The dangerous legacy of the 1986 amnesty for illegal aliens—long term consequences

By Frosty Wooldridge

Part 2:  long term consequences of making illegals legal citizens

Twenty five years ago, President Ronald Reagan signed an amnesty meant for 1 million illegal aliens to gain citizenship.  Instead, over 4.1 million illegal aliens applied for and received citizenship for crossing over US borders illegally.

Later, Reagan said, “The amnesty was the worst mistake of my presidency.”

My long time friend Rick Oltman, long time immigration activist looks back on what happened to America when the amnesty passed.  You can find his work at www.TheSocialContract.com .

Give us an overview of what happened in 1986:

“We were going like a group of madmen,” says King, who remembers many back-to-back-to-back 16- hour days. “Ezell was adamant that the program would work properly. The Western Region had 36 offices in five states and 15 offices in the greater Los Angeles area and we ultimately processed the most applications, 1.7 million.”

“The Western Region ultimately processed more amnesty applications than was estimated for the entire country,” said Oltman.  “They allowed illegals to mail in their amnesty applications to prevent their offices from being swamped. When the applications were received, the applicant was given a date and time to appear.

“Morale was good at the beginning of the process, even though, “Those managers that they brought back, like myself, were not in favor of amnesty,” King says. “I don’t think any full time employee of INS thought it was a good idea, but we all agreed to make it work.”

“King stayed with the process for 5 years into the early 1990s. “1.7 million applicants was surprising,” he says, “3.1 million applicants overall, blew our minds”; 2.7 million received amnesty.”

“The fraud in that program was out of sight,” said King. “The biggest fraud in California was establishing the 5-year residency. Fraudulent documents, rent receipts, food receipts, anything needed was for sale on Los Angeles streets…there were document vendors all over the place and fraud was rampant.”

“Some of the fraud was so obvious that 400,000 applicants were rejected during the interview,” said Oltman. “Some applicants would claim to be farm workers and would say they had picked strawberries from trees and were immediately rejected. Fraud in the agricultural program exceeded 30 percent because of a lack of investigative resources. Final decisions for approval or denial were made at the Regional Processing Offices.

“The one resource King was short of was an investigative team. He told Western Region Director Ezell that they needed a “sanitized group of investigators” to work the amnesty program solely to clear up the fraud. Current investigative staff was offered to help, but never produced the kind of investigations required to deal with the fraud. King had one investigator in his regional office for the 36 offices in 5 states and remarks wistfully that they currently have more people in Headquarters than he had in a sector.”

“The illegals actually thought the 5-year requirement was real and at first, didn’t come,” King remembers. That thinking didn’t last long.

David J. Stoddard was a USBP supervisor in the Tucson Sector in 1987. His experiences of the amnesty were from the enforcement point of view.

“Stoddard remembers that the government was stunned because not many people began applying right away,” said Oltman. “The IRCA was signed on November 6 at a time when many illegal aliens, most harvests over, had returned to Mexico for the Christmas holidays. And, he believes, that many didn’t immediately return because they couldn’t prove 5 years of continuous residency as required by the Act. That means, ironically, that many of the illegal aliens actually thought that there was integrity to the process, that the United States actually would enforce the law. If that is what they thought, they soon got over it.”

“The Spanish language press in Central and South America began reporting sensational news stories about the United States giving amnesty to everyone without a criminal record. “It was like gasoline on a flame, it just burned up the Press,” says Stoddard.

And from the Mexican border to the tip of South America people began to return to the U.S. to apply for amnesty. And, many decided to bring their wife, kids, brothers, sisters, cousins, and other relatives back to the United States to apply for the amnesty, too. As Stoddard recalls,

Prior to IRCA of ’86 I encountered illegal aliens working who gave the employer a Social Security number of 000-00-0000 and it was accepted. There were probably tens of thousands of illegal aliens who were using that Social Security number. When they were asked, some of them would pull up a nine digit or a five digit number, or whatever would come to mind; numbers belonging to a friend or a relative. They were obviously fictitious…. Some of them were real numbers because in the ’60s and ’70s the USA would send Social Security numbers to applicants applying from foreign countries.

“In the early 1980s the Reagan Administration tasked the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Department of Labor, and the Census Bureau to estimate the number of illegals who would likely apply for amnesty. Prior to IRCA it was illegal to work in our country if you were here illegally, but it wasn’t illegal to hire illegal aliens. That double standard was erased by the Act. But those employers who paid the illegal worker on the books and reported taxes to the IRS and SSA gave these agencies a good idea of the number of workers without a valid Social Security number. The initial official estimate was that 1.1 million illegals would apply for amnesty.”

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 In a five minute astoundingly simple yet brilliant video, “Immigration, Poverty, and Gum Balls”, Roy Beck, director of www.numbersusa.ORG, graphically illustrates the impact of overpopulation.  Take five minutes to see for yourself:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE&feature=player_embedded

“Immigration by the numbers—off the chart” by Roy Beck

This 10 minute demonstration shows Americans the results of unending mass immigration on the quality of life and sustainability for future generations: in a word “Mind boggling!”  www.NumbersUSA.org

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muw22wTePqQ

This is the best website to start:  www.numbersusa.org ; watch Roy Beck’s “Immigration by the Numbers” at 14 minutes. Bi-partisan and very effective. Become a faxer of pre-written letters to your reps to make positive  change.

Visit www.TheSocialContract.com for the best information on what we face as a civilization as to overpopulation, energy, immigration and much more.

Canada www.immigrationwatchcanada.org ; in Australia www.population.org.au and[email protected]; in Great Britain www.populationmatters.org ; and dozens of other sites accessed at www.frostywooldridge.com.   In Florida, www.flimen.org .

Must see DVD: “Blind Spot” www.snagfilms.com/films/title/blind_spot/ , This movie illustrates America’s future without oil, water and other resources to keep this civilization functioning. It’s a brilliant educational movie! www.blindspotdoc.com

Must see: Rapid Population Decline, seven minute video by Dr. Jack Alpert-

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTWduFB_RX0

Must see and funny: www.growthbusters.org ; www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXSTrW_dARc
Dave Gardner’s Polar Bear in Bedroom:

growthbusters.org/2010/03/save-the-polar-bear-in-your-bedroom ; Dave Gardner, President, Citizen-Powered Media ; Producing the Documentary, GROWTH BUSTERS; presents Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity, Join the cause at www.growthbusters.org ;760 Wycliffe Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80906 USA; +1 719-576-5565

Check out this link with Wooldridge on bicycle and Lester Brown and panel discussion:

www.upnorthmedia.org/watchupnorthtv.asp?SDBFid=1631

Tomorrow’s Americaproject on www.youtube.com/contemporarylearning.

Producer: GEORGE A. COLBURNwww.tomorrowsamerica.com

DC: 202-258-4887

Email: [email protected]

Link to www.tomorrowsamerica.com for more discussions on America’s predicament.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

www.starbrightmediacorp.com

www.tomorrowsamerica.com

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Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world population balance at www.frostywooldridge.com He is the author of: America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans. Copies available: 1 888 280 7715