The battle against illegal immigration: catering to those in favor of illegal immigration is long-standing but coming to an end.(IMMIGRATION)(Cover story)

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According to national polls, at least 80 percent of the American people now favor cutbacks in immigration quotas.... More than 90 percent support an all-out effort to curb the massive illegal immigration.

What you have just read seems as though it were written yesterday. But it wasn't. It appeared as part of a comprehensive study about our nation's immigration crisis published in the May 1982 issue of American Opinion, a predecessor of THE NEW AMERICAN. Written by the late Robert W. Lee, the article carried the title "Immigration: A Problem That Must Be Solved Very Soon." In his wide-ranging review of this already serious border problem, Lee quoted then-Attorney General William French Smith who told a congressional panel on July 31, 1981, "We have lost control of our borders." Losing that control didn't happen overnight.

Sensible immigration policies had been enacted in our nation throughout the 19th century and into the first half of the 20th. After discovering that many of the World War II refugees streaming into the United States from Europe were communists, Congress passed the almost universally supported 1952 McCarran-Walter "Immigration and Nationality Act."

With its requirement for careful physical examination of all entrants and the establishment of quotas, McCarran-Walter remained national policy for many years. Its major provision stated that if 40 percent of the American people were of British origin, then 40 percent of the legal immigrants could be British. Similarly, if five percent of the population had come from Italy, then five percent of those granted immigration could be Italians. The purpose of this policy was simply to maintain the population blend that had built the nation.

Over time, McCarran-Walter faced numerous challenges and was amended in 1965 and 1976 to adjust the national-origin quotas. In 1980, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) authored and saw enacted a major Refugee Act that undermined the McCarran-Walter approach by establishing an additional quota for refugees, with the term "refugee" broadly defined based on a 1967 United Nations protocol. The new law resulted in Fidel Castro releasing, and the United States accepting, hundreds of thousands of his undesirables who came to our country from the Cuban port of Mariel. The Kennedy measure even authorized supplying federal assistance, including various social services and financial aid, for the refugees who were being welcomed. Thus began the move away from the national-origin quotas as well as toward the policy of providing numerous "freebies" at taxpayer expense for legal and illegal immigrants.

Flood of Illegals Begins