Immigration Reform, developed by the Democrats and passed by Clinton after serious corrective action by the Republicans in 1996 actually caused the issue of illegal overstays.

The law made it illegal for a lawfully documented immigrant to remain in the US after April 1, 1997 if their documents expired.

According to the law, an immigrant with expired documents must leave the country within 180 days – overstays of less than a year forced a bar from re-entry of 3 years and overstays over 1 year forced a bar from re-entry of 10 years.

Previous law allowed documented immigrants who filed for citizenship to remain lawfully in the US while their cases were processed.

Immediately upon enactment of the law, nearly 5 million Legal NON-Resident immigrants suddenly became ILLEGAL NON-Resident immigrants.

What’s most unfortunate is that it can take over 15 years for immigrant cases to be processed for naturalization – see the problem here? How is a low income or even a moderate income NON-RESIDENT Alien to properly comply? The law is specific, they are, by law, suddenly required to LEAVE the US, go back to their Country of orgin and continue their wait there! After more than 10 years, that’s a most unfortunate situation.

So, in essence, what happened, all of these well-intentioned, well-meaning immigrants are suddently ILLEGAL for the purposes of the law and left to deal with something the Democrats intentionally caused.

Hats off to the Republicans for re-visiting and correcting much of the original law before being passed, but this one key issue remains causing much distress.

SCOTUS said to Congress re: Arizona, get off your butts and fix the law while telling the Executive Branch, ENFORCE the laws on the books – and all we get is partisan blame game tactics with no political will to actually do what is right by the millions who shouldn’t have been called illegal to begin with.

If Democrats are serious about reform, why didn’t they do something when they had total control? Your guess is as good as mine. Then too, if Republicans are serious about fixing the problem, why haven’t we heard substantive PROCESS reform ideas?

Both sides should be ashamed and both branches are complicit to this destroying millions of families for politics. Read the law for yourself, Section 301:

Section 301 – Exclusion of Previously Removed Aliens

Aliens Unlawfully Present

Section 301 creates bars to admissibility for aliens who were “unlawfully present” (i.e., overstayed a visa or entered without inspection and were therefore neither admitted nor paroled). According to INA §212(a)(9)(B)(i)(I), an alien unlawfully present for more than 180 days but less than one year, and who left the United States voluntarily before removal proceedings began, is inadmissible for three years from date of departure. According to INA §212(a)(9)(B)(i)(II), an alien unlawfully present for one year or more is inadmissible for 10 years from the date of departure. Periods of unlawful presence prior to April 1, 1997 are not counted.