After Amnesty: Getting Immigration Reform Right

Conn Carroll / December 28, 2010

In 1986, there were 2.7 million illegal immigrants inside the United States. They were granted a one-time amnesty. Illegal immigration crisis solved? Hardly. More than twenty years later there were around 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. How does the left want to solve this problem? More amnesty. This would work about as well as it did the last time.

Since the recession began, the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. has actually fallen, thus proving amnesty-or-deportation is a false choice. Illegal immigrants can, and do, choose to go home voluntarily. Now that the left’s latest amnesty attempt, the DREAM Act, has been defeated what should the next Congress do to fix our broken immigration system. Heritage scholar Jena Baker McNeill writes: (more…)