Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986

The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) enacted November 6, 1986, also known as the Simpson–Mazzoli Act or the Reagan Amnesty, signed into law by Ronald Reagan on November 6, 1986, is an Act of Congress which reformed United States immigration law.

The Act

required employers to attest to their employees' immigration status;
made it illegal to hire or recruit illegal immigrants knowingly;
legalized certain seasonal agricultural undocumented immigrants, and;
legalized undocumented 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 at least a minimal knowledge about U.S. history, government, and the English language.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act did not address the status of children of illegal aliens who were eligible for the amnesty program. In 1987 President Reagan used his executive authority to legalize the status of minor children of parents granted amnesty under the immigration overhaul, announcing a blanket deferral of deportation for children under 18 who were living in a two-parent household with both parents legalizing, or with a single parent who was legalizing. This action affected an estimated 100,000 families.

Impact

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.

According to one study, the IRCA caused some employers to discriminate against workers who appeared foreign, resulting in a small reduction in overall Hispanic employment. There is no statistical evidence that a reduction in employment correlated to unemployment in the economy as a whole or was separate from the general unemployment population statistics. Another study stated that if hired, wages were being lowered to compensate employers for the perceived risk of hiring foreigners.

The hiring process also changed as employers turned to indirect hiring through subcontractors. "Under a subcontracting agreement, a U.S. citizen or resident alien contractually agrees with an employer to provide a specific number of workers for a certain period of time to undertake a defined task at a fixed rate of pay per worker". "By using a subcontractor the firm is not held liable since the workers are not employees. The use of a subcontractor decreases a worker's wages since a portion is kept by the subcontractor. This indirect hiring is imposed on everyone regardless of legality".

There have been various law changes over the years that encouraged immigrants to enter or exit the United States. With the railroad, World War II, and agricultural work force demands, many immigrants saw the opportunity to come to the United States temporarily for money or a better life. An increase in legal immigrants migrating to the United States also led to an increase of illegal aliens, especially from Mexico. Most of these immigrants searched for and gained jobs where hard labor was needed. As the immigration population increased American citizens started to worry about their impact on the economy.

The reform did not have a lot of impact on decreasing the immigrant population, "Until 2012, there was virtually no movement in Congress to deal with the problem of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States since the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which granted amnesty to many of the 3.2 million illegal immigrants living in the United States." In 1983, the Supreme Court forbade schools and hospitals to deny services based on illegal immigration status.

One study finds that the legalization of three million immigrants reduced crime by 3-5%, primarily property crime. The author asserts that this is due to greater job market opportunities for the immigrants.