r three decades now our government has been trying tofind ways to alleviate the number of illegal immigrants in the nation. One attempt was theAmnesty program in the mid-90s for those who had been in the country since 1992 (Suro 40).Suro states that this covered only about 60% of the illegal population and drew much debate fromCalifornia. Which is ironic seeing as how California is often at the forefront of the campaignagainst illegal immigration. Illegal immigration has become a familiar part of American societyand will not likely see much improvement in the next millenium.The Future of ImmigrationINS has published a booklet called Strategic Plan: INS 200, Accepting the Challenge,which outlines their mission and objectives for the coming year. Most of these objectives are thesame as they have always been: facilitate compliance with the law, create disincentives in theworkplace, increase the security of INS documentation, and work with other agencies (U.S.Immigration...). This isnt the first time the INS has had good objectives, but it isnt likely thatthey will receive the necessary funding to implement these plans successfully. Our government hastried to curb the flow of illegal immigrants with such actions as the North American Free TradeAgreement [NAFTA], which is expected to reduce illegal migration from Mexico (U.S.Immigration... 5). The problem is the timing of such policies; NAFTA is expected to work onlyafter a decade in which Mexico can produce the jobs needed.The INS also reports that by the year 2000, the population of prime labor age in Americawill drop by 8.5 million. That is a large loss of labor and can only be offset by the immigrantpopulation. The key is to make sure that this decrease is offset by a legal immigrant population.That is what the government attempted to do with the Illegal Immigration Reform and ImmigrantResponsibility Act of 1996 (Marley 880). The intent was to cut back on crime, terrorism, andwelfare fr...
