I was not in favor of the 1986 Amnesty. That being said, it did seek to address what was considered to be one million illegals that had accumulated over the prior thirty years.
Reagan was assured there were only about one million illegals in country when he pondered this bill. Eisenhower was president the last time immigration issues were addressed. That would mean that only about 33,000 or so illegals had been coming over the border each year.
Even so, Reagan viewed this as a problem that needed to be addressed. He did sign on to legalize one million illegals, but he also saw to it that new stiff sanctions were place on private businesses, that hired illegals. There were other preventative measures implemented as well.
What Reagan couldn’t control, was the enforcement future presidents would follow through with. After Reagan, our presidents essentially turned a blind eye to illegal immigration. Starting with the Elder Bush, he Clinton, Bush, and Obama have turned a blind eye to illegal immigration. Bush the ignorant (2), actually ran on a platform of Amnesty.
Reagan’s amnesty resulted in 3.5 million people being naturalized. He was clearly lied to, about the true magnitude of illegals in the nation. Today they say we have 10 million. They’ve been saying that since shortly after 2000, when we had nine million in country.
If we legalize today, we’ll have between 20 and 35 million illegal immigrants line up to official change the makeup of this nation forever.
I’m a little tired of watching Reagan get any of the blame for what is taking place with regard to illegal immigration. We knew what the arrests were in the early 90s. We knew the implications. We knew we were being over-run. Many of us were furious about it.
Rezgan didn’t sign on to this. There is no way Ronald Reagan would have stood by and watched our nation flooded with the citizens of other nations, illegally.
When Bush ran for office in 2000, he ran on a platform of amnesty (in part). When he did that, the number of illegals exploded, with our IRS capturing over 900,000 illegals in just nine months. Traditionally, the IRS acknowledges that it only stops only 10 to 20% of the flow. The dire implications of that, were crystal clear. Did our presidents do anything about it? Essentially no.
Going back to Reagan to discuss this matter, is evidence of a major jump over absolutely traitorous people who came along after him.
Reagan did his best to plug a small hole, and those who came along behind him did their best to unplug every bigger holes. They did it for political gain. I consider that criminal in nature. There’s a big difference in trying to fix a problem, and trying to unfix one.
And the reason why I am totally and absolutely against ANY form of amnesty and any form of forgiveness for family members (where ever they were born) and those who abet illegals ever again.
Doing it 'for the children' as in the dream act, or even as a reward for military service, would only be scammed or used as a back door for an invasion even larger than the one that followed Reagan's essentially humanitarian experiment.