Immigration

B

Immigration Act of 1990

In 1990 Congress made comprehensive changes to U.S. immigration law by passing the Immigration Act of 1990. The act established an annual ceiling of 700,000 immigrants for each of the following three years, and a ceiling of 675,000 per year thereafter. Refugees were not covered by the act. Amnesty was extended to the undocumented family members of those who had taken advantage of the amnesty provision of the 1986 immigration act and had taken steps to become U.S. citizens. While family members of U.S. citizens remained the largest category of immigrants, the act established a separate annual quota of 140,000 for immigrants with job skills needed in the United States. Responding to pressure from various lobby groups, the 1990 act granted annual quotas of 40,000 to 55,000 to countries that had sent few immigrants in recent years. Individuals who invested over $1 million in business ventures in the United States, creating jobs for U.S. citizens, also received preferential treatment. In addition, special consideration was granted to political refugees escaping from countries with repressive governments.

The 1990 law addressed another category of immigrant: illegal aliens who would suffer hardship if deported because of ongoing armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other extraordinary conditions in their homeland. The law gave the INS the power to grant temporary protected status (TPS) to illegal aliens from countries designated by the U.S. attorney general. Those granted the status could live and work in the United States until conditions improved in their homeland. Upon expiration of this status, immigrants were again subject to deportation. Countries designated under the TPS program have included Guatemala, El Salvador, Angola, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Sudan.

C

Reforms of 1996 and 1997

In 1996 Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). The act made it easier to deport aliens attempting to enter the United States without proper documents. It also established an income test for those attempting to bring family members from abroad to the United States. Under the provisions of the act, a person sponsoring a family member is required to earn at least 125 percent of the poverty threshold, the annual income required to maintain an adequate standard of living according to the U.S. Census Bureau (see Poverty). Illegal immigrants who remain in the United States for more than six months are barred from re-entering the country for three years. Illegal immigrants who remain in the United States for a year or more are barred for ten years.

The IIRIRA also expanded the number of crimes for which legal immigrants can be deported, and severely restricted the right of immigrants to appeal decisions made by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to the federal courts. A related law passed in 1996, the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), eliminated all INS discretion in deportation hearings for individuals who have criminal convictions. In 1999 the Supreme Court of the United States reviewed two separate challenges to the constitutionality of these provisions of the IIRIRA and AEDPA. In the case of Reno v. Goncalves, the Court ruled that these laws did not prohibit the federal courts from reviewing INS decisions in deportation proceedings that had begun prior to 1996. The INS had argued that the laws applied broadly to immigrants with criminal convictions, regardless of when deportation hearings began or when the criminal offense occurred.

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In 1997 Congress passed legislation in response to criticism that U.S. immigration laws unfairly excluded Central American refugees, who faced civil wars from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Although the U.S. government permitted the immigration of some Cuban and Haitian nationals as refugees, almost all Central Americans saw their refugee claims rejected. The 1997 law, called the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA), granted amnesty to Nicaraguans who had entered the United States illegally before December 1995. It also allowed certain Salvadorans and Guatemalans already in the country to suspend their deportation proceedings and apply for U.S. residency. However, hundreds of thousands of Central Americans already in the United States were not covered by the law and continued to seek U.S. residency by applying for asylum. The ad hoc nature of immigration policy left millions of other immigrants without proper papers or the hope of gaining asylum. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that 8.7 million undocumented aliens lived in the United States in 2000.

D

Recent Developments

In 2000 Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed the Legal Immigration and Family Equity Act, which granted the right to residency for an estimated 400,000 undocumented aliens. The measure restored amnesty eligibility to certain illegal immigrants who had failed to apply for amnesty under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. It also allowed illegal immigrants who were spouses or children of Americans to apply for residency while living in the United States instead of returning to their home country first.

United States immigration policy received immediate scrutiny in the aftermath of the devastating terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (see September 11 Attacks). United States officials were especially concerned that the terrorists had been able to enter the country without raising suspicions and that some had been able to remain in the country after their visas expired. Six weeks after the attacks, Congress passed the USA Patriot Act of 2001. It provided funds for additional border agents and for implementing technologies and processes that would spot terrorists when they attempted to enter the country. It also authorized the indefinite detention of any noncitizen suspected of engaging in terrorist activities. The attorney general was given discretion to determine who was a suspected terrorist. Even before the law had passed, the U.S. Department of Justice rounded up and detained for questioning several thousand individuals from the Middle East. Federal immigration courts held hearings on their status in secret, much to the dismay of immigrants’ rights groups. Those found to be in the country illegally were ordered deported.

The federal government continued to focus on immigration as a national security issue in 2002 when Congress passed the Homeland Security Act, which abolished the INS and moved its functions from the Department of Justice to the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Within the DHS, the Bureau of Border Security was charged with border patrol and enforcement of immigration laws, and the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services was given responsibility for handling applications for visas, citizenship, asylum, and refugee status.

In early 2006 massive protests erupted throughout the United States in response to new immigration bills under consideration in Congress. A bill that passed the House of Representatives especially alarmed people in the immigrant community because it made illegal immigration a felony and criminalized humanitarian support for illegal immigrants. Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in such major cities as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City, and smaller protests took place in dozens of other cities. A one-day work stoppage on May 1, International Workers’ Day, also dramatized opposition to the legislation and the important economic role played by the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States. The House bill conflicted with legislation in the Senate, where Senate Republicans were divided over new immigration legislation. The protests reportedly pressured Congress into delaying consideration of the differences in the two bills until after the November 2006 midterm elections. But before Congress adjourned for those elections it authorized $1.2 billion to build a fence stretching 1,120 km (700 mi) along the U.S.-Mexico border to keep out illegal immigrants.

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