The '86 amnesty came with a promise of enforcement at the border, and that enforcement never materialized. There's no other way to describe it than that the people were hoodwinked.
we NEED good people
That we have a lack of good people is debatable. What's not debatable is that leaving the border unsecured so that they could come in illegally is a very wrong remedy. That brings in the bad along with the good.
What's also not debatable is that the temptation of amnesty brings in more illegals and that makes it all the harder to secure the border.
Try telling the 10,000 Border Patrol agents catching millions of illegals since then, or the interior enforcement agents, that "enforcement never materialized" - there has been a 66% increase in Border Patrol funding since Bush took office - tell you what: ban abortions and even I will agree to your Berlin Wall in 18 years.