Simpson-Mazzoli: Twenty-One Years Later

Human Events Online ^ | 06/04/2007 | John Gizzi

[kellynla]

“. . . [Y]ou take a look at what did and didn’t work, and frankly, when it came to enforcement, again, when you say that there’s no punishment, it’s one of those things that doesn’t create disincentive for somebody to cross the border.”

That was the post-mortem on the last major immigration legislation from one of the most visible salesman for what the Bush Administration hopes will be the next major immigration package. In response to a question from me at the early morning briefing for White House reporters May 31, Press Secretary Tony Snow pronounced the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill of 1986 -- which was supposed to stem the mounting tide of illegal immigration -- a failure, notably in terms of enforcement and punishment for lawbreakers. In so doing, President Bush’s top spokesman was attempting to distance Simpson-Mazzoli from the Comprehensive Reform Act of 2006, now before the U.S. Senate.

Whether or not the current measure is an amnesty or whether the 390-plus page legislation takes steps to secure the border was not the point of my question. It is inarguable that Simpson-Mazzoli, which so many conservatives warned President Reagan was toothless and would lead to a new flood of illegal aliens, did almost precisely the opposite of what it was intended to do. Hence, the need for fresh legislation just over 20 years after Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (the official name for Simpson-Mazzoli) and hailed it as “the most comprehensive reform of our immigration laws since 1952.” Snow’s reply to my question May 31 was the closest thing to an official pronouncement of Simpson-Mazzoli as a failure.

Almost from the day he took office in 1981, President Reagan was calling on Congress to enact immigration reform. As Reagan would say when he signed the bill that reached his desk five years later, “The problem of illegal immigration should not, therefore, be seen as a problem between the United States and its neighbors. Our objective is only to establish a reasonable, fair, orderly, and secure system of immigration into this country and not to discriminate in any way against particular nations or people.”

Fine. But the measure that reached his desk also included an amnesty to illegal immigrants from the bill. One who recognized this was Rep. Bill McCollum (R.-Fla.), then a member of the House Judiciary Committee and now attorney general of Florida. He warned that as many as 20 million illegal aliens would benefit from Simpson-Mazzoli because the would be entitled to bring their spouses and children, that as passage of the legislation with the amnesty could attract as many as 90 million new illegal immigrants to the U.S. in a decade. On October 9, 1986, McCollum offered an amendment to Simpson-Mazzoli (H.RF. 3810) to strike the amnesty, calling it “slapping in the face” those who had come to the U.S. and become citizens through normal legal channels.

By a slim vote of 199 to 192, the House rejected the McCollum amendment to strike amnesty from the full legislation. Among the 40 Republicans voting against the anti-amnesty provision were such conservative notables as Reps. Jack Kemp (N.Y.), Dan Lungren (Calif.), and Robert K. Dornan (Calif.). Later, Simpson-Mazzoli was passed by both the House and the Senate.

Former Attorney General Ed Meese has recalled many times how Reagan did not like the amnesty provision and, in fact, “called it for what it was.” Nevertheless, on November 6, 1986, Reagan signed the bill, which also included (as he noted in remarks made during the signing) “employer sanctions [and] other measures to increase enforcement of the immigration laws. . .”

“The lesson from the 1986 experience is that such an amnesty did not solve the problem,” Meese wrote in HUMAN EVENTS earlier this year, “There was extensive document fraud and the number of people applying for amnesty far exceeded projections. And there was a failure of political will to enforce new laws against employers. After a brief slowdown, illegal immigration returned to high levels and continued unabated, forming the nucleus of today’s large population of illegal aliens.”

Meese’s view of a “failure of political will to enforce new laws” was seconded and elaborated upon by Tony Snow last week. As he told me, “[I]f you take a look, for instance, at Simpson-Mazzoli, John, what was the punishment for crossing the border illegally? There was none, zero. For employers, the punishment ranged from a $250 fine to, I believe, a maximum of $2,000. Basically, fairly insignificant measures against employer, when it came to knowingly hiring and sheltering illegals, and obviously, you did not have the sort of support at the border to try to reduce the flow. You didn’t have the deployment of the National Guard forces -- I mean, Border Patrol forces -- I mean, Border Patrol units, and so on.” [Specifically, Simpson-Mazzoli required $250 to $2000 for each alien hired; in a second offense the employer would be subject to a $200 to $5000 civil penalty per alien found; subsequent offenses called for $3000 to $10,000 fines and possibly a prison term for a “pattern or practice” of violations.)

In so doing, Snow made a virtual prophet out of McCollum and other critics of Simpson-Mazzoli. Now, as the Administration calls for passage of a new immigration reform bill, one has to ask whether the Congress and the President in 2028 will have to address issues and problems that it enhanced and then demand yet another round of “sweeping” and “comprehensive” reform?

More precisely, are there sufficient disincentives for someone to cross the border in the new bill? Or will it invite another flood of immigrants, just as Simpson-Mazzoli did?

[kellynla]

"More precisely, are there sufficient disincentives for someone to cross the border in the new bill? Or will it invite another flood of immigrants, just as Simpson-Mazzoli did?"

Without a doubt, the latter.

[kellynla]

ping

[gubamyster]

ping

[AuntB]

Simpson was on Lou Dobbs last week. Here’s some of the transcript....worth the read.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0705/31/ldt.01.html
[snips]
SIMPSON: But the reason the bill didn’t work — and I was the first to admit it after I saw what happened — we never could get a more secure identifier.

DOBBS: Right.

SIMPSON: The last night of the session in the House, Ed Roybal, a wonderful guy, passionate guy...

DOBBS: Yes.

SIMPSON: ... congressman from California, got up and gave the Nazi Germany speech. It also had tattoos.
It talked about Nazi Germany. It talked about the Holocaust, and the — and we — and they removed from the bill, that night, just before midnight...
.. the whole guts of — of the more secure identifier.

And dear old Joe Moakley, a Democrat in Massachusetts, called a special meeting of the Rules Committee, and for me, a Republican, put some of it back in. That was all disappeared. There is no cooperation. It’s who is diddling who. And I will tell you, it’s disgusting to watch.

DOBBS: Yes. I — as a matter of fact, the employee enforcement provisions, eviscerated. Border Patrol enforcement, eviscerated.

SIMPSON: There are flash words. There are flash words, Lou. The flash words are national I.D. Anyone who uses that. .....Anyone talking about honest, authentic, immigration reform that’s true as a die and an arrow, will be called a racist, a xenophobe, and a bigot.

DOBBS: Oh, yes, absolutely.

DOBBS: I have said that you can’t — reform immigration laws in this country if you can’t control immigration.

And you can’t control immigration if you don’t control our borders and our ports. And I have said that, if anyone will defeat the logic of that syllogism, I will sign on to whatever the heck they have got to offer.

What do you think?

SIMPSON: ... because that is absolutely correct. The first duty of a sovereign nation is to control its borders. This isn’t about xenophobia and racism and all this ugly stuff. And, if you want to know about a little country in our northern hemisphere that really controls its southern border, check Mexico. They don’t like anybody coming through there...
______________

Now, an article about the back room dealings of previous immigration bills and Simpson and the Nazi tattoos and speeches. Take note they were the same players pushing this amnesty today.
IIlegal-immigration bill weakened by unlikely alliance - Deja Vu!
The 1998 Eugene Katz Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Immigration was awarded to Marcus Stern for this series of Articles.

http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/2006/01/llegal-immigration-bill-weakened-by.html
[snip]But the anti-verification coalition painted the proposal as a sinister plot. It portrayed it as a retina-scan ID card, police-state power, the second coming of the Holocaust and even the fulfillment of a dark prophecy in the Bible’s Book of Revelation that people would be stamped with the “mark of the beast.”

At one meeting of the Judiciary Committee, an irritated and clearly frustrated Simpson indignantly waved a make-believe tattoo that looked like a grocery store bar code. He called it a ploy to kill his verification proposal. He was right.

Grover Norquist, a social conservative and anti-tax Republican lobbyist, reveled unapologetically in the tactics he used to undermine the verification initiative and to mock Simpson personally.

The peel-off bar-code tattoos were supposed to remind people of the way Nazis tattooed Jews during World War II.

“It was great,” recalled Norquist, who is close to House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “We had our guys walking around with tattoos on their arms. It drove Simpson nuts because the implication was he’s a Nazi.”

[moreisee]

Simpson-Mazzoli required $250 to $2000 for each alien hired; in a second offense the employer would be subject to a $200 to $5000 civil penalty per alien found; subsequent offenses called for $3000 to $10,000 fines and possibly a prison term for a “pattern or practice” of violations.

Sounds like another Snow job. These penalties don’t seem insignificant if enforced. If twenty years ago I was fined $250 per illegal and then thought I was on INS’s radar and in line for bigger fines I’d think real hard about obeying the law.

[sheana]

You can put the fine at 1 mil per illegal alien hired and it doesn’t matter if they are not out there giving fines.

[VOA]

thanks for the good post

[tumblindice]

DOBBS: “I have said that you can’t — reform immigration laws in this country if you can’t control immigration.

And you can’t control immigration if you don’t control our borders and our ports. And I have said that, if anyone will defeat the logic of that syllogism, I will sign on to whatever the heck they have got to offer.”

Let’s see now: two universal, affirmative categorical propositions or statements. (Obvert the statements to make them affirmative, since you can’t reach a positive conclusion with a negative premise.)

You can reform immigration laws in this country if you control immigration.
You can control immigration if you control our borders and ports.
Therefore, if you control immigration you can then reform our immigration laws.
That’s pretty much what many of us here have been saying.

The major premise has as its major term “immigration laws” and “immigration” as the middle term.
The minor premise has “borders and ports” as the minor term and “immigration” as the middle term.
The conclusion states, in order, the minor term “immigration” and major term “immigration laws”. The middle term is distributed.
Dobb’s categorical syllogism appears logically valid.

The Bush adminstration re-takes the same position taken in 1986: give them amnesty and we’ll worry about the consequences later. This satisfies the FR def. of “insanity”.

[pissant]

Just as Duncan Hunter said it would at the time.

[pissant]

Grover Norquist is an idiot.

[AuntB]

Yes, an idiot with way too much influence over this administration.

[snip]But not all conservatives agree about the House Republicans. Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist thinks there has always been a functioning House majority for comprehensive immigration reform. So what happened last summer? “The radio talk-show hosts got out there and poisoned the atmosphere,” says Norquist, who worries that being overly harsh on immigration contributed to the GOP’s loss of Congress.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/981yiuov.asp

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

The arguments for this amnesty bill remind me of Lewis Carrol’s story about Achilles and the Tortoise.

Achilles tries to prove that “Z” is true.

* A: “Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other”
* B: “The two sides of this triangle are things that are equal to the same”
* Therefore Z: “The two sides of this triangle are equal to each other”

The tortoise still doesn’t agree that Z would be true.

Then Achilles then says OK,

* A: “Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other”
* B: “The two sides of this triangle are things that are equal to the same”
* C: “If A and B are true, Z must be true”
* Therefore Z: “The two sides of this triangle are equal to each other”

The Tortoise still doesn’t agree that Z would be true.

We say that there is no guarantee that the law will be enforced. The pro-amnesty people say, “Look! The bill says the law will be enforced! It’s guaranteed!”

It doesn’t watter what they promise. What matters is action, or lack thereof.

[Travis McGee]

"Fool me once...."

[Travis McGee]

Grover Norquist, a social conservative and anti-tax Republican lobbyist, reveled unapologetically in the tactics he used to undermine the verification initiative and to mock Simpson personally. The peel-off bar-code tattoos were supposed to remind people of the way Nazis tattooed Jews during World War II. “It was great,” recalled Norquist, who is close to House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “We had our guys walking around with tattoos on their arms. It drove Simpson nuts because the implication was he’s a Nazi.”

Q_______: a synonym for traitor, someone who collaborates with the invaders of his country.

[AuntB]

Let’s just start calling them Norquists or Grovers instead of Q-———’s! I wonder how long we’d get away with that! lol

Catch you all asap, gotta meet some other deadlines.

[Covenantor]

Vichyssoise might work. It’s French, it’s a collaborator subject state, and it’s the soup they’ve got us in.

What more could one ask?
;>(

[Travis McGee]

“Norquislings?”

[AuntB]

;<)

[truthkeeper]

Did I read that correctly? Ed Royce of CA contributed to the dumping of the identifiers? Who’d a thunk it?