Godfather of the immigration mess - Edward Kennedy's immigration policies during his tenure in the U.S. Senate

National Review, Nov 7, 1994 by Dan Stein

SENATOR Edward Kennedy has been the godfather of America's immigration policy since the mid 1960s. No other figure in American politics bears as much responsibility as he for the current pathetic state of U.S. immigration affairs.

As chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Senator Kennedy has had chief oversight responsibility for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which he has allowed to degenerate into one of the most ineffective agencies in the Federal Government. He was the chief sponsor of the Immigration Amendments of 1965 and the Refugee Act of 1980, and a major proponent of the fraud-ridden 1986 immigration amnesty. In each case, he has grossly miscalculated the number of immigrants who would enter the country, the administrative burdens on the INS, and the magnitude of fraud.

In 1965, the American people were guaranteed that immigration would never exceed its then low level of 250,000 a year. Today, it is at an all-time high: nearly one million a year and growing. Because of persistent congressional miscalculations, immigrants and their descendants will fuel a massive increase in the population of the United States for the foreseeable future. Immigration continues unabated, without regard to changing U.S. labor markets, conditions in the inner cities, or the growing costs to state and local taxpayers. Kennedy's role in creating this situation has been enormous.

Miscalculations of the impact on immigration of changes he sponsored. Legislation that Kennedy marshaled through Congress in the mid 1960s, 1980, and 1990 produced massive immigration flows--flows of a magnitude unprecedented in American history--for which the American public and the INS were, and are, ill prepared. Despite repeated promises from Kennedy that these laws would not increase overall immigration, they have done just that.

Miscalculations of the administrative impact of his changes. Senator Kennedy has persistently miscalculated the administrative impact of changes he has made in immigration laws. For example, the 1980 Refugee Act was designed to remove foreign-policy considerations from the formulation of our refugee laws. Instead, it laid the foundations for a massive bureaucracy that has sent phony asylum applications skyrocketing to over 100,000 a year.

Another example is the Seasonal Agricultural Worker (SAW) amnesty. This program was enacted at the behest of Senator Kennedy as an alternative to the temporary-worker program promoted by California growers. The SAW amnesty was estimated by the New York Times to have fraud rates as high as 70 per cent, and the number of people who took advantage of the amnesty was estimated to be at least three times the number that were qualified given the size of America's agricultural labor force.

Huge backlogs, crushing numbers. Thanks to Senator Kennedy's mismanagement of the nation's immigration laws, there are now over three million people on the visa waiting list, which stretches for years and years. Thanks to the amnesty pushed by Senator Kennedy in 1986, millions more will be getting onto the list in the next three years. This volume of applications will crush an already dysfunctional system.

Visa fraud. It is now impossible to detect people who overstay visas. INS has no effective arrival/departure tracking system, so those who enter through fraud can never be detected.

Ineffective border patrolling. We now have a Border Patrol that is unable to stop most of those who seek to enter the nation illegally. Since the mid 1970s, the Border Patrol has been returning apprehended aliens right back to the border to try again moments later. Senator Kennedy's tacit acceptance of this status quo has been a source of growing dissatisfaction in Massachusetts and across the country.

Lack of oversight. In the past 14 years, Senator Kennedy has held only one general oversight hearing on the operations of the immigration service. He has ignored or glossed over the causes of America's immigration crisis, including massive administrative backlogs, overburdened investigators, inadequate detention space, largescale asylum fraud, and ineffective use of technology.

Today, amid a national clamor for more effective immigration controls, Senator Kennedy stands as the politician most responsible for the mess.