Schumer, Architect of the Most Fraud-Ridden Immigration Program in U.S. History, May Do It Again
By George Fishman on November 30, 2022
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Senators Michael Bennet and Mike Crapo are attempting to put together an amnesty for illegal alien farmworkers that can pass both the Senate and House in the lame duck session and get enacted into law before Republicans take control of the House in January. Of course, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer would have to agree to such a scheme.
Congress has not pulled this off since 1986, when the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986’s (IRCA) “special agricultural worker” (SAW) amnesty program provided temporary and later permanent legal status for aliens who had performed seasonal agricultural work in the U.S. for at least 90 days during the 12 months ending on May 1, 1986. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the SAW program gave amnesty to 1,077,000 illegal aliens (out of 1,278,000 applicants) as of August 12, 1992.
Notoriously, the SAW program was “one of the most extensive immigration frauds ever perpetrated against the United States Government”, as Roberto Suro, now Professor of Journalism and Public Policy at the University of Southern California, concluded in the New York Times in 1989.
How did SAW come about, and why was it so flawed? The blame for the SAW debacle rests largely with Senator Schumer. He had a leading role in devising the program as a member of the House of Representatives at the time. He himself remarked at a Judiciary Committee markup of the legislation that:
https://cis.org/Fishman/Schumer-Architect-Most-FraudRidden-Immigration-Program-US-History-May-Do-It-Again
