Undocumented Alien in the United States

Introduction

No one knows how many undocumented aliens reside in the United States today. The Census Bureau now puts their number at about nine million–more than double the Bureau’s estimate of a decade ago.

The number of undocumented aliens is increasing by at least half a million a year. Most of these “undocumented persons” enter the country by slipping across the Mexican or Canadian borders, usually at night. Some come with forged papers. Many are aliens who entered legally, as nonimmigrants, but overstayed their legal welcomes.
Well over half of all undocumented aliens have come from Mexico; most of the others come from other Latin American countries and from Asia. A majority of the Mexicans stay here only four to six months a year, working on farms or in other seasonal jobs. Most other illegal aliens hope to remain permanently.

Difficult Situation

Once here, most undocumented aliens find it easy to become “invisible,” especially in larger cities, and law-enforcement agencies find it very difficult to locate them. Even so, immigration officials have apprehended more than a million undocumented aliens in each of the last several years. Nearly all are sent home. Most go voluntarily, but some leave only as the result of formal deportation proceedings.

The presence of so many undocumented persons has raised a number of difficult problems. Those problems have grown worse over the past several years and, until recently, not much had been done to meet them.

One example: Until 1987, it was legal to hire undocumented aliens. As a result, approximately 3.5 million persons who now hold jobs in this country came here illegally. Some employers have been more than willing to hire undocumented aliens, many of whom will work for substandard wages and under substandard conditions.
Hundreds of thousands of undocumented aliens have taken jobs on farms, often as laborers; thousands more have become janitors and dishwashers, or seamstresses in sweatshops, or found other menial work. The increase in population has also placed added stress on the public schools and welfare services of several States, notably California, Arizona, Texas, and Florida.

Regulation

Many groups have been troubled and divided by the problem of undocumented aliens. Those concerned include labor, farm, business, religious, ethnic, civil rights, and other groups. After wrestling with the issue for years, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Then, after another decade of debate and struggle, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Restrictions Act of 1996.

The 1986 law did two major things. First, it established a one-year amnesty program under which many undocumented aliens could become legal residents. More than two million aliens used it to legalize their status here. Secondly, that law made it a crime to hire any person who is in this country illegally. An employer who knowingly hires an undocumented alien can be fined from $250 to $10,000. A repeat offender can be jailed for up to six months.

The 1996 law made it easier to deport illegal aliens by streamlining the deportation process. It also toughened the penalties for smuggling aliens into this country, prevented undocumented aliens from claiming Social Security benefits or public housing, and allowed State welfare workers to check the legal status of any alien who applies for any welfare benefit. The new law also doubled the size of the Border Patrol; it now has more than 10,000 uniformed officers on duty.