U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform

Report - Monday, September 1, 1997

Immigration Levels at the time of the final report:

• Average annual legal immigration: 1,060,000
• Average annual deportations + voluntary departures: 1,017,000
• Estimated illegal population: 6,500,000

The Barbara Jordan Commission on Immigration Reform was mandated by the Immigration Act of 1990. It is somewhat ironic that Congress, in a bill to increase legal immigration levels by about 40 percent, would establish a commission to examine the impact of immigration on the United States. One would think they would want to know the impact before they increased the numbers.

The bipartisan Jordan Commission, so named after its Chair, the late Rep. Barbara Jordan, was comprised of former politicians, lawyers, academics, a former INS official, and a journalist. The Commission’s final report was transmitted to Congress and President Clinton in 1997. The Commission had been given a broad mandate to examine the entire immigration system of the United States, so its findings and recommendations cover the whole range of immigration issues. The Commission started its work from the premise that:

The credibility of immigration policy can be measured by a simple yardstick: people who should get in, do get in; people who should not get in are kept out; and people who are judged deportable are required to leave.

The commission recommended dramatically increased enforcement of current laws as the first step toward a credible policy. In addition to better border security, the commissioners wanted fraud-resistant identification documents that could be used in conjunction with a mandatory employment verification system that would prevent illegal aliens from getting jobs:

Reducing the employment magnet is the linchpin of a comprehensive strategy to reduce illegal immigration.

The Jordan Commission opposed rewarding illegal aliens with any type of non- emergency benefits or services.

The Commission firmly believes that benefits policies should continue to send this message: if aliens enter the U.S. unlawfully, they will not receive aid except in limited instances. Federal legislation should permit states and localities to limit eligibility of illegal aliens on this same basis. Should illegal aliens require other forms of assistance, their only recourse should be return to their countries of origin.

Rep. Jordan was not at all shy when it came to her views on “guest worker” programs, particularly those targeted at agricultural workers. One of the issues that drove Jordan was worker equality. She understood that mass immigration harms those U.S. workers who already are most vulnerable—like farmworkers.

The Commission believes that an agriculture guestworker program, sometimes referred to as a revisiting of the “bracero agreement,” is not in the national interest and unanimously and strongly agrees that such a program would be a grievous mistake.

First, the Commission is highly skeptical of the need for an agricultural guestworker program at this time or in the near future. Proponents of such a program have failed to demonstrate that a labor shortage is about to occur or that there are no means other than a guestworker program available to agricultural producers to obtain sufficient employees in their industry.

Guestworker programs effectively expand rural poverty. Moreover, guestworker programs are predicated on limitations on the freedom of those who are invited to enter and work. Experience has shown that such limitations are incompatible with the values of democratic societies. For that very reason, “temporary” guestworkers tend to become permanent residents, de facto or even de jure. The inconsistency between the stated intent of guestworker programs and their actual consequences cannot be ignored by policymakers who seek credibility in a reformed system.

The Jordan Commission spent a good deal of time addressing the inequities inherent in guestworker programs, particularly those for low-skill workers.

It has been well-documented that reliance on foreign workers in low- wage, low-skill occupations, such as farm work, creates disincentives for employers to improve pay and working conditions for American workers. When employers fail to recruit domestically or to pay wages that meet industry-wide standards, the resulting dependence—even on professionals—may adversely affect both U.S. workers in that occupation and U.S. companies that adhere to appropriate labor standards.

Temporary worker programs for lesser-skilled agricultural workers exert particularly harmful effects on the United States. The Commission remains opposed to implementation of a large-scale program for temporary admission of lesser-skilled and unskilled workers along the lines of the bracero program. Having examined the issue further during our consultations on LDA issues, we reaffirm our belief that a new guestworker program would be a grievous mistake.

Historically, guestworker programs have depressed the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers. Of particular concern is competition with unskilled American workers, including recent immigrants who may have originally entered to perform the needed labor but who can be displaced by newly entering guestworkers. Foreign guestworkers often are more exploitable than lawful U.S. workers, particularly when an employer threatens deportation if the workers complain about wages or working conditions.

The presence of large numbers of guestworkers in particular localities—such as rural counties with agricultural interests—presents substantial costs for housing, health care, social services, schooling, and basic infrastructure that are borne by the broader community and even by the federal government rather than by the employers who benefit from the inexpensive labor.

Despite the claims of their supporters, guestworker programs also fail to reduce unauthorized migration. To the contrary, research consistently shows that they tend to encourage and exacerbate illegal movements by setting up labor recruitment and family networks that persist long after the guestworker programs end. Moreover, guestworkers themselves often remain permanently and illegally in the country in violation of the conditions of their admission. If new initiatives to reduce illegal migration were at some point to create real labor shortages in agriculture or other low-skill occupations, employers could request foreign workers through the LDA provisions that the Commission proposes for the admission of unskilled workers.

The Jordan Commission also examined the full consequences of the 1986 amnesty. Instead of simply accepting as fact the idea that, since 2.7 million illegal aliens were granted amnesty under that law, the total number of beneficiaries was 2.7 million, Rep. Jordan understood that amnesty has long-reaching ramifications. Thus, the Commission undertook a detailed study of the impact of the IRCA amnesty on demand for family-based immigrant visas. Looking only at 1,577,000 of the aliens granted amnesty because they had resided illegally in the United States since January 1, 1982, the Commission found that:

• These aliens not only had 1.8 million relatives living with them, but they also had 4.0 million relatives living elsewhere in the United States.
• Also remarkable is that there were an estimated 9.6 million relatives living outside the United States.
• In 1992, the legalized population was linked to approximately 60,000 nonresident spouses, 424,000 nonresident children, 901,000 nonresident parents, and 2,843,000 nonresident siblings, for a grand total of 4,229,000 close family members living abroad.
• Of those 4,229,000, high proportions of spouses (59.4 percent) and children (64.4 percent) indicated an intention to immigrate to the United States.

So, while IRCA was an amnesty program for 2.7 million illegal aliens, it may well end up being a path to U.S. citizenship for more than six million individuals.