142. Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of September 30, 1996 (110 Statutes-at-Large 3009)

Provisions:

1. Established measures to control U.S. borders, protect legal workers through worksite enforcement, and remove criminal and other deportable aliens:
   
   
   1. Increased border personnel, equipment, and technology as well as enforcement personnel at land and air ports of entry;
   2. Authorized improvements in barriers along the Southwest border;
   3. Increased anti-smuggling authority and penalties for alien smuggling;
   4. Increased penalties for illegal entry, passport and visa fraud, and failure to depart;
   5. Increased INS investigators for worksite enforcement, alien smuggling, and visa overstayers;
   6. Established three voluntary pilot programs to confirm the employment eligibility of workers and reduced the number and types of documents that may be presented to employers for identity and eligibility to work;
   7. Broadly reformed exclusion and deportation procedures, including consolidation into a single removal process as well as the institution of expedited removal to speed deportation and alien exclusion through more stringent grounds of admissibility;
   8. Increased detention space for criminal and other deportable aliens;
   9. Instituted 3- and 10-year bars to admissibility for aliens seeking to reenter after having been unlawfully present in the United States;
   10. Barred re-entry of individuals who renounced their U.S. citizenship in order to avoid U.S. tax obligations.
       
       
2. Placed added restrictions on benefits for aliens:
   
   
   1. Provided for a pilot program on limiting issuance of driver's licenses to illegal aliens;
   2. Declared aliens not lawfully present ineligible for Social Security benefits;
   3. Established procedures for requiring proof of citizenship for Federal public benefits;
   4. Established limitations on eligibility for preferential treatment of aliens not lawfully present on the basis of residence for higher education benefits;
   5. Provided for verification of immigration status for purposes of Social Security and higher educational assistance;
   6. Tightened the requirement for an affidavit of support for sponsored immigrants, making the affidavit a legally binding contract to provide financial support;
   7. Provided authority of States and political subdivisions of States to limit assistance to aliens in providing general cash public assistance;
   8. Increased maximum criminal penalties for forging or counterfeiting the seal of a Federal department or agency to facilitate benefit fraud by an unlawful alien.
      
      
3. Miscellaneous provisions:
   
   
   1. Recodified existing INS regulations regarding asylum;
   2. Provided that the Attorney General's parole authority may be exercised only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public health.
   3. Created new limits on the ability of F-1 students to attend public schools without reimbursing those institutions;
   4. Established new mandates for educational institutions to collect information on foreign students' status and nationality and provide it to INS;
   5. Tightened restrictions regarding foreign physicians' ability to work in the United States;
   6. Added new consular processing provisions and revised the visa waiver program.