Foreword
In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, tightening security at the Mexican border and penalizing employers who knowingly hired those without a work permit. The bill also made nearly 3 million undocumented immigrants who had entered the country since before 1982 eligible for temporary legal status and eventually green cards. “I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here,” Reagan said, using a word (amnesty) that today would be politically toxic, “even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.” But the 1986 law did not create…
