Immigration Bills

H.R. 3553, the Central American and Caribbean Refugee Adjustment Act, would have awarded amnesty to almost 1.2 million illegal immigrants, in addition to the almost one million who were granted amnesty in 1997.

S. 1504, the Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act, would grant amnesty to 50,000 illegal aliens from Haiti who came to the U.S. before December 31, 1995. It also granted amnesty to their spouses and children, bringing the total number of Haitians to be amnestied to about 125,000. This provision was slipped quietly into an omnibus appropriations bill, and was fully endorsed by President Clinton who signed it into law.

H.R. 2302, the Immigration Technical Revisions Act of 1997, would have allowed 540,000 illegal immigrants from Central America to apply for amnesty, even though they previously had been denied asylum in the United States. Congress eventually passed a much-expanded version of this proposed amnesty by slipping it into an appropriations bill for the District of Columbia (see the Nicaraguan and Central American Relief Act of 1997).

H.R. 4300 was a bill to radically increase annual immigration numbers by removing or increasing limits in most immigration categories. As well, H.R. 4300 created the diversity visa lottery. Traditional American immigration had averaged around 250,000 a year until the 1980s when it dramatically rose to around 500,000. Largely as a result of H.R. 4300, annual legal immigration has risen to around 1,000,000 (one million) a year.