Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 Take note, a law passed by Congress😛

Right on cue the Obama machine has started its whining; “Republicans did it too!”  This time it’s immigration and indeed Reagan did sign an immigration reform law in 1986. But there is the rub, it was a law passed by Congress and a law written on a bipartisan basis plus the law contained a number of requirements. It was not an executive order without Congressional action.  It was not enacted by a President who could not compromise, negotiate, or lead. This blaming the opposition is more childish each time it is raised. If you think about it, such an excuse is actually an indictment of the ineffectiveness of those using it.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), Pub.L. 99–603, 100 Stat. 3445, enacted November 6, 1986, also known as the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, signed into law by Ronald Reagan on November 6, 1986, is an Act of Congress which reformed United States immigration law. The Act[1]

required employers to attest to their employees’ immigration status;

made it illegal to hire or recruit illegal immigrants knowingly;

legalized certain seasonal agricultural illegal immigrants, and;

legalized illegal immigrants who entered the United States before January 1, 1982 and had resided there continuously with the penalty of a fine, back taxes due, and admission of guilt; candidates were required to prove that they were not guilty of crimes, that they were in the country before January 1, 1982, and that they possessed minimal knowledge about U.S. history, government, and the English language.

At the time, the Immigration and Naturalization Service estimated that about four million illegal immigrants would apply for legal status through the act and that roughly half of them would be eligible.

via Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.