The Path to IRCA and Amnesty
- A Winding Road
“Groups were brought together by . . . almost a religious conviction that the immigration reform bill was an inflection point for the country, that we were, beyond the language of the legislation, trying to decide whether we’d be a pro-immigrant or anti-immigrant country.”
What did it take to get to amnesty? By the mid-1970s, many stakeholders agreed that the immigration system was broken, including agricultural interests and other large employers, unions on both sides of the issue, citizens grappling with demographic change, and the record number of undocumented immigrants forced to live in the shadows. Congress created the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy in 1978, whose prominent members were tasked with evaluating the existing situation and making recommendations.
At the same time, advocates in the growing immigrant rights community built on the momentum of the civil rights movement and became a powerful force in the legislative process. After years of advocacy, negotiation, and hard compromises, the bipartisan bill was a flawed but momentous achievement that gave almost three million immigrants a path to citizenship.
Muzzafar Chishti was the founding attorney of the ILGWU’s Immigration Project, which started in 1981. He describes how the ILG was a part of a new movement that reflected the shift of immigration after 1965, coalescing in the Immigration Forum.
Charles Kamasaki, who was just starting his career at National Council of La Raza (now UnidosUS), describes how a tight-knit band of advocates spent many long days and nights reviewing legislation, creating alternate bills, and planning strategy to ensure the interests of undocumented immigrants would not be shortchanged.
Rick Swartz founded the National Immigration Forum in 1982, a crucial table for discussion and coalition-building among a range of immigrant and refugee-serving organizations. He describes how advocates were able to counter negative elements of the legislation, such as national ID cards, and push for anti-discrimination provisions in employment law. He also describes working with the ILGWU.
Wade Henderson, former president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, who was working at the ACLU in the 1980’s, describes how advocates fought to shape the bill and limit harmful provisions, such as employer sanctions that would encourage discrimination against immigrants.
When signing the bill, President Reagan noted it would allow undocumented immigrants to come out of the shadows