“The act I am signing today is the product of one of the longest and most difficult legislative undertakings of recent memory. It has truly been a bipartisan effort, with this administration and the allies of immigration reform in the congress, of both parties, working together to accomplishment these critically important reforms.” Is an excerpt from the speech given by President Ronald Regan after signing, “The Immigration Reform Act of 1986,” as reported by www.regan.utexas.edu. If you Google© the term “Immigration Act” you will come up with multiple hits over the years on immigration acts and proposals stemming back to the “Immigration act of 1819.” There is one reason failure has plagued so many attempts to address the issue of illegal immigration; our government does not want a working plan.
The year was 1986 and I had just entered the voting arena. I was working two full-time jobs in restaurants and attending classes at the local community college. When the law went into effect, some of the people working with me packed up, emptied their bank accounts and left to go back home. I actually drove two across the border, into Mexico, so they could take an airline back to their home in the south. The new law seemed to be a great answer to the question of how we should conduct our immigration policy. Over the next 20 years I began to see things change as congress failed to fund for the enforcement policies of the act and the president, with the advice of the senate, appointed special counsel to work at the justice department on immigration enforcement, which did little to enforce the laws for workplace enforcement. Little has been done by congress or the president to enforce the provisions of the Immigration Act of 1986.
According to The Kato Handbook for Policy Makers, a think tank that makes policy recommendations to politicians, “Defund and repeal the Real ID Act, and abandon the E-Verify System. According to www.pewhaspanic.org, in 2005 there were 11,000,000 illegal Immigrants in the US. That is 500,000 a year since the 1986 amnesty for 3,000,000 illegals. That is almostthe whole population of the city of Los Angles that migrated here, despite the Immigration Act
of 1986. According to www.nytimes.com in 2008, 67 % of Hispanics voted for President Obama. Imagine with 11 million new voters that percent of votes would be enough to have swayed many an election over the last 25 years. What political party would turn away that kind of support? The fact that Business and Agriculture make use of illegal workers to turn profits and the support they throw to politicians with contributions sullies the voting of our politicians into a controversial position at best. Even www.huffingtonpost.com reports, in a 2010 article that politicians take advantage of farming subsidies. Agriculture is one of the largest proponents for employment of illegal workers and we pay subsidies to them.
To many politicians show a conflict of interest with regard to illegal immigration and with the direction they now seem to be going I see another amnesty coming on. Our government has not only failed to do its job, they refuses to follow the law of the land. A nation cannot remain sovereign without controlling it’s own borders. We need to remind our politicians that they work for the citizens of the country and not the illegal immigrants. If you
look on the internet there are various stories of American families that are torn apart by crimes committed by illegal immigrants. With 500,000 a year coming here it’s like, an invasion and our government is doing nothing to protect us.
Works Cited
www.regan.utexas.edu, “Statement on Signing the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986,” 2011.Web. April 21st 2011. Google.com, a copyright of Google Inc. Julia Preston at www.nytimes.com, “In Big Shift, Latino Vote Was Heavily for Obama.” November 6th 2008.Web. April 21st 2011. Mary Clare Jalonick AP writer, www.huffingtonpost.com, “Farm Subsidies Highlight The Hypocrisy of Anti-Spending Politicians,” November 2010. Web. April 21st 2011.