Immigration: It's Been Over 20 Years Since Congress Considered Amnesty, So Why All the Ruckus?

It's been two decades since Congress last considered a proposal to grant amnesty to undocumented immigrants in the United States. Yet, in 2005 and 2007, proposals for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) died rapid deaths amid a flurry of outrage from citizens who believed that an amnesty was being considered on Capitol Hill. Right-wing radio hosts and bloggers were able to use the idea of amnesty -- or "shamnesty," as the sparkling wits of the conservative movement like to call it -- to gin up a firestorm of loud and angry protest against the bills.

One of the great ironies of the immigration debates of recent years is that a broad body of polling data shows that most -- or at least many -- of those inundating their representatives with angry letters, calls and emails would have approved of the immigration bills if they had known what they actually contained. In large part, that disconnect represents a communication failure by progressive immigration reformers. In some ways, it was a self-inflicted wound: the reform movement's choice of language -- the way the coalition for CIR "framed" their policies -- played a major role in making what should have been a compromise with broad public support into a poison pill.

Looking at a range of opinion data, political scientist Ruy Teixeira observed that when pollsters ask, "with no further specifications, whether we should make it easier for illegal immigrants to become legal workers, you get a negative response. ... And you get an even more negative response on whether we should make it easier for illegal immigrants to become citizens." But, added Teixeira, "that initial reaction turns around if it sounds like helping illegal immigrants to get legal worker status or to become citizens isn't a free lunch for those who broke the law." Teixeira found that in poll after poll, around 70 percent of Americans opposed offering amnesty, with many strongly opposing it.

But there was no amnesty offered in the comprehensive reform bills of 2005 and 2007. Amnesty was a central tenet of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, signed into law by Ronald Reagan; it simply legalized undocumented immigrants who underwent a health check and could prove they'd been residing in the country since before Jan. 1, 1982. If they were healthy and fulfilled that simple requirement (and paid a modest administrative fee), bingo, they were "legal."

Immigration reformers of recent years read the polls and, following public sentiment, never included an amnesty in their reform bills. Instead, they came up with an onerous "path to citizenship," which was anything but an amnesty. In a 2007 article, Time Magazine accurately described what the "path to citizenship" entailed in the 2007 bill:

Amnesty, as defined by its opponents, has come to mean getting forgiveness for free. But under the Senate's current compromise, the path for illegals is not anything close to easy. Under the compromise, the 12 million would face a 13-year process including $5,000 in fines per person, benchmarks for learning English and an onerous "touchback" provision that calls for the head of each household to leave job and family behind and return to his or her home country for an indeterminate amount of time to queue up for the final green card. Nothing free about that.

As Teixeira noted, when the actual proposal was explained to people, it was supported by very large majorities. A CNN poll taken in May 2007, just before a massive groundswell of outrage killed the bill, found that 80 percent of those polled -- 4 out of 5 -- favored "creating a program that would allow illegal immigrants already living in the United States for a number of years to stay in this country and apply for U.S. citizenship if they had a job and paid back taxes." A New York Times/CBS poll conducted the same month found that two-thirds of respondents said, "Illegal immigrants who have a good employment history and no criminal record should gain legal status as the bill proposes: by paying at least $5,000 in fines and fees and receiving a renewable four-year visa." A USA Today/Gallup poll from mid-April 2007 also found that 8 in 10 favored granting immigrants a path to citizenship if they "meet certain requirements over a period of time."