After previous failures to get any traction on comprehensive immigration reform or the DREAM Act, President Obama has again ramped up his efforts to call for reform. The outlines of the President's proposed plan are nothing new. He emphasized the need to pore further resources into securing the borders and prosecuting business owners who willfully employ undocumented workers. At the same time, those illegally in the country could begin a legalization process after they (1) admit to having broken the law, (2) pay taxes and a fine, (3) learn English, and (4) undergo background checks to ensure that they have no serious criminal history.
For opponents of reform, the broad outline of the plan will be immediately deemed as unacceptable because it amounts to an amnesty. With so much of the political debate centered on whether or not a given plan is an amnesty, it is probably worth looking at what the word amnesty means.
According to dictionary.com, the definition of "amnesty" is (1) a general pardon for offenses, especially political offenses, against a government, often granted before any trial or conviction; (2) an act of forgiveness for past offenses, especially to a class of persons as a whole; or (3) a forgetting or overlooking of any past offense.
The relevant definition word “pardon” is defined as (1) a release from the penalty of an offense; a remission of penalty, as by a governor; or (2) forgiveness of a serious offense or offender.
Would requiring offenders to (1) admit to having broken the law, (2) pay taxes and a fine, (3) learn English, and (4) undergo background checks to ensure no serious criminal history before they could start a legalization process really be an amnesty? Such requirements seem more akin a mass guilty plea and sanction (a presumably substantial fine and English classes) than a "release from the penalty of an offense" or a "forgetting or overlooking of any past offense."
When a person pleads guilty to DUI, he admits to having broken the law and then is required to pay court costs and fines and often agrees to take classes. DUI and other criminal offenders are not seen as having been granted amnesty.
A reform program should be envisioned as a mass guilty plea with serious sanctions attached. It would be to American society's benefit that fines will be paid, those who do not know English will be required to learn it, and 10 or so million people will no longer be living in the shadows.
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