Immigration Run Amok: Why We Need Reform
Current policies do not meet America's national needs and fuel an undesirable population increase.

By Jack Martin

No one imagined that the 1965 Immigration Act, which among other provisions abolished the national origins quota system, would set off a return of mass immigration. Sen. Eugene McCarthy, D-Minn., a cosponsor of the act, said on the Senate floor at the time, "It is a limited measure, since it does not make any substantial increase in the number of immigrants who can enter each year." Yet in fact, the 1965 legislation did spur a substantial rise in immigration: In 1992, McCarthy noted, "The 1965 changes to the immigration laws discounted the human factors that ultimately resulted in effects no one had anticipated." The flow of immigrants into the U.S. when national quotas were in effect was between 250,000 to 300,000 immigrants a year. After the 1965 act, the numbers began to climb to over 500,000 immigrants in 1980, and today, to over one million per year, when the illegal flow is included.

There are many reasons immigration has returned to the high levels not seen since the beginning of the 20th century. One key factor is chain migration (the process whereby an immigrant who becomes a U.S. citizen is allowed to sponsor family members for obtaining immigrant visas). Other reasons are: illegal immigration; the amnesties which have allowed immigrants to make the transition to legal status and obtain green cards without leaving the country;and immigration law violators. Setting aside the problem of illegal immigration for a moment, the current system of legal immigration is not in accord with national needs, fuels undesirable population increase and cries out for major reform.

An Unbroken Chain

Under the current system, most legal immigrants to the U.S. arrive as a result of chain migration. In effect, Congress gave each new wave of immigrants the power to select the following wave. Chain migration has created a shift in our immigration intake from developed countries to developing countries, in part because immigrants from developing countries tend to have more family members -- whom they want to bring to the United States. For example, in Germany, the average total fertility rate is 1.3 births per lifetime per woman. In the Philippines, it is 3.7. An increasing percentage of our immigrant population is poorly educated and poorly skilled, due in part to amnesty provisions and INA Section 245(i), both of which give legal status to illegal aliens. (The 245(i) provision allowed aliens illegally in the United States to make the transition to legal status.)

Other countries look more rationally at their manpower or skills needs in setting immigrant admissions policies. Some countries, such as Australia, set immigration policy according to how it will affect population size. They recognize that immigration is a discretionary policy that is a key component of population planning. I recently attended a population conference in Australia where the cabinet minister for immigration set out the government's immigration policy in terms of how it would affect Australia's future age and skills structure and population size. Couldn't we do that too?

Americans need to think more about the implications of population size. When I entered the Foreign Service in the early 1960s, the U.S. population was about 183 million -- 100 million fewer residents than today. The recent release of 2000 Census data shows that our population is increasing by more than one percent per year -- a rate higher than China's. Demographic studies have shown that the share of the increase attributable to immigration is about two-thirds.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) recommends that immigration be restored to a replacement level (meaning that those arriving will approximately number those who die or permanently leave the United States), i.e., about one-quarter to one-third of a million. By doing so, the nation's population would begin to approach a stable level toward the middle of this century. Absent a change of that type, the Census Bureau projects that the population will continue its rapid growth to about 400 million by the middle of the century, with no end to such rates of increase in sight.

Closing the Back Door

This population projection has tremendous implications for all Americans. The more the population grows, the less livable our country is likely to become. We are today more conscious than ever of population crowding, urban sprawl, diminishing rural and wilderness lands, traffic gridlock, and resource limits such as the energy crisis in California. It can be conclusively demonstrated that in the United States the environmental problems associated with urban sprawl owe as much to population increase as to land use patterns.

It is well past time that Congress undertake a major reform of immigration to return it to more moderate levels. Ideas for reform were recommended in 1996 by the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, chaired by former congresswoman Barbara Jordan, D-Texas. The Jordan Commission recommendations included both reform and reduction for legal immigration as well as measures to correct the wave of illegal immigration. Congress proved incapable of dealing with such a large agenda, and enacted only illegal immigration reforms in 1996. The legal reform agenda still awaits action.

Reforming legal immigration alone will not do the job of curtailing population increase. We must do a better job of controlling the back door too. As a result of the general amnesty for illegal aliens in 1986, we gave permanent residence to nearly three million illegal aliens and empowered them to sponsor family members. 2000 Census data has led researchers to speculate that today's illegal alien population could be nearly double the INS estimate of about six million. Yet there have been additional limited amnesties adopted and there is a push, begun in the last Congress, for another general amnesty. Such policies throw the back door wide open by advertising to the world our lack of resolve to control our borders.

Controlling Immigration

So what are the solutions? First, I believe we must act on the unfinished Jordan Commission agenda to reduce legal immigration to a sustainable level. The reform proposals that await congressional consideration include ending family preference visas for siblings and adult children (except for dependent adult children), and the visa lottery (an implicit recommendation). Combined admissions for family and employment categories and for refugees would total no more than 550,000. This level is higher than the replacement level sought by FAIR, but it is a major step in the right direction.

Second, we should adopt mandatory employer verification of work eligibility for all new employees.

The 1986 immigration reform legislation included adoption of pilot programs to test systems to allow employers to verify the employment documents presented by new hires to establish their work eligibility. The tests are virtually complete and now are being evaluated. We know that a system that allows employers to verify social security numbers with the Social Security Administration and alien ID numbers with the INS can work, because states have been using such a system for federal benefits for years. By denying employment opportunity, the incentive to immigrate illegally will diminish, thereby aiding the job of the Border Patrol and allowing internal INS enforcement efforts to be more effectively targeted on employers who deliberately exploit illegal workers.

Third, we should implement entry-exit document matching, both to improve national security and to reveal whether nationals of visa waiver countries are abusing the system by staying in the United States. If Amazon.com can keep track of an inventory of millions of books, there is no good reason that the INS should not be able to match entry-exit records of foreign travelers. The one difficulty is with land border crossings, and that problem can be made manageable by exempting local, limited-duration travel by Canadians and Mexicans.

Fourth, we should stop conferring immigration benefits on aliens illegally residing in the United States. This means an end to amnesties, temporary protected status and adjustment of status.

This last point is especially important. The experience and expertise of consular officers is being underused because they are not consistently empowered to act as the nation's gatekeepers in protecting the country from undesirable immigration. Although consular officers' work in deciding visa eligibility is little understood by the American public, their knowledge and judgment are vital to giving meaning to the immigration law.

Unless those who enter the country illegally or who violate the terms of their visas are made to pay a penalty, the immigration law is nothing more than an easily bypassed obstacle for all but law-abiding people. In FY97 less than half of the immigrant admissions were new arrivals. The majority adjusted their status in the United States. The INS doesn't say how many of those who adjusted status were in legal nonimmigrant status, but it is a small share.

The in-country knowledge of our consular officers should be routinely used to evaluate asylum claims. Instead of expert governmental advice, today generic "country conditions" are used to justify permanent U.S. residence. Recently, an asylum claimant gained legal status with a story about facing a circumcision ritual because she was in line to become queen of her tribe in Africa when simple research later proved that her story was a complete fabrication. Where we have consular personnel on the scene, claims to fear persecution should be examined by those who are trained and experienced in judging the veracity of visa applicants.

Would our consular sections be overburdened -- as the State Department claims -- by restoring to them the gatekeeper responsibility that was stripped away by INA Section 245(i)? Now that our consulates are empowered to collect and use visa fees, additional responsibility should justify additional personnel resources and broaden the responsibilities of consular officers. There should be little doubt that consular personnel, both local and American, are best equipped to investigate and deal with cases that require knowledge of local culture and governmental practices. Such a change would help toward getting immigration back under control.

Jack Martin was an FSO from 1961 to 1989. He is the director of special projects at the Federation for American Immigration Reform.