Full Transcript for 40 Years After IRCA, What Did We Learn?

exists, but the old INS headquarters when IRCA– That's 36 00:02:28.439 --> 00:02:31.860 the shorthand term for the 86 amnesty when IRCA was 37 00:02:31.960 --> 00:02:35.939 passed 40 years ago this month. And the other speaker 38 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:39.960 is Dan Vara, who is a board member of CIS 39 00:02:40.580 --> 00:02:45.379 and was a newly minted attorney who came on board 40 00:02:45.620 --> 00:02:50.469 to INS, back then INS, basically just out of law school. 41 00:02:50.629 --> 00:02:54.409 So they both have some thoughts about you know, what 42 00:02:54.449 --> 00:02:56.590 we learned, what we should have learned, what we may 43 00:02:56.629 --> 00:02:58.250 not have learned. And I thought it was a very 44 00:02:58.409 --> 00:03:03.409 useful panel to have on this, the 40th anniversary of 45 00:03:03.490 --> 00:03:08.400 that epical legislation, I guess, because it really did shape 46 00:03:09.300 --> 00:03:14.419 legal and illegal immigration to this day and shaped the 47 00:03:14.520 --> 00:03:20.129 politics of immigration because the deal, as I suggested, was 48 00:03:20.729 --> 00:03:26.169 amnesty for established illegals in exchange for enforcement going forward 49 00:03:26.740 --> 00:03:31.599 to prevent new large illegal immigrant populations from developing. And 50 00:03:31.659 --> 00:03:35.120 that was a failure, if you're going to put it charitably, 51 00:03:35.219 --> 00:03:39.280 I think actually was a conscious betrayal. But in either case, 52 00:03:39.520 --> 00:03:45.080 it has cast a shadow, really poisoned immigration politics to 53 00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:49.189 this day, because all the assurances that if we only 54 00:03:49.280 --> 00:03:52.629 legalize this latest group of illegal immigrants, it'll all be great. 55 00:03:53.110 --> 00:03:56.330 going forward. Nobody believes it, and with good reason. And 56 00:03:56.389 --> 00:04:01.810 so Dan and Dan will be talking about their impressions. Again, 57 00:04:01.849 --> 00:04:04.759 Dan Cadman is first, followed by Dan Vera, and then 58 00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:06.020 there'll be some back and forth. 59 00:04:07.280 --> 00:04:08.979 Just to set the stage a little bit, at the 60 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:11.800 time that IRCA was passed, in fact, I worked in 61 00:04:11.879 --> 00:04:14.819 what was then INS Central Office, and I was the 62 00:04:14.860 --> 00:04:18.680 Deputy Assistant Commissioner for Investigations. And it was my group 63 00:04:18.699 --> 00:04:24.639 that was responsible for generating the employer sanctions regulations, which 64 00:04:24.680 --> 00:04:29.620 was an interesting event at the time. If, you know, 65 00:04:30.300 --> 00:04:33.680 the subject of this little bit of our event is 66 00:04:33.939 --> 00:04:37.000 IRCA lessons learned and lessons forgotten. If I were to 67 00:04:37.110 --> 00:04:42.089 encapsulize lessons learned, it is that amnesty is a mistake. 68 00:04:42.769 --> 00:04:46.290 And if I were to encapsulize lessons forgotten,

it is 69 00:04:46.350 --> 00:04:50.529 that amnesty is a mistake. Over the years, I will 70 00:04:50.569 --> 00:04:53.810 tell you quite frankly, that my attitude toward IRCA has 71 00:04:53.870 --> 00:04:57.100 hardened to the point where I would be hard-pressed to 72 00:04:57.129 --> 00:05:00.459 tell you anything good about it, even though it was 73 00:05:00.579 --> 00:05:04.439 IRCA that brought us the ability to develop the I-9 74 00:05:04.699 --> 00:05:07.660 to create a regimen in which employers would be required 75 00:05:07.720 --> 00:05:11.870 to register their workers and to sanction them when they 76 00:05:12.050 --> 00:05:16.250 were hiring illegal aliens. And one of the things that 77 00:05:16.290 --> 00:05:18.550 sticks in my mind to this very day is that 78 00:05:18.610 --> 00:05:23.199 at the time IRCA was passed, there were 842 investigative 79 00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:28.480 officers in the United States. A year after passage, there 80 00:05:28.519 --> 00:05:34.279 were 842 investigators in the United States. And so reasonably 81 00:05:34.360 --> 00:05:37.220 to expect them to continue doing the other things they 82 00:05:37.259 --> 00:05:40.379 were doing, looking for illegal aliens, whether it was in 83 00:05:40.399 --> 00:05:43.290 the jails or on the streets. And then on top 84 00:05:43.329 --> 00:05:47.629 of that, to expect them to engage in mass education 85 00:05:47.670 --> 00:05:51.040 of employers and which was a mandate of the Reagan administration, 86 00:05:51.519 --> 00:05:56.980 and thereafter to go out and begin auditing and conducting 87 00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:02.430 worksite raids was unrealistic. The resources just really. 88 00:06:02.149 --> 00:06:02.829 Were not there. 89 00:06:03.589 --> 00:06:06.730 And I think all of these start, stop, start, stop 90 00:06:07.370 --> 00:06:10.470 that you have seen since then and which our predecessors 91 00:06:10.550 --> 00:06:13.930 on the stage referred to is a direct result of 92 00:06:14.009 --> 00:06:18.180 the way that portion of IRCA was implemented. I will 93 00:06:18.829 --> 00:06:20.889 Just say one other thing and then pass it to Dan. 94 00:06:21.589 --> 00:06:25.490 Because it was understood that IRCA was going to be huge, 95 00:06:26.009 --> 00:06:29.040 and it was, one of the major fears of the 96 00:06:29.180 --> 00:06:32.680 Reagan administration at the time is that INS would not 97 00:06:32.740 --> 00:06:35.240 be up to the job. And so it became a 98 00:06:35.399 --> 00:06:41.379 metrics exercise, getting all of the applications adjudicated. And to 99 00:06:41.439 --> 00:06:46.370 do that, something fundamental changed from a one-to-one interview to 100 00:06:46.449 --> 00:06:52.300 remote adjudications. And the result was that as an agency, 101 00:06:52.319 --> 00:06:57.000 INS got the adjudications done, but it opened the door 102 00:06:57.060 --> 00:07:01.069 to fraud. And when you lose the human element, you 103 00:07:01.149 --> 00:07:03.970 end up with things such as John Miano pointed out 104 00:07:04.490 --> 00:07:08.629 with the H program, where because it's all remote and 105 00:07:08.670 --> 00:07:13.290 because it's just paper, you have places of residence with 106 00:07:13.410 --> 00:07:18.089 dozens and dozens of people being approved for benefits to 107 00:07:18.149 --> 00:07:19.430 which they're not entitled. 108 00:07:19.810 --> 00:07:22.329 Go ahead, Dan. I have some questions, won't you guys? 109 00:07:22.500 --> 00:07:23.000 Go ahead, Dan. 110 00:07:23.009 --> 00:07:26.439 If you don't remember anything I say today, remember this, 111 00:07:26.800 --> 00:07:30.120 because I say it at every presentation I make. Immigration 112 00:07:30.160 --> 00:07:33.600 is politics, and politics is immigration. That was my experience 113 00:07:33.740 --> 00:07:38.000 with being an immigration officer for 22 years. I was 114 00:07:38.339 --> 00:07:41.420 with the service when IRCA was passed. I was right 115 00:07:41.439 --> 00:07:43.779 out of law school, just been hired, got sent from, 116 00:07:43.800 --> 00:07:46.389 I went to law school here in Virginia. got sent 117 00:07:46.470 --> 00:07:49.689 to Dallas, Texas. I'm a Texan, so went back home. 118 00:07:50.610 --> 00:07:54.040 And I was a very junior attorney, just brand new 119 00:07:54.160 --> 00:07:57.339 junior attorney. And they came to us and they said, hey, 120 00:07:57.939 --> 00:08:00.779 did you pay attention to the legislation? There's a new 121 00:08:01.079 --> 00:08:04.399 law and it's called IRCA. And this is what it means. 122 00:08:04.519 --> 00:08:07.250 We had a two-hour crash course and they said, get 123 00:08:07.310 --> 00:08:10.209 it done. That's the way the old INS used to work. 124 00:08:10.889 --> 00:08:13.850 So we started seeing the effects of IRCA almost immediately. 125 00:08:14.389 --> 00:08:18.899 Document fraud, it became a boon for that industry. If 126 00:08:18.939 --> 00:08:23.740 you thought before people were producing fraudulent documents for aliens, imagine, 127 00:08:24.100 --> 00:08:27.519 because the second adage I'll give you is immigration is 128 00:08:27.560 --> 00:08:31.600 about economics. If an alien who's making $ 50 a week 129 00:08:31.660 --> 00:08:34.659 in another country or $ 50 a month can come here 130 00:08:34.679 --> 00:08:37.559 and make $ 50 a day, he or she is going 131 00:08:37.580 --> 00:08:40.120 to do whatever they have to do to do that 132 00:08:40.559 --> 00:08:44.580 in most cases. So once they told people, If you 133 00:08:44.620 --> 00:08:47.919 can prove certain things like being here before January of 134 00:08:47.919 --> 00:08:53.610 1982 in unlawful status, and you've been residing physically present 135 00:08:53.629 --> 00:08:56.730 the entire time since the bill was passed, all they 136 00:08:56.830 --> 00:08:59.350 asked was, how can I get those documents to prove that? 137 00:08:59.789 --> 00:09:03.169 Not whether they were here, because this is the kind

138 00:09:03.210 --> 00:09:06.769 of cases we ran into. Jesus was already living in Dallas, Texas. 139 00:09:07.070 --> 00:09:08.350 He says, oh my God, I'm going to get a 140 00:09:08.370 --> 00:09:11.570 green card. So he calls his cousin and his cousin 141 00:09:11.690 --> 00:09:13.730 and their cousin. And he says, I got a guy 142 00:09:13.769 --> 00:09:16.230 here who can give you documents that can say that 143 00:09:16.250 --> 00:09:18.269 you got here. When I got here, you've been working 144 00:09:18.289 --> 00:09:20.750 at the same place I've been working at all this time. 145 00:09:21.090 --> 00:09:23.230 And you lived in the same apartment I did. They'll 146 00:09:23.250 --> 00:09:26.500 just modify the lease and say, put the names in there. 147 00:09:26.769 --> 00:09:28.909 And that's what we're going to present to the immigration service. 148 00:09:29.419 --> 00:09:32.480 So that was the first thing we ran into. The 149 00:09:32.539 --> 00:09:35.559 second thing we ran into in immigration court was we 150 00:09:35.580 --> 00:09:38.960 had all these attorneys that had never practiced immigration law 151 00:09:39.320 --> 00:09:44.129 coming in to want to practice immigration law. And here's why. Economics. 152 00:09:44.889 --> 00:09:47.929 I was a brand new trial attorney, again, a GS-11. 153 00:09:48.289 --> 00:09:50.559 I had taken a one grade downgrade because I was 154 00:09:50.580 --> 00:09:52.960 an investigator before I went to law school. So to 155 00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:55.450 come back as an undergrad, I'd take a one grade downgrade. 156 00:09:56.169 --> 00:10:01.460 I had attorneys that were practicing commercial litigation. banking law. 157 00:10:01.879 --> 00:10:05.259 They were coming in and this group came in and 158 00:10:05.320 --> 00:10:09.159 actually demanded that because I was a civil servant, I 159 00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:12.220 needed to give them a training session on IRCA because 160 00:10:12.259 --> 00:10:14.379 they wanted to get in on the business because they 161 00:10:14.419 --> 00:10:18.200 had like a thousand clients waiting to file. And they 162 00:10:18.220 --> 00:10:21.179 were going to charge every client between $ 3, 000 to $ 5, 000 163 00:10:21.080 --> 00:10:24.990 to fill out a form, fill out a form. So 164 00:10:25.019 --> 00:10:27.549 the secretaries were doing that. These attorneys were making so 165 00:10:27.590 --> 00:10:31.350 much money. So we started seeing that. Then we started 166 00:10:31.389 --> 00:10:35.970 seeing the motions to either terminate or I forget the 167 00:10:36.009 --> 00:10:38.210 other phrase they used to use, but basically take the 168 00:10:38.250 --> 00:10:40.090 case off the docket because we have a right to 169 00:10:40.149 --> 00:10:43.669 apply for legalization. Well, the only thing you had as 170 00:10:43.730 --> 00:10:45.960 a trial attorney is to argue that wait a minute, 171 00:10:46.059 --> 00:10:50.070 there is no evidence of presence before the required time. 172 00:10:50.350 --> 00:10:52.730 There's no evidence at this point that you're not a 173 00:10:52.769 --> 00:10:56.929 criminal because it was their burden to prove. So again, 174 00:10:57.149 --> 00:10:59.409 the burden got twisted and the judges would come to 175 00:10:59.490 --> 00:11:01.809 us and say, no, no, in order to oppose this, 176 00:11:02.210 --> 00:11:04.009 you're the one that's got to do all that homework 177 00:11:04.169 --> 00:11:06.799 and you've got to prove that. And all the documents 178 00:11:07.039 --> 00:11:10.700 were in whose hands? The aliens. So unless we had 179 00:11:10.740 --> 00:11:13.950 an active case, an active file on somebody We really 180 00:11:13.990 --> 00:11:17.690 couldn't do that. So it was a time of major turmoil. 181 00:11:18.570 --> 00:11:22.889 The only two things I remember that were positive for 182 00:11:23.240 --> 00:11:27.440 us was the infusion of money. At that time, INS 183 00:11:27.480 --> 00:11:30.899 was a stepchild of the Department of Justice. Nobody paid attention. 184 00:11:31.240 --> 00:11:33.200 The guys and gals I had worked with in law 185 00:11:33.220 --> 00:11:35.320 enforcement before, when I told them I was going to 186 00:11:35.340 --> 00:11:37.409 join the INS, they said, why? Why are you going 187 00:11:37.429 --> 00:11:40.009 to join INS? You know, that's not law enforcement. And 188 00:11:40.070 --> 00:11:42.490 it was. What I learned very quickly is that we 189 00:11:42.529 --> 00:11:46.289 did more things with the one Title VIII statute than 190 00:11:46.330 --> 00:11:49.539 most other people did with what they had, even if 191 00:11:49.580 --> 00:11:52.220 they had three or four statutes. So anyway, we got 192 00:11:52.259 --> 00:11:55.100 this money. We started getting the ability to do things 193 00:11:55.120 --> 00:11:57.799 that we had never done before. And then there was 194 00:11:58.019 --> 00:12:01.399 the concept, as I call it, riding the ERCO wave. 195 00:12:02.009 --> 00:12:06.149 I was a junior attorney in September of 1986. Again, 196 00:12:06.169 --> 00:12:08.149 I just entered on duty. I just passed the bar. 197 00:12:08.769 --> 00:12:13.120 And by April of 87, I was a senior attorney 198 00:12:13.240 --> 00:12:17.019 because they had hired 255 attorneys. So now I was 199 00:12:17.299 --> 00:12:20.919 training other attorneys how to do the job. So I 200 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:23.470 rode that. I ended up in Miami doing all sorts 201 00:12:23.529 --> 00:12:26.389 of other cases, but I'll speak to that in a second. 202 00:12:26.690 --> 00:12:30.330 Okay. I had a couple of things. Observation. You said 203 00:12:30.350 --> 00:12:33.610 you were at INS headquarters when all of this happened. 204 00:12:34.500 --> 00:12:37.360 This is the old INS headquarters. The building has been 205 00:12:37.419 --> 00:12:40.710 torn down or whatever and turned into condos. But it 206 00:12:40.750 --> 00:12:43.669 had a name. It was named after somebody. So it 207

00:12:43.710 --> 00:12:46.690 wasn't named after Abraham Lincoln, who was a monument, or 208 00:12:47.009 --> 00:12:49.669 George Washington, who was a monument. It wasn't named after 209 00:12:49.750 --> 00:12:53.039 Jack Kennedy, who has the Performing Arts Center. It was 210 00:12:53.100 --> 00:12:56.039 named after Chester A. Arthur. It was the Chester A. 211 00:12:56.139 --> 00:13:00.559 Arthur building. Now, no disrespect to President Arthur, but it 212 00:13:00.659 --> 00:13:06.519 is an indication of the relatively low esteem in which 213 00:13:06.750 --> 00:13:09.870 INS was held. At least it wasn't the Franklin Pierce 214 00:13:09.929 --> 00:13:13.690 building or something like that. But one thing I wanted 215 00:13:13.710 --> 00:13:16.649 to ask, one, I don't necessarily need an answer. The other, 216 00:13:16.690 --> 00:13:18.870 I want to see if you guys have some good stories. 217 00:13:19.370 --> 00:13:23.120 In 1990... After everybody, all the illegals had at least 218 00:13:23.139 --> 00:13:25.889 been provisionally amnestied. Some of them were still, they didn't 219 00:13:25.909 --> 00:13:28.809 have green cards yet, but they had their temporary status. 220 00:13:29.649 --> 00:13:33.149 Ted Kennedy, Orrin Hatch, and the National Council of La 221 00:13:33.169 --> 00:13:37.779 Raza got together to repeal the ban on hiring illegal 222 00:13:37.799 --> 00:13:41.360 aliens because that was the deal of IRCA. Amnesty people 223 00:13:41.399 --> 00:13:44.960 who've been here in exchange for going forward, banning the 224 00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:47.850 hiring of illegal aliens so we wouldn't have this problem. 225 00:13:49.049 --> 00:13:51.789 Do you guys get the sense, and you weren't in Congress, 226 00:13:51.830 --> 00:13:53.950 so do you guys get the sense this was the 227 00:13:53.990 --> 00:13:58.049 plan all along? Because I don't think Ted Kennedy or 228 00:13:58.070 --> 00:14:01.909 the La Raza had any interest in employer sanctions. They 229 00:14:01.929 --> 00:14:05.169 resisted it. They hated it. And so I think this 230 00:14:05.210 --> 00:14:08.879 was an intentional plan. Get everybody in the pipeline, and 231 00:14:08.909 --> 00:14:12.200 then let's pull the plug and undo the grand bargain 232 00:14:12.460 --> 00:14:13.440 that they had agreed to. 233 00:14:13.759 --> 00:14:16.519 Maybe it's my generally cynical nature, but yes, I think 234 00:14:16.559 --> 00:14:19.230 that was the whole point, and I think that's the 235 00:14:19.269 --> 00:14:22.210 point every time you see an amnesty brought forward, that 236 00:14:22.250 --> 00:14:27.330 whatever the good intentions may be of those Republicans who 237 00:14:27.389 --> 00:14:29.789 are willing to vote for such a thing, that is 238 00:14:29.870 --> 00:14:32.629 never going to be the intention of people who want 239 00:14:32.730 --> 00:14:37.809 open borders. It's, you know, it's a Charlie Brown football thing. 240 00:14:38.049 --> 00:14:40.629 They're going to put the football up there, he's going 241 00:14:40.649 --> 00:14:43.740 to kick, and the football is gone. There's no doubt 242 00:14:43.769 --> 00:14:48.169 in my mind whatever that the intention was then and 243 00:14:48.230 --> 00:14:52.320 will forever be whenever an amnesty is proposed, either to 244 00:14:52.399 --> 00:14:56.419 pull that football away after the fact or embedded with 245 00:14:56.480 --> 00:15:00.240 the language, you find all of these obscure provisions that 246 00:15:00.320 --> 00:15:05.429 while the language, the so-called balancing language is there that 247 00:15:05.470 --> 00:15:08.649 we're going to make them pay back taxes, they're going 248 00:15:08.669 --> 00:15:12.330 to pay substantial fines. If you look at it, all 249 00:15:12.350 --> 00:15:16.029 of that language is replete with waivers and conditions that 250 00:15:16.070 --> 00:15:19.269 virtually guarantee no one will ever, ever pay a fine. 251 00:15:20.169 --> 00:15:23.049 You're not going to find any way to enforce paying 252 00:15:23.110 --> 00:15:26.370 back taxes because they were paid under the table. And 253 00:15:26.389 --> 00:15:29.139 all you've gotten out of it, once again, is a 254 00:15:29.169 --> 00:15:33.600 cottage industry of phony documents that breed more phony documents. 255 00:15:34.299 --> 00:15:38.000 And if it's like IRCA, which seems to be the pattern, 256 00:15:38.600 --> 00:15:43.500 there was a confidentiality provision which precluded the adjudicators from 257 00:15:43.620 --> 00:15:47.750 passing any of that information along to anyone so that 258 00:15:47.809 --> 00:15:51.330 investigators could follow up on it, which virtually sealed the 259 00:15:51.409 --> 00:15:55.830 loop and guaranteed that at some point, the individual applicant 260 00:15:55.870 --> 00:15:57.750 was going to receive the benefit. 261 00:15:57.789 --> 00:16:00.600 So there was no risk to coming in with phony documents, 262 00:16:00.860 --> 00:16:03.759 because either you succeeded, or if you didn't, it's like, oh, well, 263 00:16:03.799 --> 00:16:05.679 I'll go and get another phony document and try again. 264 00:16:05.759 --> 00:16:06.200 Pretty much. 265 00:16:06.519 --> 00:16:07.240 Dan, Barrett? 266 00:16:07.259 --> 00:16:10.250 Yeah, and I agree. And I can tell you, once again, 267 00:16:10.269 --> 00:16:12.799 to my adage about politics, Some of the things that 268 00:16:12.820 --> 00:16:15.340 we saw, it was the first time, and again, I 269 00:16:15.379 --> 00:16:19.000 just joined the INS, but back in the day, the 270 00:16:19.120 --> 00:16:22.500 trial attorneys really had nothing to do with investigations or 271 00:16:22.559 --> 00:16:24.879 any of the other enforcement folks. They didn't come to 272 00:16:24.950 --> 00:16:27.669 us for anything. Well, employer sanctions changed that. They had 273 00:16:27.710 --> 00:16:31.710 to come and get our approval to issue the fine. 274 00:16:31.730 --> 00:16:33.769 I don't remember how it worked, but as a

district 275 00:16:33.809 --> 00:16:35.350 council at one point, I had to sign all the 276 00:16:35.710 --> 00:16:40.000 sanctions notices. Well, What we started seeing was we were 277 00:16:40.039 --> 00:16:44.330 doing so well in doing that, that the politicians got involved. 278 00:16:44.350 --> 00:16:47.210 They said, you can hit that place, but you can't 279 00:16:47.250 --> 00:16:48.210 hit that place. 280 00:16:48.789 --> 00:16:52.169 And the other place donates money to my campaign and 281 00:16:52.190 --> 00:16:53.309 the other one doesn't. 282 00:16:53.429 --> 00:16:54.889 Well, it's even worse than that. I'll give you a 283 00:16:55.389 --> 00:16:59.090 very specific example. I signed off on one and they 284 00:16:59.129 --> 00:17:03.129 hit this place that was a very famous restaurant in Miami. 285 00:17:03.850 --> 00:17:06.029 And they'd been watching it for weeks. I think we 286 00:17:06.069 --> 00:17:08.579 had another cover in there. They went, they hit this 287 00:17:08.660 --> 00:17:11.849 place and it all went to hell. The Miami Herald, 288 00:17:11.880 --> 00:17:15.329 Channel 7, everybody in Miami was talking about it. And 289 00:17:15.349 --> 00:17:18.250 we were called from headquarters immediately told that's it, no 290 00:17:18.289 --> 00:17:23.470 more employer sanctions operations altogether because they made a mistake. 291 00:17:23.509 --> 00:17:26.720 The agents did. They hit the place a day that 292 00:17:26.759 --> 00:17:29.940 there was a big luncheon for the who's who of 293 00:17:30.119 --> 00:17:34.940 Miami social society. And they started, offending a lot of 294 00:17:34.960 --> 00:17:37.140 the nice women that were married to the mayor and 295 00:17:37.160 --> 00:17:40.539 the city council and other people like that. That's how 296 00:17:40.579 --> 00:17:41.339 political it was. 297 00:17:41.940 --> 00:17:45.579 One of the most kind of colorful and memorable things 298 00:17:46.319 --> 00:17:49.269 in the wake of or in the process of IRCA 299 00:17:49.730 --> 00:17:54.009 was the fraud in the farm worker portion of the amnesty. 300 00:17:54.029 --> 00:17:56.130 Because there was the one you referred to, which was 301 00:17:56.509 --> 00:17:58.990 you have to show you were here before a certain date. 302 00:17:59.390 --> 00:18:02.029 But there was another subsection of the amnesty, which is 303 00:18:02.069 --> 00:18:04.339 you had to show that you'd done a certain amount 304 00:18:04.359 --> 00:18:07.359 of farm work. And I remember Bill King, who's now 305 00:18:07.420 --> 00:18:10.559 passed away, was one of the former Border Patrol, did 306 00:18:10.799 --> 00:18:14.369 a lot of the interviews. People were, they said, yeah, 307 00:18:14.430 --> 00:18:17.369 I worked on a watermelon farm. And so they said, oh, 308 00:18:17.430 --> 00:18:20.309 so do you pick the watermelons off of the watermelon trees? 309 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:22.880 And they said, oh, yeah, I picked the watermelons off 310 00:18:22.900 --> 00:18:25.859 the trees. Or they dug the cherries out of the 311 00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:30.640 ground because they grow. Or they picked purple cotton. Anyway, 312 00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:35.640 so do you have any particularly colorful and memorable stories 313 00:18:35.720 --> 00:18:36.400 about fraud? 314 00:18:36.500 --> 00:18:38.960 Well, I will just frame that and say it was 315 00:18:39.000 --> 00:18:43.029 called the SAW, Seasonal Agricultural Worker Provision. And all it 316 00:18:43.049 --> 00:18:48.309 required is that you prove in some attenuated fashion, some 317 00:18:48.369 --> 00:18:52.099 bogus fashion, that that you had performed 90 days of 318 00:18:52.240 --> 00:18:55.400 agricultural work, I think, within the past five years. 319 00:18:55.559 --> 00:18:56.299 That's nothing. 320 00:18:57.000 --> 00:19:01.009 And yet, there were these stories of people who had 321 00:19:01.490 --> 00:19:05.150 absolutely no knowledge of the product they were claiming that 322 00:19:05.190 --> 00:19:08.910 they had worked in. And yet, in many instances, they 323 00:19:08.970 --> 00:19:12.289 just weren't caught because the volume was such in these 324 00:19:12.349 --> 00:19:18.769 remote locations. that they were, you know, nose to the grindstone, widgets, widgets, widgets, 325 00:19:19.089 --> 00:19:23.009 crank them through. And the metrics, when you look back 326 00:19:23.150 --> 00:19:27.490 on it, focusing on metrics as a proof of success 327 00:19:28.180 --> 00:19:30.039 is just absolutely abysmal. 328 00:19:31.079 --> 00:19:35.059 I have a case example. Yeah, the name's Danny Toussaint. 329 00:19:35.539 --> 00:19:38.599 I got a call from the FBI National Security Division saying, 330 00:19:38.940 --> 00:19:41.809 we got a guy coming into your jurisdiction. He's a Haitian. 331 00:19:42.190 --> 00:19:45.859 He's the former police chief. We're investigating him because he's 332 00:19:46.019 --> 00:19:48.650 committed a whole bunch of homicides that we believe he's committed. 333 00:19:49.089 --> 00:19:52.470 But somehow... some way, somebody said he could come to 334 00:19:52.490 --> 00:19:55.380 the United States. So I said, not a problem. Well, 335 00:19:55.410 --> 00:19:57.670 when I get to the office, we'll look at him 336 00:19:57.730 --> 00:20:00.279 and we'll charge him. So I look at his file. 337 00:20:00.420 --> 00:20:02.299 As soon as I open it up, it's a big file. 338 00:20:02.819 --> 00:20:04.579 And the first thing I see is what Dan was 339 00:20:04.599 --> 00:20:09.670 talking about, the 90 million designation And I look at 340 00:20:09.710 --> 00:20:13.859 this guy, he was a permanent resident alien who claimed 341 00:20:13.900 --> 00:20:17.539 he had worked 90 man days in agriculture. If you 342 00:20:17.579 --> 00:20:19.480 saw the picture of this guy, he went to the 343 00:20:19.539 --> 00:20:22.519 School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was 344 00:20:22.559 --> 00:20:26.700 special forces. He was a hitter.

That's why Aristide brought 345 00:20:26.740 --> 00:20:29.950 him back to Haiti to be his enforcer. And I said, 346 00:20:29.990 --> 00:20:32.710 this guy doesn't even know what a farm is, much 347 00:20:32.769 --> 00:20:36.039 less ever having worked at the farm. And obviously we 348 00:20:36.079 --> 00:20:39.640 charged them. It created a big turmoil, but ultimately he 349 00:20:39.740 --> 00:20:42.589 left the country voluntarily and gave up his green card 350 00:20:42.890 --> 00:20:45.190 because he knew it was all fraud. But that's what 351 00:20:45.230 --> 00:20:46.750 we saw as a result of IRCA. 352 00:20:47.970 --> 00:20:52.529 One of the people who got a green card through SAW, 353 00:20:52.609 --> 00:20:56.069 through the agricultural part of the amnesty, was an Egyptian 354 00:20:56.170 --> 00:21:00.269 cabbie in New York named Mahmoud Abu Halima, who again 355 00:21:00.329 --> 00:21:02.390 had never seen a farm, wouldn't know what a farm 356 00:21:02.430 --> 00:21:05.109 was if he fell into one. And it was only 357 00:21:05.150 --> 00:21:07.369 when he got his green card was he able to 358 00:21:07.690 --> 00:21:10.029 go abroad, get his terrorist training, and was one of 359 00:21:10.069 --> 00:21:13.450 the leaders of the first World Trade Center bombing. So, 360 00:21:13.470 --> 00:21:15.730 I mean, there's a clear, as we've said a number 361 00:21:15.750 --> 00:21:22.269 of times here, normal immigration enforcement actually serves a security function, 362 00:21:22.630 --> 00:21:24.349 even though most of the people caught up in it 363 00:21:24.630 --> 00:21:27.309 are not going to be necessarily terrorists or other kind 364 00:21:27.349 --> 00:21:28.210 of security threats. 365 00:21:28.750 --> 00:21:31.470 There's just one last observation I'd make, and it has 366 00:21:31.490 --> 00:21:35.250 to do with remote adjudications. And, you know, the argument 367 00:21:35.289 --> 00:21:37.779 was we needed the remote adjudications in order to be 368 00:21:37.839 --> 00:21:41.619 able to handle the large number of applicants that we're 369 00:21:41.640 --> 00:21:43.640 going to get both in regular amnesty and so on. 370 00:21:44.059 --> 00:21:45.579 And that may or may not have been true, but 371 00:21:45.599 --> 00:21:49.859 it reminds me of adding another lane on an oversubscribed highway. 372 00:21:50.200 --> 00:21:53.119 Have you ever really seen that reduce the number of 373 00:21:53.180 --> 00:21:57.200 traffic on a highway? No, it encourages more. And that, 374 00:21:57.339 --> 00:22:01.299 I think, is what remote adjudications have done and amnesty generally. 375 00:22:01.480 --> 00:22:03.950 It just breeds more of the same. 376 00:22:05.569 --> 00:22:09.250 So that was the discussion between Dan Cadman and Dan 377 00:22:09.289 --> 00:22:13.990 Vara on the lessons learned and lessons not learned from 378 00:22:14.430 --> 00:22:18.619 the big amnesty that President Reagan signed 40 years ago. 379 00:22:19.319 --> 00:22:23.779 And it really should be shaping our thinking about proposals 380 00:22:23.920 --> 00:22:28.859 like the Dignidad Act, which is actually called that in 381 00:22:28.880 --> 00:22:33.369 Spanish instead of English by Congresswoman Salazar. from South Florida, 382 00:22:33.410 --> 00:22:38.549 which essentially would just be a replay of the 1986 383 00:22:38.549 --> 00:22:42.579 approach to immigration, just like the Gang of Eight bill 384 00:22:42.920 --> 00:22:45.859 during the Obama administration would have been just like the 385 00:22:46.660 --> 00:22:51.450 Kennedy-McCain bill or various iterations of it during the George W. 386 00:22:51.480 --> 00:22:56.339 Bush administration. So this is an important topic that we 387 00:22:56.359 --> 00:22:58.420 may even come back to in the future, but it 388 00:22:58.460 --> 00:23:01.180 was good to hear from two veterans about what they 389 00:23:01.259 --> 00:23:06.470 took from that experience. The final thing I wanted to 390 00:23:06.509 --> 00:23:08.990 mention and draw your attention to, we'll have a link 391 00:23:09.029 --> 00:23:11.950 in the show notes, is a new report from the 392 00:23:12.130 --> 00:23:16.529 Inspector General at Homeland Security. And it was about a 393 00:23:16.730 --> 00:23:20.839 subject that people don't really often pay that much attention to, 394 00:23:20.880 --> 00:23:24.140 and that is visa overstays. There's two ways you can 395 00:23:24.180 --> 00:23:27.960 become an illegal immigrant. One is obviously you sneak across 396 00:23:27.980 --> 00:23:30.799 the border. That's what everybody is familiar with. That's what 397 00:23:30.819 --> 00:23:33.809 they think of. in your mind's eye when somebody mentions 398 00:23:33.910 --> 00:23:38.960 illegal immigration. But there's also a very significant share of 399 00:23:39.099 --> 00:23:44.180 illegal immigration, which comes from visa overstays. People who enter legally, 400 00:23:44.720 --> 00:23:47.460 they come in on a visa or maybe a visa 401 00:23:47.509 --> 00:23:50.430 waiver or whatever it is, they come in lawfully and 402 00:23:50.470 --> 00:23:53.789 then just don't leave or violate the terms of their 403 00:23:53.829 --> 00:23:57.869 visa in some other way. And this is important going 404 00:23:57.970 --> 00:24:02.130 forward because now with the border The illegal crossings at 405 00:24:02.170 --> 00:24:06.430 the border at the lowest level in 100 years, 150 406 00:24:06.430 --> 00:24:10.910 years maybe, most new illegal immigration is going to be 407 00:24:10.970 --> 00:24:16.950 from visa overstays. This IG report was about the approach 408 00:24:17.009 --> 00:24:22.259 to overstays, visa overstays during the Biden administration. And just 409 00:24:22.299 --> 00:24:25.019 saying that you can imagine what it was and it 410 00:24:25.079 --> 00:24:28.000 was as bad as you think because the Biden administration 411 00:24:28.039 --> 00:24:33.289 did not take border illegal immigration seriously. In fact, I 412

00:24:33.309 --> 00:24:36.289 think it's fair to say they actually promoted it. Six 413 00:24:36.369 --> 00:24:39.599 million people who had no right to come into the 414 00:24:39.630 --> 00:24:42.359 United States were taken into custody and then just let go, 415 00:24:42.880 --> 00:24:45.660 in addition to others who snuck by the border patrol. 416 00:24:46.079 --> 00:24:49.880 But the same approach was taken by the Biden administration 417 00:24:49.920 --> 00:24:52.859 to visa overstays. And I won't go into all the 418 00:24:52.920 --> 00:24:55.500 details here, but two things that really jumped out at 419 00:24:55.539 --> 00:24:59.859 me is that the visa overstays tracked by Customs and 420 00:24:59.880 --> 00:25:03.849 Border Protection, that's the unit within Homeland Security that does 421 00:25:03.890 --> 00:25:07.829 these things. The last year, from the last year under 422 00:25:08.190 --> 00:25:15.269 Trump to the first year under Biden, these overstays quadrupled, quadrupled. 423 00:25:16.089 --> 00:25:21.799 And the approach of the Biden DHS was, in my opinion, 424 00:25:21.819 --> 00:25:25.160 can only be described as frivolous. And the only other 425 00:25:25.200 --> 00:25:27.599 statistic I'm going to mention here, and again, we'll have 426 00:25:27.640 --> 00:25:30.099 the link if you really want to read this, is 427 00:25:30.140 --> 00:25:37.349 that even those visa overstays that the Biden-Mayorkas DHS identified 428 00:25:37.440 --> 00:25:40.990 as posing the greatest threat to public safety, they called 429 00:25:41.029 --> 00:25:44.589 them priority one leads. And even then, it wasn't that 430 00:25:44.650 --> 00:25:51.420 many in a particular year. even there, only 5% of 431 00:25:51.460 --> 00:25:55.460 them did ICE investigate. And even in those 5%, which 432 00:25:55.509 --> 00:25:58.210 were only like several dozen cases, there were only two arrests. 433 00:25:59.109 --> 00:26:03.349 So the Biden approach to the border was also the 434 00:26:03.390 --> 00:26:08.430 Biden approach to visa overstays. And it just highlights how 435 00:26:09.210 --> 00:26:12.329 important it is to have an administration that takes this 436 00:26:12.390 --> 00:26:16.089 issue seriously. There are plenty of things that the current 437 00:26:16.130 --> 00:26:19.440 administration has should be doing and isn't, in my opinion, 438 00:26:19.579 --> 00:26:24.690 on immigration. Chief among them, worksite enforcement. It's happening, but 439 00:26:25.130 --> 00:26:28.849 nowhere near where it should be happening. That having been said, 440 00:26:29.869 --> 00:26:35.619 this report highlights how the switch from the Biden administration 441 00:26:35.680 --> 00:26:39.339 to the Trump administration was night and day. And the 442 00:26:39.440 --> 00:26:45.960 irresponsibility of the Biden administration was almost... too much for 443 00:26:46.019 --> 00:26:48.539 me to imagine. I did not think even they would 444 00:26:48.579 --> 00:26:52.740 be this irresponsible. So anyway, that's it for this week's 445 00:26:52.940 --> 00:26:58.369 episode of Parsing Immigration Policy. Thanks to Dan Cadman and 446 00:26:58.410 --> 00:27:02.430 Dan Vara for participating in the panel. Thank you to 447 00:27:03.430 --> 00:27:06.230 Brian Griffith, our producer, for making this whole thing work. 448 00:27:06.670 --> 00:27:09.210 And thanks to you for tuning in. And I hope 449 00:27:09.250 --> 00:27:10.250 you'll tune in next week.