Just How Large of an Amnesty Are We Talking About?
By Jason Richwine on January 24, 2018
The 1986 amnesty known by its acronym, IRCA, contained a late addition intended to legalize certain farm workers. The government expected no more than 400,000 illegal immigrants to even qualify under the provision, but applications flooded in and 1.1 million people ended up receiving amnesty through the farm exception alone. The 700,000 excess meant that, of the 2.7 million illegal immigrants granted amnesty through the main provisions of IRCA, roughly one in four received it unexpectedly (and perhaps fraudulently).
IRCA's much-larger-than-anticipated amnesty is relevant today as Congress ponders the fate of illegal immigrants who arrived as minors. The Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, since suspended by the Trump administration, granted work permits to illegal immigrants who arrived before the age of 16 and resided at least five years in the United States. Some lawmakers propose replacing DACA with a larger amnesty, and now many different size estimates of varying reliability are being tossed around.
https://cis.org/Richwine/Just-How-Large-Amnesty-Are-We-Talking-About
