Aliens: A Million Late Arrivals

A Million Late Arrivals

As the deadline passed last week for migrant farm workers to seek U.S. residency status under a special amnesty program, the Immigration and Naturalization Service estimated that it had received an astonishing 1.2 million applications, four times the number expected. Normally, about 600,000 aliens come to the U.S. each year to pick crops and work on farms. To qualify for amnesty, the aliens must show they did such work for 90 days between May 1, 1985, and May 1, 1986. So it seems that at least half the applications were phony.

Part of the applicant deluge was attributed to nonmigrant aliens...

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