The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Division C of Pub.L. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009-546, enacted September 30, 1996 (often referred to as "i-RAI-ruh" by federal appellate law clerks, and sometimes abbreviated as "IIRAIRA" or "IIRIRA") vastly changed the immigration laws of the United States.
This act states that if an immigrant has been unlawfully present in the United States for 180 days but less than 365 days he or she must remain outside the United States for three years unless the person obtains a pardon. If the person has been in the United States for 365 days or more, he or she must stay outside the United States for ten years unless he or she obtains a waiver. If the person returns to the United States without the pardon, the person cannot apply for a waiver for a period of ten years.
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Previously, immediate deportation was triggered only for offenses that could lead to five years or more in jail. Under the Act, minor offenses such as shoplifting, may make an individual eligible for deportation. When IIRIRA was passed in 1996, it was applied retroactively to all those convicted of deportable offenses.
However, in 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that Congress did not intend IIRIRA to be applied retroactively to those who pleaded guilty to a crime prior to the enactment of IIRIRA, if that person would not have been deportable at the time that he pleaded guilty. (INS v. St. Cyr)
IIRIRA's mandatory detention provisions have also been repeatedly challenged, with less success.
Deportees may be held in jail for months, even as much as two years, before being brought before an immigration board, at which defendants need to pay for their own legal representation. In 2001, the Supreme Court curtailed the Immigration Service's ability to hold deportees indefinitely. (Zadvydas v. Davis)
IIRIRA addressed the relationship between the federal government and local governments. Section 287(g) is a program of the act that permits the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to enter into agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies, permitting designated officers to perform immigration law enforcement functions, pursuant to a Memorandum of Agreement. This section does not simply deputize state and local law enforcement personnel to enforce immigration matters.[1] This provision was implemented by local and state authorities in five states, California, Arizona, Alabama, Florida and North Carolina by the end of 2006.[2]