Consumer Friendly?

Source: Wapo

Arturo Zavala entered the United States illegally from Mexico in 1976 and picked mushrooms in Pennsylvania for a decade before he became a legal resident. But that menial labor was not the toughest part of life here.

More difficult was gaining permission for his wife, daughter and two younger sons to join him and his eldest son here. The family finally reunited in 2001, 14 years after Zavala received his green card as part of a 1986 amnesty program for illegal immigrants.

Seeing as I think the '86 amnesty was a very bad idea, you'll be shocked to find I don't give a rat's furry hindquarters about this, or whether or not our hombre here faced difficulties in stocking this country with even more of his countrymen.

What did catch my eye is coming up...

The long delays for Zavala’s family were among the many unintended consequences of the 1986 law, which allowed nearly 3 million immigrants to gain legal status. But illegal workers and the government may face far greater problems if pending immigration legislation passes and three times as many people — as many as 10 million by some estimates — are permitted to apply for legalization.

“It would be an utter meltdown,” said Peggy Gleason, a senior attorney at the Catholic Legal Immigration Network. “Despite the problems, [the 1986 amnesty] was actually an enormous success. Government made this huge effort to make all these offices that were very consumer friendly. I have no idea what the government is doing right now to prepare, but back then, they thought about it hard.”

Two things. Consumer friendly? Their not buying a Snicker's bar folks, this is citiznship we're talking about here. You know, people coming here to join our national family, not crazy uncle Ernie dropping by for the weekend.

And two: What about fraud? Think there was any fraud post the 1986 amnesty? If you said yes you win a kewpie doll. Fraud was rampant and endemic as the system was overwhelmed and as a secret special bonus weak willed and treasonous politicians used citizenship to buy off new voters. Lovely, I feel all warm and snuggly inside now.

H/T beyond borders blog

Technorati Tags: IRCA, amnesty, fraud, abuse, never again