Issues in International Political Economy: The Immigration Debate

June 15, 2006

The most controversial provision of the immigration proposal approved by the U.S. Senate is to allow most of the roughly12 million unauthorized migrants now living in the United States to earn legalization. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, up to 45 percent of this group consists of “overstayers,” that is, persons who entered with valid visas but stayed on after their visas expired; an additional small share entered from Mexico with valid cards to visit border areas in the United States, but then stayed on; and the rest, about 50 percent of the total, entered without U.S. documentation. A majority of the Republicans in the House of Representatives believes that those who broke U.S. laws when they came and/or stayed in the United States should not be rewarded. The debate is revolving around what, in essence, is word usage—whether the path to legalization in the Senate version is “amnesty.” The argument of President George W. Bush is that legalization that has to be earned over 11 years is not amnesty; and the reverse contention is that providing a procedure for lawbreakers to obtain citizenship, even if it takes at least 11 years, is amnesty. Current law dating from the 1986 immigration legislation provides for fines for employers who knowingly hire unauthorized immigrants, but this has rarely been enforced. Representative Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) has called this amnesty, but this usage of the word has not been taken up by many others.