From the introduction of the original Simpson-Mazzoli Bill in the mid-1970s, the key provisions of U.S. anti-immigrant legislation have been directed at undocumented immigrants. After a decade-and-a-half of repeated efforts, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 finally made employer sanctions, the heart of the act, and part of federal law. This watershed action formalized and codified what has been national policy toward undocumented immigration the creation of a special category of residents of the United States who have significantly fewer rights than the population as a whole, who cannot legally work or receive social benefits, and who can be apprehended, incarcerated and deported at any time.
The creation of this special category has had widespread ramifications. It has influenced the wage levels and vulnerability of immigrant labor itself. It has spawned other proposals for the denial of rights, such as the right to education or medical care. The original premise that undocumented immigrants have no right to work or earn a living has been broadened to include the denial of rights to most other basic elements of normal life, including the right to be a part of a community and live in the U.S. at all. It has led to the demonizing and dehumanizing of undocumented immigrants in public debate and political life.
In the years, which followed the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act, dozens of anti-immigrant bills were introduced, first into the California state legislature, and then into legislatures in other states. In 1994, California voters passed Proposition 187, an extreme measure to disqualify undocumented immigrants from education and health care services. Again other states took up similar measures.
Finally, in the spring of 1996 Congress debated and passed some of the most extensive and repressive immigration legislation in its history...................
