Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants Has Economic Benefits

Alejandrino Honorato’s introduction to America began with a smuggler who led him across the Rio Grande into the Texas desert. Eventually he was guided to a North Carolina field, where he paid for his passage by picking tobacco. Living illegally in a labor camp, Honorato didn’t know politicians in Washington were deciding his future. It was 1986, and Congress was weighing an amnesty plan to legalize millions of undocumented workers. Unemployment was 7 percent. Some lawmakers warned that a flood of newly legal workers would strain hospitals and schools and overwhelm the economy, driving wages down. “Are we going to cause havoc?” asked Representative Bill McCollum, a Florida Republican, as the House prepared to vote.

The doomsday predictions proved wrong. The bill became law, and almost 3 million illegal immigrants, including Honorato, were granted amnesty. He settled in Apopka, Fla., where he found work in a greenhouse, bought a home, and raised a family. In 1998 he and his brother used their savings to buy a $15,000 tortilla-making machine and opened their first restaurant. Today he is a U.S. citizen and owns two restaurants and a small grocery in central Florida that employ about 60 people. “I’ve helped a lot of people work,” he says through a translator. “If people were legalized, they’d have a chance to open businesses like me.”