A New Amnesty?

Immigration Daily states the following about amnesties:

“Critics oppose legalization because it “unfairly” rewards lawbreaking and because amnesty encourages further illegal immigration. However, legalization is essential to any meaningful immigration reform. History has taught us that certain laws that fly in the face of reality are repealed, while reality is not. For example, Prohibition was eventually repealed because having a law prohibiting alcohol didn’t prevent anyone from drinking and didn’t provide reasonable justification for alcohol’s ban, instead it created an underground economy where a few profited from supplying market demand. Moreover, it created a threat to public health and safety because bootlegging individuals often times concocted beverages which were poisonous and dangerous to the public and made lawbreakers out of people whose only crime was to imbibe a social drink occasionally. Similar parallels can be found with the unwise laws prohibiting squatters on the Louisiana Purchase lands from obtaining title. Likewise, opportunity to gain legal status must be afforded to the undocumented because our economy and the marketplace will continue to employ hardworking immigrants, regardless of their legal employment status. Failure to fix our broken immigration system will only continue to create an environment of exploitation resulting in harm to everyone living in America. The blame lies with Congress for its widely held belief that the term “amnesty” is pejorative. Amnesty is simply righting Congress’s prior wrong. Amnesty is the right thing to do.” www.ilw.com

There has been much discussion over the last few years about the pros and cons of guest worker programs, which everyone knows is one of the priorities of the Bush administration. To this point, there has not been much of a defense of “amnesty” or “regiularization” programs, one part of immigration reform important to many immigrant rights activists.

KJ