Legislative Background on Immigration Reform
Recent Action by Congress on Immigration and Homeland Security
The last comprehensive immigration reform law Congress enacted was the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which granted amnesty to 2.7 million undocumented immigrants, increased funding for border security, and imposed worksite verification requirements. Subsequent legislation, enacted in 1990 and 1996, added new visa categories, expanded the number of people eligible for visas, and beefed up enforcement. DREAM Act. In 2001, Senators Dick Durbin (IL-D) and Orrin Hatch (UT-R) introduced the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, to give qualifying students who arrived in the United States as minors a path toward citizenship. The bill was…
