It is difficult to say how the term "amnesty" became anathema in the U.S. immigration debate. It may be due in part to the damaged reputation of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. That law legalized nearly 3 million persons, but its "three-legged" strategy -- legalization, employer sanctions and increased border enforcement -- failed to prevent large-scale illegal migration. Whatever the reasons, by the early 2000s, the dark art of political branding had found that "amnesty" did not sell, and particularly since Congress turned its attention to immigration reform in 2005, proponents of legalization have fought desperately against this characterization. It has not worked. Over the last eight years, politicians have used the label to help defeat comprehensive reform and more narrow legalization bills like the DREAM Act, to prevent persons whose family-based visa petitions have been approved to adjust to permanent residency in the United States (a "mini-amnesty"), and to protest prosecutorial discretion policies ("backdoor amnesties").
Some legalization proponents dislike the term. Given its derivation from Greek, it means "not remembering," but more to the point it implies forgiveness. Why, they suggest, do hard-working people who risk their lives to come and who endure hardship and indignities to support their families need forgiveness? Still, most advocates recognize that laws in a democratic society, however imperfect, need to be followed, and that violations should be acknowledged and punished in proportion to their severity. They may be comfortable with the idea of an amnesty. However, they publicly use the more politically palatable language of atonement: They would require the unauthorized to make reparation through a substantial fine and to "earn" the right to remain through their labor.
The better question may be why legalization opponents -- many with strong religious convictions -- revile the notion of amnesty. And why does the (mostly) religious American public disfavor this concept? Consider the Judeo-Christian tradition. In Hebrew Scripture, we read that every seventh year was to be a Sabbath Year, when debts were to be forgiven, the needs of the poor met, and slaves freed (Deuteronomy 15:1-18). Every 50th year (seven Sabbath years) was a "Jubilee" year in which indentured servants were to be released from service and land was to revert to its original owners (Leviticus 25: 8-55). This was an amnesty, and a very consequential one.
Moreover, in this tradition, the God of ancient Israel demands justice for the ger, the "stranger." The term refers to someone outside the established order who has no standing, civic or economic, no resources, no recourse, no way to redress wrongs -- a person vulnerable to whatever exploitation might be visited upon him. Like the widow and orphan, the ger is the object of God's special concern, care and protection. God's "justice" and "judgment" require fair and equitable treatment under the law: the law applies to the ger and the native alike (Leviticus 24:22). In addition, the Israelites are taught to identify with the ger: "you were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 22:20 and 23:9).
In the New Testament, Christ conditions salvation on welcoming the stranger and other oppressed persons (Matthew 25:31-46). During Holy Week (just passed), Christians celebrate their own redemption. They worship the one who sacrificed Himself on the cross -- in an ultimate expression of identification with the outsider -- in order that their sins might be forgiven. They believe that humankind did nothing to earn God's grace or forgiveness (to the contrary), but nonetheless benefits from a kind of ultimate amnesty.
Of course, good people can and do take different public policy positions, including on immigration reform. But isn't it, at the very least, unseemly for political leaders to use language steeped in their own religious values of forgiveness to oppose proposals that would do just that, and instead to champion laws that would criminalize assistance to strangers and deny them the ability to subsist? Why have even faith-based groups run from their own language and traditions in the public sphere? What is the matter with the biblical tradition of forgiving wrongs, and protecting the vulnerable under the law?
And after they're "forgiven" how many of the 172 million who are waiting to come here illegally does he plan to "forgive".
Liberals really make me sick.
1) "Thou shalt not steal" applies to all the illegal trespassers who have violated this nations sovereignty, stolen jobs, education, jail space, healthcare and a whole array of other benefits they're not entitled to.
2) The GOP is perfectly willing to forgive. Just leave the country, fill out the paperwork and wait your turn in line like LEGAL immigrants have to.
3) The president of the United States is not above the law. And the fact that he's aided and abetted at least two of his own illegal alien relatives make HIM a criminal.
4) If the president refused to enforce federal immigration laws, states have every right to protect themselves in his absence.
5) We don't owe illegal criminals (which mean all illegals) ANYTHING!!!
Try moving to Mexico illegally and demanding rights of any sort. They'll probably beat you and throw you in prison.
The amnesty of 1986 led directly to the mess we are currently in. The idiocy of the way the 14th Amendment has been interpreted to confer citizenship on kids born to people who have no legal right to even be present on US soil, has made the problem infinitely worse.
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
After all, if excessive immigration is such a benefit way was much of America filled with unemployed poor and Americans working for Robber Barons for slave wages until America began to control Immigration after 1914? And why after 1914, the Great Depression not with-standing, did America become a rich industrial powerhouse during the time of greatest immigration control? Today, after 14 million Illegal Immigrants entered the USA in the last three decades (1970’s to 2007) overriding our controls, is it coincidental that once again we are experiencing a growing disparity between rich and poor just like we experienced before our immigration control began?
Samuel Gompers, first AFL President: "Every effort to enact immigration legislation must expect to meet a number of hostile forces… One of these is composed of corporation employers who desire to employ physical strength (broad backs) at the lowest possible wage and who prefer a rapidly revolving labor supply at low wages to a regular supply of American wage earners at fair wages."
Americans hurt by Illegal Immigration have been fighting it for years. Only employers with Robber Baron dreams are "addicted to cheap labor".
Jim
The Amnesty Act of May 22, 1872 was a United States federal law that removed voting restrictions and office-holding disqualification against most of the secessionists who rebelled in the American Civil War, except for some 500 military leaders of the Confederacy. The original restrictive Act was passed by the United States Congress on May 1866.
The 1872 Act affected over 150,000 former Confederate troops who had taken part in the American Civil War.
If mandatory e-verify (or a similar program) was passed and U.S. employers who violated it faced real punishment then the pull factor of jobs would indeed disappear.
However, like the fiction of being able to deport 12 million, U.S. employers (small and large) will never accept the kind of teeth (loss of business license, hefty fines) that would be required to actually reduce the availability of no questions asked employment.
The current status quo is exactly that, U.S. businesses are dependent upon the current system and the availability of cheap labor. That's certainly not to defend how things stand, but it remains that we as a society are hopelessly addicted to cheap, compliant labor whether that person is an out of status laborer or a white collar H1B holder (just because you can transfer your H1B to a new employer doesn't mean you will - thus for some, an H1B is like a 6 year marriage to their employer until their employment based greencard comes through - that assumes their H1B employer filed an employment based greencard application for them in the first place - but I digress).
That's why I mentioned earlier that moving forward requires satisfying all parties as much as possible understanding that no realistic solution is going to make everyone happy. The best plan for comprehensive immigration reform is the one that everyone can tolerate even if it leaves all of us grumbling about what we didn't get.
Those pushing the Dream Act have no intention of compromising. They consider it a down payment! They are not willing to compromise. They will not allow any portion of the 11+ million illegals to leave. And they will break their promises just like they did on Simpson-Mazoli.
Why don't we insist that the enforcement measures already on the books actually be utilized. That requires no compromise -- just honesty. Let's call Teddy Kennedy's original promises.
Why should we ever believe that Lucy will hold the football down and why should we believe that they are telling the truth this time? Why should we believe that they have stopped lying?
Honesty counts!
Now there is a Congressman that spends all of his time and taxpayers' money campaigning for another "Amnesty" for the 20 million Illegal Immigrants working in our country. They have better representation in the Congress than we do:
http://redwriteblue.over-blog.com/pages/congressman-luis-gutierrez-5032063.html
Yep. "Down payment" are their exact words.
"And they will break their promises just like they did on Simpson-Mazoli."
You know what they say about comprehensive immigration reform "grand bargains": enforcement is an empty promise to be broken before the ink is dry, but amnesty is forever. Sucker's bet and they think the American people are the suckers.
"We" were also once addicted to child labor, indentured servitude, slavery, etc. You're never going to satisfy the exploiters. They just have to deal with progress.
And don't forget -- whaling and buffalo hunting were once important industries. They just outlived their time.
It's sort of odd when people who pretend to be "progressives" appeal to tradition as an argument to defend unrestricted immigration.
Wasn't the tradition the Senator from South Carolina's the last ditch intellectual defense of slavery and Jim Crow?
James 2:8-10 “If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it."
Why is it a one way street when it comes to Illegal Immigration? Love is demanded for the person breaking the law, but love is lacking for the American forced out of work, the Taxpayer forced to pay for it all, the victims of identity theft, or the lost green space and animals, sacrificed to explosive population growth.
We limit immigration because five times in the past unrestricted immigration has led to devastating unemployment as bad as 30% nationwide and 50% in several states. Our immigration process prevents criminals from entering the USA. Illegal Immigration bypasses these controls. You cannot love your neighbors if you don’t respect the reasons they have for having their laws.
1 “Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep."
John 10: 1-2
Most? Are you serious? When it comes to immigration law, the "advocates" you speak of expect zero accountability to immigration law--they absolutely loathe it.