It doesn't really matter what the federal laws say.

What matters is how the executive branch chooses to enforce the laws.

Here is a bill that was passed since the disasterous 1986 amnesty bill...


The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Pub.L. 104-208, Div. C, 110 Stat. 3009-546 (often referred to as "i-RAI-ruh" by federal appellate law clerks, and sometimes abbreviated to IIRIRA) vastly changed the immigration laws of the United States. In 1996 the Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA 96) was passed and signed by President Bill Clinton. Title III of this new act created the notion of "unlawfully present" persons; specifically, the three-year, ten-year, and permanent bars were formed.

This act states that if an immigrant has been unlawfully present in the United States for 180 days but less than 365 days he or she must remain outside the United States for three years unless the person obtains a pardon. If the person has been in the United States for 365 days or more, he or she must stay outside the United States for ten years unless he or she obtains a pardon. If the person returns to the United States without the pardon, the person cannot apply for a waiver for a period of ten years. This is the permanent bar.

Constitutional issues within the law

Previously, immediate deportation was triggered only for offenses that could lead to five years or more in jail. Under the Act, minor offenses such as shoplifting, may make an individual eligible for deportation. When IIRIRA was passed in 1996, it was applied retroactively to all those convicted of deportable offenses.

However, in 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that Congress did not intend IIRIRA to be applied retroactively to those who pleaded guilty to a crime prior to the enactment of IIRIRA, if that person would not have been deportable at the time that he pleaded guilty. (INS v. St. Cyr).

In an effort to curb illegal immigration, Congress voted to double the U.S. Border Patrol to 10,000 agents over five years and mandated the construction of fences at the most heavily trafficked areas of the U.S.-Mexico border. Congress also approved a pilot program to check the immigration status of job applicants.

IIRIRA's mandatory detention provisions have also been repeatedly challenged, with less success.

Deportation issues

Deportees may be held in jail for months, even as much as two years, before being brought before an immigration board, at which defendants need to pay for their own legal representation. In 2001, the Supreme Court curtailed the Immigration Service's ability to hold deportees indefinitely. (Zadvydas v. Davis)

Relations between federal and lower levels of government

IIRIRA addressed the relationship between the federal government and local governments. Section 287(g) is a program of the act that deputizes state and local law enforcement personnel to enforce immigration matters. This provision was implemented by local and state authorities in five states, California, Arizona, Alabama, Florida and North Carolina by the end of 2006.