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One popular argument against a legalization, or amnesty, of unlawful immigrants is that it will merely incentivize future unlawful immigration. Unlawful immigrants will be more likely to break immigration laws because they will eventually be legalized anyway, so why bother to attempt to enter legally (ignoring the fact that almost none of them could have entered legally)? This claim is taken at face value because the stock of unlawful immigration eventually increased in the decades after the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) that amnestied roughly 2.7 million.

However, that doesnt prove that IRCA was responsible for the increase in the stock of unlawful immigrants. The stock of unlawful immigrants may have been increasing at a steady rate prior to the amnesty and that rate may have just continued after the amnesty. Measuring the flows of unlawful immigrants is the best way to gauge whether the 1986 Reagan amnesty incentivized further unlawful immigration. If the flows increased after IRCA, then the amnesty likely incentivized more unlawful immigration. The number of annual apprehensions of unlawful immigrants on the Southwest border is a good way to approximate for these cross-border flows.

Its perfectly reasonable to think that an amnesty of unlawful immigrants could increase their numbers in the future. There are at least two ways this could occur. The first is through knowledge of an imminent amnesty. If foreigners thought Congress was about to grant legal status to large numbers of unlawful immigrants, then some of those foreigners may rush the border on the chance that they would be included. Legislators were aware of this problem, which was why IRCA did not apply to unlawful immigrants who entered on January 1st 1982 or after. IRCA had been debated for years before passage and Congress did not want to grant amnesty to unlawful immigrants who entered merely because they heard of the amnesty. To prevent such a rush, subsequent immigration reform bills have all had a cutoff date for legalization prior to Congressional debate on the matter.

Even with the cutoff date, some recent unlawful immigrants would still be able to legalize due to fraud or administrative oversights. An unlawful immigrant who rushes the border to take advantage of an imminent amnesty still has a greater chance of being legalized than he did before, so legalization might be the marginal benefit that convinces him to try. This theory of a rush of unlawful immigrants prior to an imminent amnesty is not controversial.

A bolder claim is that IRCA incentivized the unlawful immigration that followed its passage. As this theory goes, the benefits of immigrating illegally are higher because they assume that at some point in the future they will be legalized just like the previous waves of unlawful migrants were (there were also small amnesties in 1929, 1958, and 1965).

This academic paper by Pia M. Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny analyzed the apprehensions of unlawful immigrants prior to IRCAs passage and a decade after to see if there was a marked increase in apprehensions. After the amnesty went into effect, apprehensions dropped significantly and then rebounded by the mid-1990s. They concluded that apprehensions returned to their pre-IRCA trend line and IRCA neither increased nor reduced the pace of unlawful immigration. This other working paper analyzed apprehensions data from 1977-2000 and found that IRCA was associated with a decline in apprehensions.

Many studies attempted to find how IRCA affected flows of unlawful immigrants immediately after the amnesty went into effect. They are of limited long-term use but worth mentioning. In 1990, Woodrow and Passel also found that IRCA did not affect the annual number of unlawful immigrants compared to the years prior to the amnesty. Two other studies found small temporary declines in the flow of unauthorized immigrants. This paper, based on surveys of Mexican migrants from seven communities in Mexico from 1987-1989, found that there was no consistent change in the probability of an unauthorized immigrant making his or her first trip to the United States as a result of IRCA.

One possible reason why post-IRCA apprehensions were steady is that increased border security under IRCA might have stopped circular migrant flows across the border by locking unlawful migrants inside of the United States. Without IRCA, many of them otherwise would have left and likely returned in the future and been apprehended, thus increasing those numbers. Because IRCA increased the risks and costs of crossing the border due to a surge in border security, the stock of unlawful immigrants rose while the annual flows moderated. The evidence for this is that the apprehensions of women and children increased after IRCA, likely because they were coming north to reunite with their husbands and fathers who were working in the United States. In other words, by increasing border security or the benefits of settlement through an amnesty, IRCA may have incentivized unlawful immigrants to settle permanently in the United States rather than migrating temporarily for work. IRCA may not have affected apprehensions very much but it likely changed settlement patterns.

Below is the data of annual apprehensions on the Southwest border.

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Do Amnesties Increase Unlawful Immigration?

Follow-Up Analysis Of Immigration Reform By Former Assemblyman | East to West G E
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Follow-Up Analysis Of Immigration Reform By Former Assemblyman | East to West G&E - Video

By Melissa Michelson December 19 at 11:05 AM

President Obamas dramatic executive action on immigration provided some relief to undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. His decision was preceded by a long period of activism. In some areas of the country, immigrants of various generations and status, and their friends and families, have worked for decades to build community and political pressure for reform. Political actions have included marches, occupations, and other forms of mobilization and civil disobedience. This organizing has developed the civic engagement and social capital of activists, including the ability to use online and mobile platforms to communicate with tens of thousands of group members. Genevieve Negrn-Gonzales argues that this is due to an internalization of the message to which schoolchildren are socialized in the United Statesthat citizens have the power to make change. Walter J. Nicholls claims the fight for immigration reform has trained young activists how to organize and how to be politically effective.

But that training only occurs in some environments, and not others. In Los Angeles, Calif., and in Austin, Tex., undocumented youth can be, to use the movements slogan, undocumented and unafraid. In contrast, in Southern Texas, or Eastern Washington, they keep their heads down. In the spring of 2006, massive immigration marches were held in cities around the country. But in Hidalgo County in Southern Texas, an area that is 90 percent Hispanic and home to a large undocumented population, the streets were quiet. These differences in levels of civic engagement reflect local political contexts.

Professors Maria Chavez and Jessica Lavariega Monforti and I recently completed a book for which we interviewed 101 undocumented Latino youth. Some live in the heavily Latino and heavily immigrant neighborhoods of Southern Texas and California, while others are from the Pacific Northwest, communities that not only have far fewer Latino immigrants but also very different political cultures.

The interviews we conducted in Texas took place in the southern tip of the state, in the Rio Grande Valley. The context of this geographic location differs from that where our other interviews were conducted in that it is included in the U.S. Border Patrols system of internal checkpoints. This means that undocumented immigrants in the area face the constant threat of detection and deportation, even if they do not attempt to cross the border into Mexico. Undocumented residents of the valley cannot easily travel within the state, even to go up north to cities such as Austin or Houston. This context is reflected in their levels of political engagement and participation.

We asked individuals whether they had engaged in any marches or other action on behalf of immigration reform. Those from Texas were very unlikely to have done so, and noted fears of arrest or deportation. Activity by those in the Pacific Northwest was also minimal; respondents noted the fear of deportation and also the lack of a community with which to take action. Many of our respondents from Oregon and Washington said they instead focus on making others aware of the existence of undocumented immigrants in their schools and neighborhoods.

In contrast, activism was widespread and extensive among our California respondents. Only one of our California respondents reported never having participated in a march or other action; others who had participated in just one or a few marches seemed almost apologetic, as if they felt their involvement was below par. Most reported extensive activism, including not just marches but lobbying, mock graduations, and even hunger strikes. This regional variation in protest activity is reflected in the size and location of the 2006 immigration marches.

People do not become politically socialized in a vacuum; they are influenced by local social and political circumstances. Latinos in California and Texas experience day-to-day life very differently than do Latinos living in the Pacific Northwest; this inevitably affects their feelings of belonging, political empowerment, and Latino identity.

Melissa R. Michelson is Professor of Political Science at Menlo College, andco-author of the award-winning book Mobilizing Inclusion (Yale University Press, 2012)andLiving the Dream (Paradigm Press, 2014).

This post is part of theScholars Strategy Networkseries on civic engagement between elections.

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Monkey Cage: Immigration activists are empowered when they dont fear arrest

Immigration reform = Cops gone wild, says Ron Paul - usa
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Immigration reform = Cops gone wild, says Ron Paul - usa - Video

Predicting little progress on immigration reform in the next Congress, some of the nation's top advocates say they're shifting gears to focus on defending President Obama's new deportation policy from GOP attacks.

"We're not looking to Congress for relief in the next two years," Frank Sharry, head of America's Voice, an advocacy group, said Thursday during a breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel in downtown Washington. "We're looking to defend the win that we've had, and to set the stage to expand on that win."

But Obama and the Democrats are largely opposed to that strategy for fear that passing the popular provisions as stand-alone bills would doom the more controversial elements, particularly the legalization and citizenship benefits for millions of immigrants living in the country illegally.

What we dont want to do is simply carve out one piece of it ... but leave behind some of the tougher stuff that still needs to get done, Obama said last year.

That partisan conflict, the liberal advocates say, sets the stage for yet another two-year impasse on the thorny issue of reform policy.

"I don't think that there's any chance of comprehensive immigration reform this Congress," said Marshall Fitz, an immigration expert at the liberal Center for American Progress.

With those dynamics in mind, liberal reform advocates say their focus is shifting to the implementation and defense of Obama's new deportation policy, rather than expectations of bold congressional action.

"That's going to be the movement's priority. It is in the interest of our community to make this program a success," said Cristina Jimenez, managing director of United We Dream, another group pushing for comprehensive reform.

"Republicans have a self-interest, politically, to work on it [comprehensive reform]," she added. "We just don't see how they get their party together to actually provide a viable solution."

In the absence of congressional action, Obama last month adopted new rules that will halt deportations and grant work permits to as many as 5 million illegal immigrants. The move outraged Republicans, who are searching for legislative ways to dismantle the program.

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Immigration advocates shift to defense