One popular argument against legalization, or amnesty, of unlawful immigrants is that it will merely incentivize future unlawful immigration. . . . [But] measuring the flows of unlawful immigrants is the best way to gauge whether the 1986 Reagan amnesty incentivized more unlawful immigration. If the flows increased after [that law], then the amnesty likely incentivized more unlawful immigration. – Cato at Liberty, Do Amnesties Increase Unlawful Immigration? Alex Nowrasteh 12/16/14
Fact Check: Nowrasteh answers his question in the negative, and cites the increase of illegal immigration before the 1986 amnesty and decline (at least for some time) after it passed. But his question and his conclusion are flawed.
His question suggests that amnesties might not increase unlawful immigration. A more appropriate question might be: How could granting amnesty fail to increase illegal immigration, all other factors being equal? One can certainly speculate on how much the increase might be, but it’s hard to imagine a cause and effect more obvious than a behavior increasing when it’s rewarded. If Nowrasteh disagrees, the burden of proof is on him to make his case.
Another key point to consider is the chance to get amnesty is not the main reason for illegal immigration. Far more significant is the likelihood that one can successfully enter the U.S. illegally and successfully evade the law here. History illustrates this point.
In the early 1950s illegal immigration began surging. In response, President Dwight Eisenhower ignored the cheap interests that welcomed illegal aliens, and in 1954 initiated a strict crackdown of enforcement that sent more than a million illegal aliens home. As the result of this action, would-be violators of our borders got the message, and illegal immigration became a minor problem for more than a decade.
By 1970, however, it began taking off again. And this time, unfortunately, there was no firm response. The cheap labor interests didn’t want one, and to a large extent they prevailed. One loophole in our law significantly helping them was that it was not illegal for employers to hire illegal aliens.
Facing weak enforcement, illegal immigration began to surge even more through the seventies and early eighties. Adding to this encouragement most certainly was the endorsement of amnesty by prominent U.S. politicians, the first being President Jimmy Carter in 1977. It became a reality in 1986 when illegal immigration rose higher than it ever had before. Thereafter, it subsided for a few years.
Nowrasteh maintains that this decline indicates that the passage of amnesty did not encourage more law-breaking. Once again, however, the ease of breaking immigration law is more likely to encourage it than anything else.
When the 1986 law passed, both sides on the debate in Congress agreed that it would be a one-time and one-time only offer. Thus would-be violators in foreign countries had no reason to think that they too could get legal status after coming here. Also the law promised strict new enforcement measures and an end to the employment loophole.
Probably the main reason illegal immigration went down after the law passed was that potential violators believed that it would be effective against them. But it wasn’t—because cheap labor interests and illegal alien advocates did everything possible to undermine its effectiveness, including no effective means for employers to determine the legal status of job applicants.
By the early 1990s, the word was out that the law was a sham, and illegal immigration began soaring again, encouraged again by proposals for amnesty—even though it was not supposed to happen again. And it remained at a high level until the recession beginning six or seven years ago made U.S. job market much less attractive to potential illegal aliens. Now illegal immigration is rising again. Will President Obama’s recently proclaimed amnesty encourage this trend? It’s hard to imagine how it couldn’t.