REGINE Regularisations in Europe Final Report - European ...

Box 4: Regularisation policy in the USA
Most of the legal immigration into the USA, typically totalling 600—900,000 each year, consists of family
reunification, with a smaller share for employment reasons, and very small numbers for humanitarian reasons.
Unauthorised immigration flows are thought to be of a similar magnitude – i.e. in excess of 500,000 a year – and
estimated irregular migrants stocks since the last major regularisation of 1986 have shown a massively increasing
trend. In 1990, the estimated stock of irregular migrants was around 2 million; by 2000 it was 8 million; and by 2006
it had climbed to circa 12 million. Of these, the majority (57%) are from Mexico, followed by El Salvador (4%),
Guatemala, the Philippines, Honduras, India, Korea and Brazil. In contrast, over the last two decades the legal
immigrant stock has been falling continuously, since the number of persons being naturalised (plus deaths and
emigrations) is greater than the number being admitted.
The last major regularisation in the USA was in 1986 – the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). It granted
permanent residence status to four categories of unauthorised migrants – those who could prove that they had been
continuously resident since 1982 (a general amnesty); seasonal workers who could demonstrate that they had worked
more than 90 days in the last year, or more than 30 days for each of the three previous years, in the perishable
agricultural crops sector (Special Agricultural Workers – SAW); and two much smaller groups for humanitarian
reasons, consisting of Haitian and Cuban immigrants and any illegal immigrant who could show continuous residency
since 1972. The programme was notable in that, for the first time in US history, it criminalised the hiring of illegal
migrants and imposed a system of sanctions to target employers. However, this provision held employers liable only if
they “knowingly” hired an unauthorised immigrant – thus initiating a lucrative new business of document fraud and
use of middlemen and subcontractors. IRCA also called for better border enforcement, but this saw little action until a
decade later.
1.7 million applied for the general amnesty and 1.3 million under SAW; of these, 1.6 million and 1.1 million
respectively were legalised, that is, with acceptance rates of 94% and 85%. Those rejected were able to appeal the
decision, and even as late as 2004 there were two pending class-action suits affecting 100,000 people denied legal
status on the technicalities of ‘continuous residence’. The programme left large categories of people outside of its
remit: these included those who had arrived between 1982 and 1987; agricultural workers who fell short of the
minimum working days requirement; and various other irregular situations. In total, an estimated three million
unauthorised migrants were unable to participate in the regularisation – roughly the same number as those who did
apply. Thus, the programme was ineffectual in terms of its actual coverage and thereby failed to solve even
temporarily the problem of irregular migrant stocks.
The US government collected data on the impact of IRCA through two ‘Legalized Population Surveys’ in 1989 and
1992, asking a random sample of around 6,000 applicants a range of questions relating to the labour market and
human capital. These data are particularly important, since it is rare to have such reliable information on irregular
populations. Several secure conclusions on the impact of IRCA have been derived: (1) regularisation increased the
earning power of those legalised, usually through occupational mobility; (2) the link between earnings and the human
capital of migrants strengthened post-legalisation, implying better resource allocation; and (3) legalised migrants
invested more heavily in their own human capital, probably because of increased returns of such investment, allied
with greater security and easier access to education and training programmes. However, there is no reliable
information on the impact of IRCA on the informal employment sectors, or on unemployment and labour force
participation rates. Since the status accorded those legalised was a permanent one, there could be no lapse back into
illegality. This does not mean, though, in the weakly-regulated US labour market, that all of those regularised worked
in the formal economy.
Since IRCA, other than some small-scale humanitarian programmes, the only programme of note is the Late Amnesty
of 2000 whereby some 400,000 irregular migrants were granted amnesty under the IRCA general provisions of illegal
and continuous residence prior to 1982. There are no known studies of the impact of this smaller programme.
Subsequently, the regularisation proposed by President G. W. Bush (the Fair and Secure Immigration Reform, 2004)
set out a new vision of offering three-year temporary work permits, renewable once, to irregular migrants in the USA
as well as to potential migrants outside of the country. This programme would thus have established mass
guestworker migration, without the possibility of permanent residence or citizenship, as the official immigration
policy of the USA. Another proposed bill of 2004, the Immigration Reform Act, continued along more traditional
lines of US policy. This bill offered permanent residency to those who could meet all of six requirements: (1) presence
in the USA for more than 5 years; (2) employment for at least 4 years; (3) passing security and criminality checks; (4)
no outstanding tax debts; (5) demonstrated knowledge of English and understanding of American civic citizenship;
(6) payment of a fine of $1,000. Neither of these bills was passed, nor any of nine other detailed proposals made since
2003 and dealing directly or indirectly with regularisation of irregular migrants. Thus, since 2000 the USA has had no
policy for the management of irregular migration – culminating in its current stock of over 12 million unauthorised
migrants, probably more than the combined stock of all other developed countries of the world.
SOURCE: REGINE country profile for the USA
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