 HEADLINE: LEGAL RESTRICTIONS FAIL TO DISCOURAGE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS Sacramento Bee / / PKK-LN-VT95
With so many undocumented immigrants, it is impossible to fully enforce the laws restricting them.
AI-38 / Henry R. Wray, (Director, administration of Justice Issues, GAO) March 30, 1993, "The Immigration and Naturalization Service: a Mandate for Change"" Hearing before the Information, Justice, Transportation, and agriculture Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives p. 5 / / MS VT95
On the enforcement side, INS is confronted with the problem of trying to step millions of aliens who attempt to enter the country illegally. In doing so, it faces many policy and operational issues, including: The feasibility and effectiveness of different approaches to, and improved technology for, improved border control; humanitarian concerns, such as equitable treatment of aliens of different nationalities and divided families; and cost considerations and tradeoffs, such as choosing between, expenditures for detaining aliens or preventing their illegal entry.
AI-39 / John Dillin, Staff writer May 6, 1993, HEADLINE: Panel Studies Impact Of New Immigrants On US Jobs, Wages The Christian Science Monitor Pg. 1 / / PKK-VT95
These most vulnerable segments of American society are "clearly powerless and without political clout" in the halls of Congress, North says. Their voices are seldom heard, until a riot tears apart a section of a large city. Ironically, he says the growing numbers of black congressmen on Capitol Hill have done little to change the dynamics of federal immigration policy.
AI-40 / Rep. John Conyers, (Representative from Michigan. Chair Committee on Government Operations) August 4, 1993 "The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and unprepared for the future. " House Report 103-216, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations p. 3 / / MS VT95
The administration of Federal immigration policy has suffered from inadequate leadership at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, insufficient funding for key positions, debilitating inefficiencies at the INS, and a failure on the part of members of the executive and legislative branches to appreciate fully the magnitude and impact of recent immigration into the United States. We have failed to comprehend adequately the important part e of the job which is done by INS and to insist that it be done right.
AI-41 / Robert W. Lee staff writer April 19, 1993 "Terror at the Towers: America's Internal Security is Eroding Before our Eyes" The New American p. 75 / / PKK-4 VT95
We have, Occhipinti agrees, "lost all control over our borders, " one reason being that the INS "puts very little emphasis on the enforcement role. Their emphasis is more on the service, the adjudication of applications, how many people they can naturalize. This was one of my frustrations working with the anti-smuggling unit. Even though we had statutory authority to conduct investigations into the organized smuggling of terrorism into the United States, very little emphasis was ever put on it. And when I tried to do it, it was like fighting a battle.
AI-42 / DAVID GERGEN, STAFF WRITER, MARCH 22, 1993; U. S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, "A Dreadful Mess At The IN, " Vol. 114, No. 11; Pg. 36 / AGL-LN-VT95
William Barr, the outgoing attorney general, tried hard to fix the INS but was mostly blocked by Democrats in Congress and Republicans sleeping at the White House. ''The agency is still in very bad shape, " he says. But Barr has some excellent ideas for repair: INS agents posted at key airports overseas to check documents, summary deportation proceedings to weed out patently phony claims for asylum, better information systems, a beefed-up force. What's needed won't turn the United States into a police state but will make it a little safer for its citizens. Mr. President, please call the veep -- fast.
AI-43 / John Conyers [Rep. Michigan-Chair Committee on Government Operations] August 1993. The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and Unprepared for the Future. House Report 103-216, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations. P. 11. / / MS-VT95
Beyond management skills, INS leadership must "develop a strategic vision about how the INS should operate and build a consensus for it within INS, the Congress, and the affected groups in the country. " Mr. Wortman talked about the need for "leaders with courage and vision, " and Ms. Yanez the need for articulating "concrete goals and objectives. "
AI-44 / THE PLAIN DEALER, MARCH 12, 1993, "An Open Door For Jet-Set Terror?" Pg. 44B / AGL-LN-VT95
The U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service says that overstaying a visa term is not a criminal offense; that in a free and open society, no high priority is placed by the INS on tracking down offenders. Indeed, the United States officially attempts to be hospitable to tourists, inviting them to roam at will, unlike the former Communist bloc countries.
AI-45 / Tim Minahan Government Computer News September 27, 1993 Vol. 12 ; No. 21 ; Pg. 1; ISSN: 0738-4300 HEADLINE: Critics prompt INS to revamp systems mess; Immigration and Naturalization Service (L / N) / / MS-VT95
Collison , (associate INS commissioner for IRM, ) did not dispute the House committee's findings that the INS "failed to provide adequate computer security. " Until recently, the agency did not extend computer safeguards much further than physical security passwords. "Security wasn't getting the attention it needed at INS, " he said. "It was supported by a lower staff person, who focused primarily on physical password rather than a well-thought-out plan which met the requirements of the Computer Security Act of 1987 and other Office of Management and Budget directives. "
AI-46 / Henry R. Wray, (Director, administration of Justice Issues, GAO) March 30, 1993, "'The Immigration and Naturalization Service: a Mandate for Change"' Hearing before the Information, Justice, Transportation, and agriculture Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives p. 10 / / MS VT95
The INS is basically an instrument of the United States' immigration policy. Its overall mission is to promote and allow only legal entry and travel to the United States. However, the two main units within INS--enforcement and service--have quite different, almost opposite, organizational objectives. One unit is charged with keeping aliens from illegally entering the country; the other unit is responsible for facilitating their legal entry.
AI-47 / MARY BENANTI; Gannett News Service May 28, 1993, HEADLINE: ADMINISTRATION 'DOESN'T HAVE A HANDLE' ON SMUGGLING DATELINE: WASHINGTON GANNETT NEWS SERVICE / / PKK-VT95
Sale testified that INS has no more than 6, 500 detention spaces available nationwide. Of that, 4, 500 are used to warehouse criminal aliens. That leaves 2,000 spaces for "tens of thousands" of illegal immigrants trying to enter the country each year. In fact, no more than 10 percent of the people INS would like to detain ever see the inside of a detention facility, she said.
AI-48 / Richard J. Hankinson, (Inspector General of US Department of Justice) March 30, 1993, "The Immigration and Naturalization Service: a Mandate for Change" Hearing before the Information, Justice, Transportation, and agriculture Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives p. 27 / / MS VT95
As you consider the significant problems in INS, you can safely start with this list: Automated accounting and ADP planning;, financial management training; automated information systems planning; immigration inspector training; ineffective security program; delivery bends; overtime management--use of 1931 act overtime; procurement improvements in INS. In addition, listed as a high risk area / material non conformance are: Supervision of fee accounts and financial management systems.
AI-49 / Linda Reyna Yanez, (Directing Attorney, Immigration Clinic, Harvard Law School) March 30, 1993, "The Immigration and Naturalization Service: a Mandate for Change" Hearing before the Information, Justice, Transportation, and agriculture Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives. p. 26 / / MS VT95
The INS has many hardworking dedicated, and loyal employees whose best efforts are frustrated by institutional inertia and the culture of the agency. There are, however, also a significant number of INS employees who are insensitive the diversity of the public they serve and respond with hostility the legitimate inquiries and requests from the public. They communicate a sense of suspicion and animosity, suggesting that they believe every applicant is seeking to subvert the legal process or circumvent legal requirements.
AI-50 / Pamela Burdman, Chronicle Staff Writer APRIL 27, 1993, HEADLINE: Huge Boom in Human Smuggling - Inside Story of Flight From China $ 3 billion business built on des The San Francisco Chronicle / / PKK-LN-VT95
* The boom in human-smuggling has caused turmoil among U. S. immigration officials. They have been largely ineffective in stopping the trade, and investigators say some may have been corrupted by it.
AI-51 / Richard J. Hankinson [Inspector General of US Dept. of Justice] March 30, 1993. Hearing: The Immigration and Naturalization Service: a Mandate for Change. Subcommittee on Information, Justice, Transportation, and Agriculture. House of Representatives. P. 28. / / MS-VT95
A year or so ago, my office undertook a study of INS corruption. One of the more practical writings that summarized the problem and had concrete suggestions on how to deal with it was a study done by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Distilled to essentials, the IACP study recommended the following: Select new hires carefully. Screen them--conduct background checks, use drug tests. Train them. Supervise them. Require accountability--take disciplinary action for misconduct.
AI-52 / Richard J. Hankinson, (Inspector General of US Department of Justice) March 30, 1993, "The Immigration and Naturalization Service: a Mandate for Change" Hearing before the Information, Justice, Transportation, and agriculture Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives p. 28 / / MS VT95
INS employees guard access to the United States--the entry of drugs and aliens across our border and into this country. INS employees have the ability to get and sell another precious commodity: The documentation that will allow an alien to stay in the United States and to gain employment. A border crossing card "sells for $325 on the average. A temporary resident permit sells for about $2, 300. A green card sells for an average of $5, 600. Last year, we successfully concluded cases in which almost $1 million was paid in an effort to corrupt INS era-employees.
AI-53 / MARILYN HOSKIN, Prof. Political Science, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1991, NEW IMMIGRANTS AND DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY p. 47 \\ MS VT95
Our analysis of the assumptions which underlie immigration policies indicates that history and uncontrollable events have played a significant role in immigration's place on the political agenda. In almost no instance has immigration been totally and carefully planned. The immigration agenda is most frequently determined by external events and pressures (war, illegal entry) or by economic needs which politicians want to address promptly but forget when negative consequences result.
AI-54 / MARILYN HOSKIN, Prof. Political Science, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1991, NEW IMMIGRANTS AND DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY p. 10 \\ MS VT95
In this context, it is hardly surprising that the record of governments in coming to terms with immigration has not been exemplary. Like their publics, governments have been willing to assume simple relationships and simple solutions. Inaction has been preferred to action (Freeman, 1979; Ashford, 1981; Dalton, 1989; LeMay, 1987). States have attempted to deal with integration problems associated with immigrants already in the country by curtailing further immigration, but are rarely up to the broader challenge of reconciling interests of those already in residence (Freeman, 1988). If that is the case, there is cause for legitimate concern: that industrialized nations may be unable to control their populations, that permanent two-tier sociopolitical structures are being created, and that the very governing power of these systems is being eroded (Miller, 1981).
AI-55 / Elizabeth Rolph [Research Fellow RAND and Urban Institute Program for Research on Immigration Policy] 1992 IMMIGRATION POLICIES: LEGACY FROM THE 1980'S AND ISSUES FOR THE 1990'S. p. 37 \\ SW VT-95 There is little evidence, however, that policy makers have a strong grasp of what these effects will be or how they might be managed. In fact, there is little pressure on the federal policy makers who make immigration policy, to carefully examine the implications of their ac- tions, since most of the consequences and costs of immigration are borne by a few state and local governments.
AI-56 / ANTHONY RICHMOND, Prof. Sociology, York Univ. [Canada], 1988; IMMIGRATION AND ETHNIC CONFLICT p, 36 \\ MS VT95
Immigration policies, like other governmental decisions, are thrashed out in a political arena and are an accommodation to conflicting interest groups and their respective ideologies. Actual legislation and regulations governing the admission of immigrants have tended to swing between the two extremes of a complete 'open door' policy, and one of an almost total exclusion of all but a small number of people with preferred qualifications and national backgrounds.
AI-57 / CHRISTOPHER MITCHELL, Prof. Politics, New York University, 1992; in WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Introduction" p. 4 \\ -MS VT95
U. S. policy toward these population movements has been somewhat problematic and puzzling during the past thirty years, at times showing policy inconsistency, lack of humaneness, and an ad hoc style in policy making. These characteristics were especially troubling when northward migration from Latin America was growing, and at least one U. S. administration had made support for human rights a centerpiece of its hemispheric policy.
AI-58 / CHRISTOPHER MITCHELL, Prof. Politics, New York University, 1992; in WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Implications for understanding and for policy choice" p. 288 \\ MS VT95
Other checks on the U. S. government stemmed from elements of its own structure and practice. The separation of influence among U. S. government branches encouraged--here as in many other issue area -a pluralistic or fragmented policy making process. In addition, the long-standing weaknesses of key U. S. administrative agencies in the migration field, especially the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), placed obstacles in the path of the infrequent efforts to coordinate distinct lines of policy.
AI-59 / / CHRISTOPHER MITCHELL, Prof. Politics, New York University, 1992; in WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Introduction" pp. 5-6 \\ MS VT95
U. S. policy toward Latin American and Caribbean migrant has also shown relatively little long-term planning, often responding instead to immediate pressures created by floods of new migrants or by political changes in the region.
AI-60 / Henry R. Wray, (Director, administration of Justice Issues, GAO) March 30, 1993, "The Immigration and Naturalization Service: a Mandate for Change"" Hearing before the Information, Justice, Transportation, and agriculture Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives p. 18 / / MS VT95
Over the past decade weak management systems and inconsistent leadership at INS led to segmented autonomous programs, each of which tried to handle its own set of problems and gave little attention to the interrelationships among programs. Without coherent overall direction and basic management reforms, the organization has been unable to effectively address changing enforcement responsibilities and long-standing service delivery problems.
AI-61 / ROBERT S. GOLDFARB, Prof. Economics, George Washington Univ. , 1992; in IMMIGRATION, LANGUAGE, AND ETHNICITY, "Commentary" p. 172 \\ MS VT95
Many of these groups press for some particular, sometimes narrow policy goal, with vague ideas about how their favored policy might affect the general national welfare results of immigration. In this view, the amorphous blob slithers along probably relatively aimlessly, until some politically powerful group's interest in immigration policy is awakened or revitalized. This awakening might take place because particular interests the group holds dear are suddenly seen as threatened, or because the group suddenly recognizes advantages to moving immigration policy in certain directions.
AI-62 / CHRISTOPHER MITCHELL, Prof. Politics, New York University, 1992; in WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Implications for understanding and for policy choice" p. 296 \\ MS VT95
At the same time the inconsistencies of government immigration practice have been clearly visible, and at least one observer has argued that "immigration policy is in many respects inherently incoherent." One may chip away at the notion of inevitable policy disarray, however, by noting specific steps that might be taken to discipline official action, without depending (as in recent times} largely on immigration crises that ensnared presidential attention and put a temporary premium on steady and disciplined government action.
AI-63 / Rep. John Conyers, (Representative from Michigan. Chair Committee on Government Operations) August 4, 1993 "The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and unprepared for the future. '" House Report 103-21 6, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations p. 8 / / MS VT95
The INS has grown along with the expansion in migration. During the years 1975-90, the INS budget more than tripled to over $1 billion and its staff increased by 70 percent. 32 The budgetary growth was due in part to the creation of user fee programs by which fees are charged for certain services? For fiscal year 1993, the agency has 18,000 employees and a budget of approximately $1, 042 million in appropriated funds and an estimated $586 million in user fees.
AI-64 / ANDREW M. ISSERMAN, DIRECTOR OF THE REGIONAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE at WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY, MARCH 1993; URBAN STUDIES, "United States Immigration Policy and the Industrial Heartland: Laws, Origins, Settlement Patterns and Economic Consequences, " vol. 30, no. 2 p. 244 / AGL-10 VT95
A new employment-based preference category brings contemporary economic development concerns and strategies into immigration law. Up to 10 000 visas per year are available for "qualified immigrants seeking to enter the United States for the purpose of engaging in a new commercial enterprise which the alien has established". The enterprise must "create full-time employment for not fewer than 10 United States citizens" or legal immigrants other than the immediate family of the entrepreneur. Furthermore, at least 3000 of the economic development visas are reserved for immigrants whose enterprises "will create employment in a targeted employment area", namely certain non-metropolitan or high unemployment areas. "The amount of capital required" is $1 million, which the Attorney-General can reduce to $500000 for target areas or increase up to $3 million for metropolitan areas with significantly below average unemployment rates.
AI-65 / LARS SCHOULTZ, Prof. Political Science, Univ. of North Carolina, 1992; in WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Central America and the politicization of US immigration policy" p. 167 \\ MS VT95
Despite the lack of reliable data, virtually every policy maker interviewed for this study voiced the belief that Central American migrants were motivated largely (and often exclusively) by economic factors. Jules Bassin, a veteran foreign service officer handling immigration appeals in the State Department's Bureau of Inter-American Affairs (ARA), voiced the most commonly held view: "They're coming here to look for work. This is a better place to live. The long and short of it is that they hear and see stories about how wonderful life is here. So they pack up and come. It's that simple. '' In interviews in the 1980s, officials in the consular sections in each of the five Central American countries voiced a similar understanding of the motivation for migration to the United States.
AI-66 / Pamela Burdman, Chronicle Staff Writer APRIL 28, 1993, HEADLINE: How Gangsters Cash In On Human Smuggling Profits lure government officials too The San Francisco Chronicle / / PKK-LN-VT95
Confronted by this booming trade, INS agents complain that they lack the resources to mount large-scale investigations of the operations so many of the smugglers go unprosecuted. Without more resources and harsher penalties, they say, the enterprises will only grow bigger, bolder and harder to stop.
AI-67 / RICHARD D. LAMM, former Governor of Colorado, & Gary Imhoff, 1985; THE IMMIGRATION TIME BOMB: THE FRAGMENTING OF AMERICA p. 18 \\ PK VT95
Why has immigration reform been so difficult to achieve, if it is true that large majorities of Americans support the measures that are necessary to achieve immigration control and reform immigration policy? The answer lies partially in the crude economic self interest of those who profit by employing illegal aliens. Certainly, in agricultural areas of Texas and California, politicians are affected by the pleas of powerful growers who employ illegal migrants at wages much lower than they could pay Americans. And restaurants, taxi fleets, and ununionized "home improvement" firms that employ illegals in our cities certainly profit.
AI-68 / RALPH Z. HALLOW, STAFF WRITER, JULY 29, 1993; THE WASHINGTON TIMES, "Immigration Reformers Fearful Of '2% Solution', " Pg. A1 / AGL-LN-VT95
"What Clinton proposes is not sufficient by any means to change the immigration tide that is sweeping over the country and that will probably build to greater levels, " Mr. Huddle said at a news conference.
AI 69 / Vic Stein THE PHOENIX GAZETTE October 19, 1993 Pg. B12 HEADLINE: ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION THREATENS THE NATION (L / N) / / MS-VT95
Illegal immigration, like the weather, gets lots of lip service but little action. With tens of thousands of aliens invading our borders and coasts, inaction is tantamount to national suicide.
AI-70 / STEVEN GREENHOUSE, staff writer, May 11, 1994 HEADLINE: U. S. Is Urged To Allow In More Haitians The New York Times / / PKK-LN-VT95
Under its refugee laws, the United States admits emigrants with a well-founded fear of persecution but refuses so-called economic refugees who are fleeing poverty in search of a better life.
AI-71 / CHRISTOPHER MITCHELL, Prof. Politics; New York University, 1992; in WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Implications for understanding and for policy choice" p. 299 \\ -MS VT95
Finally, the United States has seldom used, in the Western Hemisphere, the mechanism for humane access provided by the Refugee Act. In recent years the only refugee numbers provided for the Caribbean, Central America, and Mexico have been reserved for any eligible Cubans permitted to depart by Havana. By almost entirely turning its back on the 146, 400 persons internationally recognized as refugees within Central America, 22 the United States acts callously, and is seen to do so. This tends to undercut such justification as might be offered for the administration's overall policy toward Central American political migrants.
AI-72 / CHRISTOPHER MITCHELL, Prof. Politics, New York University, 1992; in WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Introduction" p. 16 \\ MS VT95
Second, refugee flows were larger, more episodic, and different in character from what the Refugee Act anticipated. Only a few months after the new law was put into effect, nearly triple the planned annual global total entered the United States from Cuba alone, in a boat lift from the Cuban port of Mariel. Compounding this type of emergency was the fact that most of the Cuban and some Central American refugees sought "first asylum, " entering the United States and then asking to remain on political grounds. This unexpected volume swamped the five thousand visas for such migrants set aside yearly by the law. There was little opportunity for U. S. officials to follow the Refugee Act's design by selecting refugees from camps elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere for resettlement in the United States.
AI-73 / LARS SCHOULTZ, Prof. Political Science, Univ. of North Carolina, 1992; in WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Central America and the politicization of US immigration policy" p. 196 \\ MS VT95
To qualify as a refugee is not to qualify for admission to the United States as a refugee. From among the millions of refugees worldwide the Refugee Act requires the executive branch, in consultation with Congress, to identify groups "of special humanitarian concern to the United States" or whose admission as refugees is in the U. S. national interest. This identification process is guided by six "processing categories. " Individuals who have first established a well-founded fear of persecution must next fit into at least one of these categories: 1. in immediate, life-threatening danger; 2. a former U. S. government employee; 3. immediate family (spouse, parent, child) seeking reunification; 4. other significant ties to the United States; 5. other family reunification; 6. otherwise serve the national interest.
AI-74 / CHRISTOPHER MITCHELL, Prof. Politics, New York University, 1992; in WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Introduction" p. 13 \\ MS VT95
In 1980 Congress and the president sought to order and update U. S. policy toward these political-migration emergencies through the Refugee Act of that year. This legislation contemplated a "routine" flow of 50,000 refugees per year, with distribution of this total among world regions to be decided in annual executive-congressional consultations. The president, after discussion with Congress, is authorized to admit more refugees if he determines such action "is justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.
AI-75 / LOUISE LAMPHERE, Prof. Anthropology Univ. New Mexico, 1992; STRUCTURING DIVERSITY: Ethnographic perspectives on the new immigration p. 7 \\ GM-VT95
A second important group of new immigrants is refugees. Until 1980, refugees were admitted on an ad hoc basis: the attorney general could admit groups on a parole status. Then Congress passed individual laws giving refugees legal 7 status and associated benefits. Cubans, Vietnamese, and other Southeast Asians were admitted to the United States under these conditions. The 1980 Refugee Act provided a regular legal mechanism though which the president could admit refugees. Legal entries into the United States, including refugees, were about 500,000 a year during the 1980s.
AI-76 / ARISTIDE ZOLBERG, Prof. Political Science, New School for Social Research, 1992; in IMMIGRATION, LANGUAGE, AND ETHNICITY, "Refugee policy in the United States and Canada" p. 56 / / MS VT95
Quite unexpectedly, in the late 1980s a third major challenge arose from the collapse of European Communist regimes and the consequent liberalization of their emigration policies. The new situation has the makings of a proverbial catch-22: So long as the citizens of the Communist countries could not leave, they were generously admitted by the United States and Canada as refugees; now that they can leave, they must take their place at the very end of a lengthening queue.
AI-77 / JOHN SWENSON ASSOCIATE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR UNITED STATES CATHOLIC CONFERENCE OFFICE OF MIGRATION AND REFUGEE SERVICES May 17, 1994, CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY / / PKK-LN-VT95
Our contacts with the UNHCR had made it clear that such a policy by the United States, was rapidly undermining the painfully constructed international system of refugee asylum which we had all worked so hard to help erect.
AI-78 / Aristide Zolberg [Prof. Science-New School for Social Research] 1992 "Refugee Policy in the United States and Canada. "Immigration, Language, and Ethnicity. P. 81. / / MS-VT95
The Supreme Court's decision in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca (march 1987) liberalized the eligibility standard by taking into consideration the subjective elements of fear, as provided for under the UNHCR guidelines. Accordingly, the BIA changed its standard of proof of well-founded fear from clear probability to what a "reasonable person" might infer under the circumstances in question.
AI-79 / ARISTIDE ZOLBERG, Prof. Political Science, New School for Social Research, 1992; in IMMIGRATION, LANGUAGE, AND ETHNICITY, ' "Refugee policy in the United States and Canada" p. 81 / / MS VT95
Subsequently the BIA 'ruled that aliens fleeing generalized violence and upheaval did not qualify for asylum (Matter of Mogharrabi, 1988). This ruling was based on its interpretation of the legislative history of the 1980 act. In particular, the board denied asylum to Salvadorans on the grounds that violence is a normal by product civil wars or revolutions, and that individuals harmed by such violence are not being persecuted on the statutory grounds (Matter of Maldonado-Cruz, 1988). The paradoxical consequence was that "the higher the general level of violence, terror, and persecution in a country, the mode burden there is upon the applicant to show individual targeting. ''
AI-80 / The Times-Picayune September 30, 1993 Pg. A2 HEADLINE: ASYLUM STUDY RAPS IMMIGRATION OFFICERS (L / N) / / MS-VT95
Immigration officers make errors of legal analysis in half the cases they judge for political asylum, a Harvard Law School study found. "Given their current composition, the asylum officers are not competent to be the sole adjudicators of asylum claims, as some proposals recommend, " wrote Sarah Ignatius, author of the two-year National Asylum Study Project. The study, published Wednesday, looked at 1, 300 cases around the country and evaluated the performances of 151 asylum officers handling applicants from 60 nations. Most errors reported were to the detriment of those seeking asylum.
AI-81 / THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS October 24, 1993, EDITORIALS; Pg. 2J HEADLINE: IMMIGRATION; Asylum and refugee policies are a shambles (L / N) / / MS-VT95
But in an agency burdened with a mandate disproportionate to its resources, only about 30,000 applications can be processed in an average year. Thus, the current backlog of over 300,000 could conceivably be cleared up in 10 years _ but only if all applications were to stop today.
AI-82 / THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS October 24, 1993, EDITORIALS; Pg. 2J HEADLINE: IMMIGRATION; Asylum and refugee policies are a shambles (L / N) / / MS-VT95
Last year, about 35,000 citizens of other nations showed up at U. S. airports claiming political asylum. Around 15,000 of them arrived at New York City's JFK Airport. The federal immigration service often has no option but to release such individuals, and to give them work permits. All told, the number of asylum applications for fiscal year 1993 was 147,000.
AI-83 / THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS October 24, 1993, EDITORIALS; Pg. 2J HEADLINE: IMMIGRATION; Asylum and refugee policies are a shambles (L / N) / / MS-VT95
As perilous as terrorism and alien smuggling are, out-of-control numbers are even more ominous. Unlike U. S. refugee admissions, the government sets no annual ceiling on the number of asylum seekers who are admitted. Worse yet, once they arrive on U. S. soil, current asylum policy makes it virtually impossible to remove them even if they are found to be unqualified.
AI-84 / MELITA MARIE GARZA, STAFF WRITER, JULY 30, 1993; CHICAGO TRIBUNE, "Immigrant Rights Center Faces Tough U. S. Hurdles, " Pg. 1 / AGL-LN-VT95
Under the law, a person is eligible for asylum if he or she is unable or unwilling to return to the home country because of past persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.
AI-85 / Arthur C. Helton The Nation October 18, 1993 Vol. 257 ; No. 12 ; Pg. 428; ISSN: 0027-8378 HEADLINE: Closing the golden door: anti- immigration laws. (L / N) / / MS-VT95
The legislation introduced by the Clinton Administration in July could increase the risk that refugees like these will be returned to places where they may suffer persecution. The Administration's bill would cover asylum seekers who arrive without valid travel documents or who are intercepted on the high seas, and would provide for quick interviews with U. S. immigration officers, at which the individuals would have to establish on the spot a "credible fear of persecution" or face immediate expulsion or exclusion. Administrative review of denials of protection would be summary in character and accelerated dramatically. Judicial review would be either eliminated or rendered largely meaningless.
AI-86 / Gretchen Cook, staff writer Agence France Presse March 31, 1994, HEADLINE: Backlash against illegal immigrants tightens US policy / / PKK-LN-VT95
But many charged that the measure does not go far to stem the flood of applications which have tripled since 1991 to reach 150,000 last year. Officials estimate that the backlog could reach half a million by the end of this year.
AI-87 / Representative Schumer [New York]. April 27, 1993. Hearing: Asylum and Inspection Reform. Subcommittee on International Law, Immigration and Refugees. House of Representatives. P. 48. / / MS-VT95
I am worried, Mr. Chairman, that the asylum process, which has been designed to serve noble ends, is simply becoming a giant loophole in which abusers far outnumber the legitimate claimants.
AI-88 / DEBORAH SONTAG (News York Times News Service)The San Diego Union-Tribune September 27, 1993, Pg. A-8 HEADLINE: Rape raised as an immigration issue (L / N) / / MS-VT95
Immigration law has tended to ignore the plight of refugee women. Lawyers and immigration officers often follow their standard line of questioning, and the personal stories of the women never come out. Many judges and immigration officers treat rape and battery -- even at the hands of government officials -- as private acts. And many interpret a woman's transgression of social mores, the refusal of an Iranian woman to cover her head, for instance, as wardrobe choices rather than political expression.
AI-89 / JILL LAWRENCE, ASSOCIATED PRESS March 27, 1994, HEADLINE: GENDER PERSECUTION NEW REASON FOR ASYLUM; HUMAN RIGHTS: WOMEN FACE BRIDE-BURNING, GENITAL MUTILATION, FORCED ABORTIONS AND POLITICALLY MOTIVATED RAPE, BUT NATIONS HAVE BEEN SLOW TO GRANT REFUGE. Los Angeles Times / / PKK-LN-VT95
Women are victimized in ways men are not. They are subjected to bride-burning in India and genital mutilation in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. They are forced to have abortions or be sterilized or get married. They are victims of politically motivated rape in places like Bosnia. But only recently has the world begun to recognize that such sex-based persecution may be a violation of human rights and legitimate grounds for asylum.
AI-90 / JILL LAWRENCE, ASSOCIATED PRESS March 27, 1994, HEADLINE: GENDER PERSECUTION NEW REASON FOR ASYLUM; HUMAN RIGHTS: WOMEN FACE BRIDE-BURNING, GENITAL MUTILATION, FORCED ABORTIONS AND POLITICALLY MOTIVATED RAPE, BUT NATIONS HAVE BEEN SLOW TO GRANT REFUGE. Los Angeles Times / / PKK-LN-VT95
In the United States, "traditionally, asylum law has disregarded harm that's inflicted on women because they're women, " said Harvard law professor Nancy Kelly.
AI-91 / DEBORAH SONTAG, NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE, JANUARY 23, 1994; CHICAGO TRIBUNE, "Sexual Terrorism; Immigration -Law Attorneys Want Rape Classified As Grounds For Political Asylum, " Pg. 12 / AGL-VT95
Immigration law has tended to ignore the plight of refugee women. Lawyers and immigration officers often follow their standard line of questioning, and the personal stories of the women never come out. Many judges and immigration officers treat rape and battery, even at the hands of government officials, as private acts. And many interpret a woman's transgression of social mores, the refusal of an Iranian woman to cover her head, for instance, as wardrobe choices rather than political expression. But change is now afoot. Even though many countries have grown less tolerant of refugees in general, international sympathy has grown for the traumas of women fleeing persecution. The rapes of Muslim and Croatian women in Bosnia have been portrayed worldwide as war crimes, not just sexual violence. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees has issued guidelines for evaluating women's applications for asylum, and Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board has started granting asylum to women persecuted because of their sex.
AI-92 / Pamela Burdman, Chronicle Staff Writer APRIL 30, 1993 HEADLINE: Business of Human Smuggling Tests U. S. Immigration Policies The San Francisco Chronicle / / PKK-LN-VT95
The diplomatic approach is also difficult: The Chinese government is embarrassed because some of its citizens are desperate to leave. The United States is embarrassed because its borders are so porous. And after years of pressuring China to allow free movement, the U. S. government is in no position to ask for tighter controls at the Chinese border.
AI-93 / Pamela Burdman, Chronicle Staff Writer APRIL 30, 1993 HEADLINE: Business of Human Smuggling Tests U. S. Immigration Policies The San Francisco Chronicle / / PKK-LN-VT95
In most cases, the U. S. government cannot legally board a ship on the high seas even if agents know it is smuggling people.
AI-94 / Pamela Burdman, Chronicle Staff Writer APRIL 30, 1993 HEADLINE: Business of Human Smuggling Tests U. S. Immigration Policies The San Francisco Chronicle / / PKK-LN-VT95
But few are daunted by the dangers; in Fujian, demand for a trip to the United States seems inexhaustible. And the smugglers' success makes clear that the U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service is ill-equipped to combat the trade.
AI-95 / Nanette Asimov, Pamela Burdman, Chronicle Staff Writers APRIL 29, 1993, HEADLINE: Baja Coast Now Most Convenient Back Door to U. S. The San Francisco Chronicle / / PKK-LN-VT95
Smugglers pay Mexican fishermen to transport Chinese passengers from the mother ship to shore in small boats called ''pangas. '' On land they are met by others, who load the passengers into small campers -- ''troquesillos'' -- in groups of 20 and drive them to a nearby town. After a rest, the Chinese are driven north to the border. There, they join the stream of people trying to enter California and, sometimes, Arizona. The successful ones usually head for New York.
AI-96 / Michael Rezendes, Globe Staff May 31, 1993 HEADLINE: Rich trade: human cargo into the US The Boston Globe Pg. 1 / PKK-VT95
At the same time, the rare smuggler convicted for secreting Chinese aliens into the country usually receives a prison sentence ranging from a few months to two years. The light sentences, officials say, make investigations of the smuggling groups difficult for law enforcement officials long accustomed to reaching high level criminals by meeting with underlings facing long prison terms and trading leniency for information about higher-ups.
AI-97 / THE ORLANDO SENTINEL May 9, 1994 HEADLINE: U. S. TO HEAR ASYLUM CALLS BY HAITIANS; / / PKK-LN-VT95
The Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, exiled Haitian president, said in a statement that Clinton's plan for offshore processing was a "step in the right direction" but said "it will not protect the millions of Haitian citizens who continue to face increased violence in Haiti. "
AI-98 / STEVEN GREENHOUSE, staff writer, May 11, 1994 HEADLINE: U. S. Is Urged To Allow In More Haitians The New York Times / / PKK-LN-VT95
Rolande Dorancy, who works with Haitian refugees in Miami, estimated that 95 percent of the people in Haiti are subject to persecution. "If the hearings are done the right way, then the United States should find that at least 50 to 75 percent of Haitians have a well-founded fear of persecution, " he said.
AI-99 / THE ORLANDO SENTINEL May 9, 1994 HEADLINE: U. S. TO HEAR ASYLUM CALLS BY HAITIANS; / / PKK-LN-VT95
Clinton said the new policy will not lead to a flood of boat people, and he urged Haitians not to take the move as an incentive to try to leave the country by boat. "There may be some more people who get in, because we'll be reviewing even more people. But it would be a great mistake for Haitians who want to come here for economic reasons to just take to the boats, because we are not changing the standard by which we admit people. "
AI-100 / ARISTIDE ZOLBERG, Prof. Political Science, New School for Social Research, 1992; in IMMIGRATION, LANGUAGE, AND ETHNICITY, ' "Refugee policy in the United States and Canada" p. 76 / / MS VT95
Legal challenges have not proven very effective, however, in defending Haitian boat people, because interdiction takes place in international waters, outside the jurisdiction of U. S. courts (Haitian Refugee Center v. Garcey, 1985). Moreover, the Coast Guard's activities and its consequences of interdiction are not visible to the American public.
AI-101 / ANNA QUINDLEN, NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE, MARCH 23, 1993; CHICAGO TRIBUNE, "Since When Does America Admit Only Perfect People?" Pg. 15 / AGL-LN-VT95
The Clinton administration has not kept faith with the beleaguered people of Haiti. Candidate Clinton promised a change in the Bush administration policy that sent Haitian refugees in boats back to their island home without a hearing. President Clinton changed his mind, saying he was afraid of lost lives at sea.
AI-102 / DOUGLAS JEHL, Special to The New York Times May 17, 1994, HEADLINE: U. S. SENDING BACK HAITIAN REFUGEES DESPITE NEW PLAN The New York Times / / PKK-LN-VT95
But officials who defended the return of the refugees to Port-au-Prince said it might at least make clear that the United States still has no intention of opening its arms to Haitian migrants. "If the word's not out yet, it's going to get out, " a senior White House official said today.
AI-103 / DOUGLAS JEHL, Special to The New York Times May 17, 1994, HEADLINE: U. S. SENDING BACK HAITIAN REFUGEES DESPITE NEW PLAN The New York Times / / PKK-LN-VT95
Mr. Clinton has steadfastly ruled out letting Haitians land in the United States, and only the small percentage judged eligible for political asylum will be admitted.
AI-104 / DOUGLAS JEHL, Special to The New York Times May 17, 1994, HEADLINE: U. S. SENDING BACK HAITIAN REFUGEES DESPITE NEW PLAN The New York Times / / PKK-LN-VT95
Those picked up by the Coast Guard in recent days have included 252 Haitians found aboard an overcrowded sailboat in the waters north of Haiti early Saturday morning, and Administration officials said they recognized today that word of the impending change in American policy might have encouraged some to leave.
AI-105 / DOUGLAS JEHL, Special to The New York Times May 17, 1994, HEADLINE: U. S. SENDING BACK HAITIAN REFUGEES DESPITE NEW PLAN The New York Times / / PKK-LN-VT95
The direct return of the Haitians, including 341 who were sent ashore in Haiti this morning, is in keeping with the policy that Mr. Clinton said he would change. The total returned to Haiti since Mr. Clinton's announcement has already nearly matched the number sent back so far this year.
AI-106 / STEVEN GREENHOUSE, staff writer, May 11, 1994 HEADLINE: U. S. Is Urged To Allow In More Haitians The New York Times / / PKK-LN-VT95
Officials from Florida predicted a surge in emigration from Haiti in response to President Clinton's decision not to return refugees summarily. Senator Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat, predicted that 5,000 to 10,000 Haitians would flee each month to seek asylum, far more than the 1, 300 Haitians intercepted at sea so far this year. Mr. Graham said the United States Government, and not Florida, should absorb the cost of handling the refugees.
AI-107 / ARISTIDE ZOLBERG, Prof. Political Science, New School for Social Research, 1992; in IMMIGRATION, LANGUAGE, AND ETHNICITY, "Refugee policy in the United States and Canada" p. 11 / / MS VT95
Neither Canada nor the United States has a comprehensive language training program targeted to all immigrants in need.
AI-108 / MARILYN HOSKIN, Prof. Political Science, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1991, NEW IMMIGRANTS AND DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY pp. 39-40 \\ MS VT95
The American and Canadian policy positions are somewhat more proactive in seeking to aid immigrants socio-economically, but the differences m the programs they provide should not be exaggerated. The sheer magnitude of social issues almost dictates formal response. Immigration offices in both countries provide assistance on entry and may underwrite some initial settlement costs. Regular immigrants and refugees represent scores of different countries, and the language tasks alone are formidable.
AI-109 / Charles W. Hall , Steve Bates, Washington Post Staff Writers April 25, 1994, HEADLINE: Illegal Immigrants Pose Issues Of Cost, Conscience for Area The Washington Post / PKK-LN-VT95
"There's a silent invasion going on, and nobody's doing anything about it, "said Virginia Sen. Warren E. Barry (R-Fairfax), who earlier this year sponsored a bill to force state agencies to report illegal immigrants to federal authorities. "We used to be the country of golden opportunity, but we are now the country of the golden goose. There are simply limits to what we can absorb. "
AI-110 / William P. Hoar staff writer April 4, 1994 "The Importation of Crime" The New American, p. 29. / / PKK-VT95
Governmental altruism is becoming the nation's undoing, with the U. S. accepting more immigrants man the rest of the world put together.
AI-111 / Yeh Ling-Ling is California outreach coordinator for Population-Environment Balance, a Washington-based group. April 13, 1994 HEADLINE: PERSPECTIVE ON IMMIGRATION; THE WELCOME MAT IS THREADBARE; WE CAN'T KEEP ABSORBING 1. 3 MILLION NEWCOMERS A YEAR; A CUTBACK TO 200,000 -- REPLACEMENT LEVEL -- IS IN ORDER. Los Angeles Times / / PKK-LN-VT95
I am a first-generation immigrant. I also have 10 years' experience as an immigration paralegal. I recently joined the staff of Population-Environment Balance out of a recognition that the United States must encourage a replacement-level fertility rate of 2. 1 or lower, concurrently adopt a replacement-level immigration policy of 200,000 people a year and enforce our immigration laws. These measures are necessary to protect the quality of life of Americans of all racial backgrounds.
AI-112 / Agence France Presse April 21, 1994 HEADLINE: Experts say US will have more minorities, men in 2020 / / PKK-LN-VT95
The United States will have more minorities and men in the year 2020, with Hispanics replacing blacks as the largest minority. Asians and Pacific islanders will hold their third place position. The Census Bureau has released a report showing that Hispanics will increase from 9. 7 percent to 15. 7 percent of the population, while blacks will rise but only from 12. 5 to 13. 9 percent. Hispanics can be all races. The number of Asians and Pacific islanders will also grow from 3. 4 percent to 6. 9 percent to remain in third place, while American Indians will increase only from 0. 8 percent to 0. 9 percent of the US population.
AI-113 / Roberto Suro, Staff Writer May 5, 1994, HEADLINE: Stopping Illegal Immigrants: New Tactic Has Weak Points; Border-Crossers Find Paths of Less Resistance The Washington Post / / PKK-LN-VT95
The Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates that of the 300,000 people added to the long-term population of illegal immigrants each year, only about half enter the country by crossing the border illicitly while others come as legal visitors and overstay their visas.
AI-114 / Roberto Alvarez , former senior human rights specialist with the Organization of American States, May 15, 1994, HEADLINE: One Island, Two Nations: The Dominican Dilemma; Helping Haiti Could Destabilize Its Neighbor The Washington Post / / PKK-LN-VT95
While the interdiction of Haitian boat people has attracted international attention, an equally significant but unnoticed exodus of Dominicans to the United States has been occurring simultaneously. In November 1989, The Washington Post reported that in just two years as many as 20,000 Dominicans were estimated to have illegally entered Puerto Rico. "This is the real back door into the United States, " the Border Patrol chief in Puerto Rico was quoted as saying.
AI-115 / Roberto Alvarez , former senior human rights specialist with the Organization of American States, May 15, 1994, HEADLINE: One Island, Two Nations: The Dominican Dilemma; Helping Haiti Could Destabilize Its Neighbor The Washington Post / / PKK-LN-VT95
More recent figures document the magnitude of the problem. The U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service apprehended 41, 515 Dominicans illegally in the United States from 1987 to 1993. Only 5, 131 Haitians were caught during the same period. This suggests that abject poverty has as much to do with people's decision to take flight as does the lack of a democratic government.
AI-116 / WARREN ZIMMERMANN, DIRECTOR OF THE BUREAU FOR REFUGEE PROGRAMS, JULY 12, 1993; U. S. DEPT. OF STATE DEPARTMENT OF STATE DISPATCH, "Addressing the Needs of Refugees: A High Priority in the Post-Cold War Era, " SUBCOMMITTEE ON FOREIGN OPERATIONS OF THE SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE, Vol. 04 No. 28 / AGL-LN-VT95
In addition, there are still significant numbers of migrants originating from Eastern and Central Europe in search of economic opportunity. Most analysts believe uncontrolled East-West migration will lessen when the transition to market economies is more secure. Of greater long-term concern are the potential flows from developing countries in the "South, " fueled by unchecked population growth. We are working to draw greater attention to this issue and to engage the development community on issues related to international migration.
AI-117 / ALAN C. MILLER, RONALD J. OSTROW, and RONALD BROWNSTEIN, STAFF WRITERS, JULY 11, 1993; LOS ANGELES TIMES, "Immigration Policy Failures Invite Overhaul, " Page A1 / AGL-LN-VT95
Unquestionably, the country is experiencing a historic level of immigration-- both legal and illegal. A total of 8. 9 million people have immigrated legally into the United States during the last decade and an estimated 3 million have entered illegally, according to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. This influx is comparable to the great wave of European immigration at the turn of the century.
AI-118 / LARS SCHOULTZ, Prof. Political Science, Univ. of North Carolina, 1992; in WESTERN HEMISPHERE immigration AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Central America and the politicization of US immigration policy" P. 181 \\ MS-VT95
No one knows how many Central Americans are residing illegally in the United States. While the number of undocumented aliens in the United States from all countries in the early' 1980s was estimated at between 4. 5 and 6. 25 million, 39 officials of the Bureau of the Census have concluded that "there are currently no reliable estimates of the number of illegal residents in the country or of the net volume of illegal immigration to the United States in any recent past period . . . . Researchers and policy makers will have to live with the fact that the number of illegal residents in the United States cannot be closely quantified. "(40)
AI-119 / Daniel Gross staff writer May, 1993 HEADLINE: NEW YORK'S OVERCROWDING IS GETTING WORSE American Demographics Pg. 23 / / PKK-VT95
"We have levels of overcrowding not seen since the 1950s, " says Joe Salvo, deputy director of the population division for New York's department of city planning. Overcrowding is mot severe in pockets of the five boroughs that have become havens for recent immigrants, such as Chinatown in downtown Manhattan; Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan (a magnet for Dominicans); and areas of Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx that are home to Caribbeans and Asians.
AI-120 / Elizabeth Rolph [Research Fellow RAND and Urban Institute Program for Research on Immigration Policy] 1992 IMMIGRATION POLICIES: LEGACY FROM THE 1980'S AND ISSUES FOR THE 1990'S. p. 50 / / SW-VT95
After a modest initial decline, undocumented immigration appears to be increasing once again. Most early studies found that undocumented immigration declined only modestly, if at all, following the introduction of employer requirements, and whatever effect IRCA had appears to have eroded by 1989. Furthermore, no research suggests that any significant number of undocumented residents have left the country because of IRCA.
AI-121 / TOM MORGANTHAU, STAFF WRITER, AUGUST 9, 1993; "America: Still a Melting Pot?" NEWSWEEK, p. 20-1 / / PKK-VT95
There is no particular reason to believe that the current influx of illegals cannot rise from 500,000 a year to 600,000 a year or even beyond.
AI-122 / CHRISTOPHER MITCHELL, Prof. Politics, New York University, 1992; in WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Introduction" p. 3 \\ MS-VT95
THE undocumented Hispanic populace in the United States as of 1980 was estimated at between 1 million and 2. 5 million. 2 In the early 1980s, a new population stream began to arrive from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, fleeing the upsurge in civil and cross-border violence in those countries. In 1988 it was calculated that these Central Americans in the United States numbered between 640 000 and 1 130 000.
AI-123 / TOM MORGANTHAU, STAFF WRITER, AUGUST 9, 1993; "America: Still a Melting Pot?" NEWSWEEK, p. 20 / / PKK-VT95
Despite the amnesty, the estimated number of illegals has once again risen to between 2 million and 4 million people.
AI-124 / TOM MORGANTHAU, STAFF WRITER, AUGUST 9, 1993; "America: Still a Melting Pot?" NEWSWEEK, p. 22 / / PKK-VT95
Legal immigration from 1971 to 1990 was 10. 5 million people--but if 3 million illegals are (conservatively) added in, the total is pretty much the same as 1900-1920, the peak years in American history.
AI-125 / TOM MORGANTHAU, STAFF WRITER, AUGUST 9, 1993; "America: Still a Melting Pot?" NEWSWEEK, p. 22 / / PKK-VT95
That is not what happened. Immigration from Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia, a trickle in 1965, has steadily widened so that it now comprises about 90 percent of the total.
AI-126 / JUAN FORERO, STAFF WRITER, NOVEMBER 14, 1993; THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, "The IMMIGRATION ISSUE Backers say that given time, NAFTA will stem the flow of illegal migration into the United States by spurring jobs in Mexico. But some migrants see things differently, " Pg. G-5 / AGL-VT95
No one knows for sure how many undocumented workers cross into the United States. However, at least one study shows that 1. 5 million to 2 million Mexicans make the unauthorized entry each year, with as many as 200,000 settling permanently.
AI-127 / Philip Bennett, Globe Staff April 2, 1993, HEADLINE: Fear of newcomers soaring along with immigration levels The Boston Globe / / PKK-LN-VT95
Conservative estimates place the total number of illegal immigrants living in the country at about 3 million.
AI-127A / Philip Bennett, Globe Staff April 2, 1993, HEADLINE: Fear of newcomers soaring along with immigration levels The Boston Globe / / PKK-LN-VT95
About 700,000 immigrants enter the United States legally each year. Most are joining family living here. In addition, about 120,000 refugees are granted immigration status after demonstrating that they face harm in their homelands for political, racial, religious or ethnic reasons.
AI-128 / Pamela Burdman, Chronicle Staff Writer APRIL 30, 1993 HEADLINE: Business of Human Smuggling Tests U. S. Immigration Policies The San Francisco Chronicle / / PKK-LN-VT95
Several hundred thousand Chinese -- most from Fujian province in southeastern China -- have entered the United States illicitly since the early 1980s. The illegal immigrants are just a small portion of the Chinese American population, and they are far outnumbered by Irish and Mexican citizens living here illegally.
AI-129 / GENE KORETZ, STAFF WRITER, AUGUST 9, 1993; "The Upside of America's Population Upsurge, " BUSINESS WEEK, p. 20 / / PKK-VT95
The U. S. now absorbs 1 million immigrants a year, which amounts to 1 out of every 100 people added to the world population.
AI-130 / JAMES POPKIN AND DORIAN FRIEDMAN, STAFF WRITERS, JUNE 21, 1993; "Return to Sender- Please: Illegal Aliens Easily Scam the Nation's Lame Deportation System, " U. S. News and World Report, p. 32 / / PKK-VT95
An estimated 3 million illegal aliens live in the United States, and some 300,000 slip by border agents annually. Once inside, few are deported.
AI-131 / Elizabeth Rolph [Research Fellow RAND and Urban Institute Program for Research on Immigration Policy] 1992 IMMIGRATION POLICIES" LEGACY FROM THE 1980'S AND ISSUES FOR THE 1990'8. p. 37 / / SW-VT95
It is likely that documented immigrants-refugees, asylees, those entering under the numerical ceiling, and immediate family members and others entering outside that ceiling-will enter at a rate of over 850,000 per year over the coming decade. That number will be further expanded to about 1 million by continuing high levels of illegal immigration (see below). Although the full effects of the growth in immigration are unlikely to be broadly felt across the nation, some communities will feel them in the extreme.
AI-131A / THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS October 25, 1993, Pg. 10A HEADLINE: IMMIGRATION; SERIES: IMMIGRATION REFORM (L / N) / / MS-VT95
With 90 million people being added to the global population annually and 100 million people living in countries other than where they were born, immigration pressures are enormous. The need to control and fine-tune immigration has never been greater.
AI-132 / Ben J. Wattenberg and Karl Zinsmeister, fellows at the American Enterprise Institute, April 1990, "The Case for More Immigration" Commentary in The Reference Shelf: Immigration to the United States, Robert Emmet Long, ed. p. 154 / / PKK-VT95
Two-thirds of all . immigrants come from the following fifteen countries, and one- third from the first four alone: Mexico, the Philippines, Haiti, Korea, China, the Dominican Republic, India, Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Iran, the United Kingdom, El Salvador, Canada, and Laos. )
AI-133 / Rep. John Conyers, (Representative from Michigan. Chair Committee on Government Operations) August 4, 1993 "The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and unprepared for the future. " House Report 103-21 6, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations, p. 9 / / MS-VT95
Former Commissioner Gene McNary gave specific examples of the pressures being created on American borders: . . . we have 3,000 people illegally crossing the border daily between Tijuana and San Diego. One million apprehensions occur each year along the southwestern border; and that's merely half or those who attempt illegal entry. Dominicans overwhelm Puerto Rico and have very little trouble flying on into New York. Chinese are now coming by beat in great numbers and, once within our waters, they claim asylum. Temporary visitors, students, and others who overstay their visas are seldom detected.
AI-134 / LEONEL SANCHEZ, STAFF WRITER, AUGUST 26, 1993; THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, "Flaw Seen In Enlarging Border Patrol Plan Needs Independent Probers, Activists Warn, " Ed. B-3;Pg. 5, 10, 11 / AGL-VT95
"The endemic problems of the border must be addressed before there is a new wave of hires, " aid Claudia Smith, an attorney with the California Rural Legal Assistance office in Oceanside.
AI-135 / RICH THOMAS AND ANDREW MURR STAFF WRITERS, AUGUST 9, 1993; NEWSWEEK, "The Economic Cost of Immigration, " Pg. 18 / AGL-VT95
Ninety percent of current immigrants arrive from Third World countries with income and social-service levels one tenth or even one twentieth those of the United States' . Their education levels relative to those of native-born Americans are steadily declining. So are their earnings.
AI-136 / JONATHAN TILOVE AND JOE HALLINAN, NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE, AUGUST 8, 1993; THE TIMES-PICAYUNE, "Immigrants Spur Latest White Flight, " Pg. A8 / AGL-VT95
The Urban Institute, an independent research organization in Washington, D. C. , estimated that nearly 10 million immigrants entered the United States, legally and illegally, in the 1980s, more than any decade in history. That accounts for 37 percent of the nation's population growth in the '80s. And unlike past epochs of white immigration from Europe, this new wave of immigrants is more than 80 percent Latin American and Asian.
AI-137 / BILL TURQUE, SPENCER REISS, MELINDA LIU, ADAM WOLFBERG, STAFF WRITER, AUGUST 9, 1993; NEWSWEEK, "Why Our Borders Are Out of Control, " Pg. 25 / AGL-VT95
While the United States seeks new ways to thwart gate-crashers, about half of all illegal immigrants walk unchallenged through the front door. Fraudulent passports and visas, questionable claims of asylum and bureaucratic bungling, help tens of thousands reach American soil and stay indefinitely. One notorious recent example is Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, the fundamentalist Egyptian cleric whose followers have been charged in February's World Trade Center bombing.
. AI-138 / William P. Hoar staff writer April 4, 1994 "The Importation of Crime" The New American, p. 30 / / PKK-VT95
Perhaps 20 million people, for example, will come into the U. S. on tourist visas this year, but an estimated 500,000 of that number will "remain here illegally, obtaining false social security cards, work permits, driver's licenses, credit cards and other papers, " according to counterintelligence and terrorist expert Lieutenant Colonel Oscar RechtSchaffen in Officer Review. "Alien criminals and terrorists encounter no difficulty buying weapons and explosives in large quantities, " he notes.
AI-139 / MARK W. NOWAK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR POPULATION-ENVIRONMENT BALANCE TO THE U. S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION, JUSTICE, TRANSPORTATION AND AGRICULTURE, AUGUST 3, 1993; FEDERAL DOCUMENT CLEARING HOUSE CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY, "Testimony August 3, 1993 Mark W. Nowak Executive Director Population-Environment Balance House Government Operations / Information, Justice, Transportation, And Agriculture Border Fees" / AGL-VT95
We must enact a responsible immigration policy. This requires that we act now to stop illegal immigration and to limit legal immigration to replacement level, namely, 200,000 per year. Those 200,000 places should be allocated in the best interest of the United States as determined by Congress and the American people. BALANCE does not take a position on who should be admitted to this country. We believe that the cornerstone of our environmental and immigration policies must be population stabilization.
AI-140 / THE STRAITS TIMES, AUGUST 30, 1993, "Tidal Waves Of Immigrants, " Pg. 4 / AGL-VT95
In all, the population of California grew by a staggering 6. 1 million during the '80s, and census experts attributed 37 per cent of the growth to foreign immigration. Though the state's growth has slowed since the 1990 Census, immigration has not; in 1991-92, the state gained an estimated 303,000 immigrants from other countries even as it experienced a net loss of 41,000 Americans to other states.
AI-141 / THE STRAITS TIMES, AUGUST 30, 1993, "Tidal Waves Of Immigrants, " Pg. 4 / AGL-VT95
Of the 8. 9 million legal immigrants admitted to the United States since 1989, 3. 2 million came to California. More than half the 3 million illegal aliens who claimed the amnesty offered in the 1986 act settled in California. There are also about 655,000 political refugees, many from South-east Asia.
AI-142 / Harry P. Pachon is executive director of the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials and the Kenan Professor of Political Studies at Pitzer College, Claremont. April 26, 1993, HEADLINE: PERSPECTIVE ON CITIZENSHIP; LOS ANGELES: CITY OF A MILLION NON-PARTICIPANTS; DISENFRANCHISEMENT IS A TWO-WAY BURDEN; ALL WOULD BENEFIT IF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PROMOTED CITIZENSHIP. Los Angeles Times / / PKK-LN-VT95
Before anyone jumps to the conclusion that all these people are undocumented immigrants from Mexico, consider the reality. Non-citizens encompass a complex variety of legal statutes. There are legal permanent residents, refugees, people granted asylum, amnesty applicants who have received legal permanent resident status, Central Americans and others who have received temporary protected status and, obviously, undocumented immigrants from every country in the world. In the nation as a whole, there are 10 million adults who fall into one of these categories. One out of 10 of these individuals lives within Los Angeles city limits.
AI-143 / ROBERTO SANCHEZ, STAFF WRITER, DECEMBER 28, 1993; THE PHOENIX GAZETTE, "Give Me Your Tired, Poor? ; Anti-Immigrant Backlash Rising, " Pg. A1 / AGL-VT95
Mehlman said the United States takes in about 1. 2 million legal and illegal immigrants a year. By contrast, the largest immigration wave since record-keeping began came in 1922, when more than 700,000 legal immigrants came to the United States.
AI-144 / RONALD BROWNSTEIN and RICHARD SIMON, TIMES STAFF WRITERS, NOVEMBER 14, 1993; LOS ANGELES TIMES, "HOSPITALITY TURNS INTO HOSTILITY; CALIFORNIA HAS A LONG HISTORY OF WELCOMING NEWCOMERS FOR THEIR CHEAP LABOR -- UNTIL TIMES TURN ROUGH. THE CURRENT BACKLASH IS ALSO FUELED BY THE SCOPE AND NATURE OF THE IMMIGRATION, " Part A; Page 1; Column 1 / AGL-VT95
No one knows exactly how many people enter the United States every year. But a consensus estimate is that the nation takes in more than 1 million immigrants annually. The INS says about 693,000 immigrants entered the country legally in 1992, along with 120,000 refugees and asylum-seekers. In addition, groups on both sides of the immigration debate estimate that despite the 1986 reform law, about 300,000 illegal immigrants enter the country every year. Only around the turn of the 20th Century has the country absorbed so many people at once.
AI-145 / Charles W. Hall , Steve Bates, Washington Post Staff Writers April 25, 1994, HEADLINE: Illegal Immigrants Pose Issues Of Cost, Conscience for Area The Washington Post / PKK-LN-VT95
There are no firm numbers on how many illegal immigrants are in the United States. Data from the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Census Bureau suggest that roughly 70,000 illegal immigrants live in the Washington area. That represents about one in six foreign-born people here and nearly 2 percent of the area's total population. INS officials estimated that 3. 2 million illegal immigrants were in the United States in October 1992, and estimates of new illegals range from 300,000 to 500,000 annually.
AI-146 / PHILIP BENNETT, STAFF WRITER, DECEMBER 11, 1993; THE BOSTON GLOBE, "Citizenship Surge;Reasons Vary, But More Immigrants Taking The Vow, " METRO / REGION; Pg. 1 / AGL-VT95
The Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates that 10 million legal immigrants are not US citizens, although it is unknown how many might be eligible. While about 1 million legal immigrants are admitted to the country annually, about 300,000 immigrants each year become naturalized citizens.
AI-147 / DIANNE KLEIN, STAFF WRITER, DECEMBER 11, 1993; LOS ANGELES TIMES, "Curbs On Illegal Immigration Are 'social Sin, ' Mahony Says, " Part B; Page 3 / AGL-VT95
Although most of the speakers appearing before the commission warned about a climate of hostility toward immigrants, both legal and illegal, the Los Angeles coordinator of the Federation for American Immigration Reform said the real issue is numbers.
AI-148 / THE STRAITS TIMES, AUGUST 30, 1993, "Tidal Waves Of Immigrants, " Pg. 4 / AGL-VT95
Then there are the illegal aliens, an estimated 200,000 in San Diego County alone, 9 per cent of the population. The Hispanic population of Orange County has doubled in a decade, to nearly 600,000, a quarter of the population.
AI-149 / Kimberly C. Moore, (Staff writer States News Service) States News Service October 12, 1993, HEADLINE: REID BLAMES NATION'S ILLS ON IMMIGRATION EXPLOSION (L / N) / / MS-VT95
Reid said in August that the United States admits legally into the country every year the equivalent of the Nevada population -- 1. 3 to 1. 5 million people. By the end of the decade, he said, 15 million new people will have moved to the United States at a cost of about $45 billion to the federal government.
AI-150 / THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS October 25, 1993, Pg. 10A HEADLINE: IMMIGRATION; SERIES: IMMIGRATION REFORM (L / N) / / MS-VT95
Immigration waves in the past have always abated. Yet today's wave has been occurring for well over 20 years, and no apparent end is in sight.
AI-151 / MYRON WEINER, FORD INTERNATIONAL PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AT MIT, 1993; INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION AND SECURITY, EDITED BY MYRON WEINER, p. 2 / / MS-VT95
First, international migration shows no sign abating. Indeed, with the end of the Cold War there has been a resurgence of violent secessionist movements that create refugee flows, (2) while barriers to exit from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have been lifted. The breakup of empires and countries persist, providing the push and pull that motivate economic migrants. Environmental degradation, droughts, floods, famines, and civil conflicts compel people to flee across international borders. (5) And new global networks of communication and transportation provides individual with information and opportunities. (2)
AI-152 / JOHN DILLIN, STAFF WRITER, FEBRUARY 11, 1994; THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, "Washington Moves to Curb Illegal Immigrants, "THE U. S. Pg. 1 / AGL-VT95
Millions of people are seeking entry to the United States, often illegally, and they are finding new and more sophisticated ways of circumventing US laws, officials say.
AI-153 / ALAN C. MILLER, STAFF WRITER, NOVEMBER 21, 1993; LOS ANGELES TIMES, "Data Sheds Heat, Little Light, On Immigration Debate; Studies: The Number Of Illegal U. S. Residents Is Elusive. Their Impact On Jobs, Public Services Is At Best Ambiguous, " Part A; Page 1 / AGL-VT95
At a highly publicized hearing by the House Republican Task Force on Illegal Immigration last summer, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) warned that "our nation is being quietly and systematically overrun by wave upon wave of illegal immigrants. "
AI-154 / MICHAEL D'ANTONIO, NEW YORK JOURNALIST, AUGUST 29, 1993; LOS ANGELES TIMES, "Apocalypse Soon; The Latest Overpopulation Alarm Has A Twist: Not Only Lives But Lifestyles Are At Stake, " Magazine; Page 18 / AGL-VT95
No matter where refugees originate, Kendall says, when they arrive in large numbers, they will threaten Americans' quality of life. "But it's not all in the future, " he adds. "It's starting already. If you look along the U. S. -Mexican border, from Texas to New Mexico, Arizona and California, there are already difficulties. " Indeed, shantytowns on the Texas border have been compared by some local activists to Third World slums. "Today, Mexico is producing on the order of 2 million or 3 million people a year that try and get into the United States, " Kendall says. "Mexico's growth rate, while it's not out of control, is still pretty damn large. They are going from 88 million people now to 125 million people in about 15 years. Mexico's got deep pollution and environmental problems. Their agricultural base is not in great shape. With all that, there will be at least a doubling of the flow (of illegal immigrants) in five or 10 years. "
AI-155 / Central News Agency May 8, 1993, HEADLINE: SCHOLARS WARN AGAINST AMERICAN XENOPHOBIA / / PKK-VT95
Professors Jack Levin and Jack McDevitt of Northwestern University said the United States is currently in the midst of possibly the largest wave of immigration in its history.
AI-156 / FRANK TREJO, STAFF WRITER, JANUARY 2, 1994; THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, "Rethinking Immigration; Near-Record Influx, Publicized Incidents Help Prompt Calls For Reform, " Pg. 1A / AGL-VT95
Immigration - illegal and legal - splashed onto the national scene in 1993 with the kind of scope and intensity that in generations past has resulted in massive overhauls of the country's laws. The most recent focus on immigration is traced to a combination of factors: near-record numbers of new entries, the declining U. S. economy and a rash of publicized incidents involving immigrants.
AI-157 / MARK W. NOWAK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR POPULATION-ENVIRONMENT BALANCE TO THE U. S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION, JUSTICE, TRANSPORTATION AND AGRICULTURE, AUGUST 3, 1993; FEDERAL DOCUMENT CLEARING HOUSE CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY, "Testimony August 3, 1993 Mark W. Nowak Executive Director Population-Environment Balance House Government Operations / Information, Justice, Transportation, And Agriculture Border Fees" / AGL-VT95
Illegal immigration to the U. S. is a significant problem. 'Me Census Bureau estimates that approximately 200,000-300,000 illegal immigrants arrive and assume permanent residence in the United States every year, but this figure may well be higher. According to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), more than one million individuals are apprehended at the border every year. No-one knows, however, how many individuals successfully cross the border and once here, how long they stay. The Census Bureau acknowledges that the 1990 census contains an undercount of more than five million people, many of whom may well be here illegally. The estimated 4. 8 million illegal immigrants who have settled in the U. S. since 1992 have resulted in public assistance and displacement costs of $11. 9 billion net of taxes they paid. By using a portion of the revenue generated from a border crossing fee to increase border patrol funding, a much greater portion of illegal border crossings would be halted.
AI-158 / WENDY S. TAI, STAFF WRITER, JUNE 20, 1993; STAR TRIBUNE, "A New Era Brings New Immigration Policies, " Pg. 1A / AGL-LN-VT95
The tougher challenge, experts and officials say, lies in treating immigration beyond just numbers, recognizing that it has its roots overseas and that it impacts local communities. It crosses over freely between our domestic and international interests, such as human rights, foreign policy, trade, environmental protection and population control.
AI-159 / Rep. John Conyers, (Representative from Michigan. Chair Committee on Government Operations) August 4, 1993 "The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and unprepared for the future. " House Report 103-21 6, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations p. 10 / NT-MS VT95
The subcommittee's witnesses were almost unanimous in their belief that the single most important problem at INS has been the lack of good leadership. People who have studied the agency observe that its deficiencies have contributed to "demoralized career personnel and that the INS suffers from an "institutional inferiority complex, "6 an attitude complicating the INS' ability to handle the overwhelming task of policing the borders. 47 Ms. Yanez of the Harvard Immigration Law Clinic described the 'senior, politically-appointed layer of management as lacking both substantive knowledge and adequate managerial competence. As a result, implementing- policy, even once it is set, is difficult if not impossible.
AI-160 / Rep. John Conyers, (Representative from Michigan. Chair Committee on Government Operations) August 4, 1993 '"The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and unprepared for the future. " House Report 103-21 6, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations p. 35 / / VT-MS-VT95
The Immigration and Naturalization Service is not a well run agency. It has neglected the creation of the basic infrastructure necessary to insure that the agency can meet program demands. Serious deficiencies in the selection, training, management, and discipline of its personnel; the accounting for funds; and the collection and management of information have contributed to failures in the Service s enforcement and service functions. As a result, it is unable to assess and respond to the needs of the public it serves and the enforcement programs' it administers. It is even less equipped to assess and react effectively to new problems as they arise. INS failures in accounting for taxpayer funds are particularly troubling because of the increased opportunities for waste, fraud, and abuse at a time of limited government revenues.
AI-161 / John Conyers [Rep. Michigan-Chair Committee on Government Operations] August 1993. The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and Unprepared for the Future. House Report 103-216, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations. P. 3. / / MS-VT95
Accordingly, the subcommittee on Information, Justice, Transportation, and Agriculture [IJTA] conducted a hearing to discuss what should be don to address problems in the administration of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. As the chairman of the subcommittee explained: "This is not a well run organization. There have been countless audits, reports and recommendations. Some have been implemented and some have not. With a new Attorney General, we have the opportunity to work together to bring changes in the INS. We need some action. "
AI-162 / Rep. John Conyers, (Representative from Michigan. Chair Committee on Government Operations) August 4, 1993 "The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and unprepared for the future. " House Report 103-21 6, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations p. 10 / NT-MS-VT95
Mr. Wray of the General Accounting Office testified: "INS needs strong leadership and management to balance the roles of enforcement and service and to overcome problems in the management of its enforcement efforts and of the services it provides to aliens. '' Mr. Wortman, who assisted in a management review of the Service for the former Attorney General, believes that INS needs competent executives with a service-wide view" of the organization and a demonstrated record in public management, as well as people who will make a long-term commitment to the agency.
AI-163 / Rep. John Conyers, (Representative from Michigan. Chair Committee on Government Operations) August 4, 1993 "The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and unprepared for the future. " House Report 103-21 6, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations p. 2 / MS-VT95
Constituency groups are frustrated because of backlog and inordinate delays in the delivery of services to those who enter the country in accordance with Federal law In addition, in recent years, government auditors have issued numerous reports identifying management inefficiencies through- out INS. Their findings have been so consistently negative and the problems so pervasive that in the 1992 Department of Justice annual report required under the Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act of 1982; the Immigration and Naturalization Service was identified as the Department's No. 1 "high risk" area.
AI-164 / John Conyers [Rep. Michigan-Chair Committee on Government Operations] August 1993. The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and Unprepared for the Future. House Report 103-216, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations. P. 2. / / MS-VT95
Unfortunately, INS has not done a good job. As reflected in this report, people are unhappy with the quality of both the enforcement and service functions performed by the agency. In addition, despite the enactment of the 1986 law to stop illegal immigration, the undocumented population in this country is estimated to be 3. 3 million. (Data regarding the number of undocumented aliens in the United States is very inadequate. )
AI-165 / John Conyers [Rep. Michigan-Chair Committee on Government Operations] August 1993. The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and Unprepared for the Future. House Report 103-216, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations. p. 15. / / MS-VT95
INS personnel are not receiving adequate training. As Mr. Wortman testified: "This agency is not one that has historically invested in training . . . " The inspector general characterized INS as "often indifferent: to training. Audits have identified a large percentage of employees (temporary and permanent employees alike) performing inspection duties who have not received the required formal training. They have also identified inadequacies in the training of accounting and procurement personnel, adjudicators and security officers and the failure of key staff to receive full firearms training. Inspector and financial management training has been identified by the Department of Justice as "High Risk Material Weakness" in the Department's report under the Federal Manager's Financial Integrity Act. In addition, the Attorney General's management review described above (the Carlson Report) focused on the importance of having managers trained in a variety of INS functions.
AI-166 / Rep. John Conyers, (Representative from Michigan. Chair Committee on Government Operations) August 4, 1993 "'The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and unprepared for the future. " House Report 103-21 6, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations p. 15 / / VT-MS-VT95
Equally troubling were the concerns expressed about the manner in which INS employees deal with the public. Ms. Yanez testified: The INS has many hardworking, dedicated, and loyal employees whose best efforts are frustrated by institutional inertia and the culture of the agency. There are, however, also a significant number of INS employees who are insensitive to the diversity of the public they serve and respond with hostility to legitimate inquiries and requests from the public. They communicate a sense of suspicion and animosity, suggesting they believe every applicant is seeking to subvert the legal process or circumvent legal requirements.
AI-167 / Rep. John Conyers, (Representative from Michigan. Chair Committee on Government Operations) August 4, 1993 "The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and unprepared for the future. " House Report 103-21 6, . Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations p. 36 / / VT-MS-VT95
Unfortunately, to date, INS has not been smart, ' nor efficient-, nor has it even known how it is spending its money. Thus, the time has come for a hard headed insistence that time consuming and costly inefficiencies be eliminated.
AI-168 / Rep. John Conyers, (Representative from Michigan. Chair Committee on Government Operations) August 4, 1993 "The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and unprepared for the future. " House Report 103-21 6, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations p. 16 / MS-VT95
Other auditors have also found that INS could not determine how much it spends. After reviewing INS' financial management and accounting processes, GAO concluded that INS must "develop a viable accounting and financial management system" and recommended that the Attorney General establish a group of top experts to work with the Commissioner to design and implement ineffective financial management system. The Carlson report concurred that financial accounting problems at INS are serious and urged the agency to find better long and short term solutions: "INS cannot afford to wait for the ultimate system to be developed since that may well require several years to accomplish and there are pressing needs now. "
AI-169 / Rep. John Conyers, (Representative from Michigan. Chair Committee on Government Operations) August 4, 1993 "The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and unprepared for the future. '" House Report 103-21 6, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations pp. 15-16 / MS-VT95
For many years INS has mismanaged its appropriations. (Currently, INS handles $1.042 billion in appropriated funds. ) As a result, the Department of Justice has included financial management as its high risk area #l in its report under the Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act. As the inspector general reported: Long-standing problems with its outmoded and inefficient financial management systems deny INS management the use of current and accurate information. The result contributes to ineffective management of the agency. Without accurate information, INS is unable to maximize the use of funds available. In past years, INS has been forced to cancel contracts and procurement actions, often severely impacting program performance. In our February 1989 Special Audit . . . [we] . . . determined that INS had lost such control of its FY 1988 status that we could not determine . . . if the agency was in violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act. Numerous problems were cited, including an inadequate and outmoded accounting system, ineffective fund control, inaccurate reports used by managers, backlogs, and staffing and training problems with account ing personnel.
AI-170 / John Conyers [Rep. Michigan-Chair Committee on Government Operations] August 1993. The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and Unprepared for the Future. House Report 103-216, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations. P. 13. / / MS-VT95
However, based on the experience of his staff, the IG does not believe that adequate corrective action is taken in the instances in which an employee is found to engaged in inappropriate conduct:". . . INS' treatment of misconduct is spotty. Whether action is taken, and the severity of punishment, if any, seems to be uneven and sometimes happenstance. "
AI-171 / Rep. John Conyers, (Representative from Michigan. Chair Committee on Government Operations) August 4, 1993 "The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and unprepared for the future. " House Report 103-21 6, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations p. 16 / / VT-MS-VT95
A more recent audit led the inspector general to conclude that: • . . INS management has neither complete nor current and accurate data with which to manage the agency and report its year-end results. " As a result, "information used by management in its decision making including spending on procurements, training, hiring, travel, and overtime is flawed.
AI-172 / John Conyers [Rep. Michigan-Chair Committee on Government Operations] August 1993. The Immigration and Naturalization Service: Overwhelmed and Unprepared for the Future. House Report 103-216, Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations. P. 35. / / MS-VT95
Witnesses were almost unanimous in their view that the current structure and role of INS regional offices is unsatisfactory. These offices are costly, have contributed to inconsistencies in INS practices, and have played a role in debilitating power struggles within the Service. The "Carlson" report recommended that the regional offices be given an administrative, rather that policy role. In addition, the current organization and reporting responsibilities of various units within the INS (such as the Border Patrol sectors) have contributed to conflicting loyalties, duplication of effort, and a wasteful allocation of limited resources.
AI-173 / Gene Ruthizer[Pres. American Immigration Lawyers Association] March 30, 1993. Hearing: The Immigration and Naturalization Service: a Mandate for Change. Subcommittee on Information, Justice, Transportation, and Agriculture. House of Representatives. P. 172. / / MS-VT95
In addition to the conflict with the public in recent years, INS has also been subject to much internal strife as well. There has been and continues to be an ongoing power struggle within the agency that has been percolating since its decentralization in 1955. The Headquarters Office continues to struggle to regain control over the field, many district directors cut paths of their own, and the regional officers are protective of the autonomy that has evolve. The end result is an agency that lacks unified policy, standards, and procedures.
AI-174 / LARS SCHOULTZ, Prof. Political Science, Univ. of North Carolina, 1992; in WESTERN Hemisphere IMMIGRATION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Central America and the politicization of US immigration policy" p. 184 \\ VT95
The Border Patrol is the INS unit responsible for "preventing unauthorized entries and for apprehending those who enter the United States illegally at the border region, " but, notes Milton Morris, the Border Patrol "has never had the means to carry out this task effectively. As a consequence, an illegal migrant's chances of being apprehended are remarkably low; the INS estimates it stops one of five who attempt to cross illegally. "In the absence of any attempt to enforce the existing immigration statutes, " writes Everett Briggs, "there is absolutely no reason why anyone who wants to immigrate to the United State illegally should not try to, for in most cases those who try will succeed.
AI-175 / CHRISTOPHER MITCHELL, Prof. Politics, New York University, 1992; in WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, "Introduction" p. 5 \\ MS-VT95
Western Hemisphere migrants have sometimes been treated by US. authorities with forbearance and even concern, but in other cases immigration policy has been notably harsh. Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Cubans have been detained at different times in compounds similar to concentration camps; migrants from Nicaragua have been subjected to apparently arbitrary policy changes at very short notice; Haitians "interdicted" at sea receive only a cursory immigration review before being returned to Haiti.
AI-176 / Arthur C. Helton The Nation October 18, 1993 Vol. 257 ; No. 12 ; Pg. 428; ISSN: 0027-8378 HEADLINE: Closing the golden door: anti- immigration laws. (L / N) / / MS-VT95
Lawmakers have sought to react to popular sentiment by introducing more than fifty legislative proposals designed to enhance immigration law-enforcement and curtail migration. Now the White House and key members of Congress are about to accelerate the legislative pace.
AI-177 / ARISTIDE ZOLBERG, Prof. Political Science, New School for Social Research, 1992; in Immigration, LANGUAGE, AND ETHNICITY, "Refugee policy in the United States and Canada" p. 88 / / VT-MS-VT95
The situation remains quite manageable, so long as most Central Americans go on to the United States; hence there is no reason to expect Mexico to cooperate in bottling up its guests.
AI-178 / PATRICK J. McDONNELL, (TIMES STAFF WRITER) Los Angeles Times September 22, 1993, A; Page 1; Column 1; Foreign Desk HEADLINE: NEW URBAN FLIGHT -- TO EL NORTE; MORE CITY DWELLERS ARE LEAVING MEXICO FOR THE U. S. IMMIGRATION HAS GONE ON FOR SO LONG, MANY PLAN TO STAY PERMANENTLY, LURED BY FAMILY TIES AS WELL AS JOBS. (L / N) / / MS-VT95
For White House strategists working to halt illegal immigration, the majority of it from Mexico, the growing diversity of the Mexican flight presents a daunting obstacle.
AI-179 / MARILYN HOSKIN, Prof. Political Science, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1991, NEW IMMIGRANTS AND DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY p. 8 \\ MS-VT95
More basically, after years of admitting a range of 'immigrants, policies relating to education, language, and national identity are still undefined (Hawkins, 1988; LeMay, 1987; Richmond, 1988). Kraly (1983) notes that population planning has simply not been part of national policy in the United States or other nations, even though such policy has been widely recognized as critical to effective settlement of immigrants (Kunz, 1981).