Dakota Beacon

Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986

Amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act, cited as the “Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986” increased appropriations for the Immigration and Naturalization Service ($841,000,000) and for the Executive Office of Immigration Review ($27,000,000) under the Department of Justice. Sufficient funds from these appropriations were to provide an increase in border patrol personnel of 50% over the level for 1986. An Immigration Emergency Fund of $35,000,000 was set up in the Treasury Department to be used to provide for an increase in border patrol or other enforcement activities in meeting an immigration emergency, as declared by the President of the United States.

The act stated that the immigration laws of the United States should be enforced vigorously and uniformly by the Attorney General of the United States taking due and deliberate actions necessary to safeguard the constitutional rights, personal safety, and human dignity of both United States citizens and aliens.

Under the act, the President was to submit to Congress no later than January 1, 1989 and every three years thereafter, a comprehensive immigration-impact report. This report was to include information on each three-year period as well as a projection for the succeeding five-year period.

Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of the act, the Attorney General was to prepare and transmit to the Congress a report describing the type of equipment, physical structures, and personnel resources required to adequately carry out services and enforcement activities.

Additionally, a twelve person “Commission for the Study of International Migration and Cooperative Economic Development” was to be set up within 90 days of the act’s enactment with the purpose of recommending trade and investment programs to alleviate conditions leading to unauthorized migration to the United States.

The act also required the Attorney General to begin deportation proceeding as expeditiously as possible after the date of a conviction of an offense which makes the alien subject to deportation. And it required the Secretary of Defense to provide a list of facilities of the Department of Defense that could be used by the Bureau of Prisons to incarcerate such convicted aliens.

In Retrospect

Had Presidents, Defense Secretaries, Attorneys General, Commissions, and Congress (in its oversight capacity) actually done their jobs during the last 36 years, we would have a secure border, increased numbers of legal immigrants, more legal immigrant union members, and considerably less human smuggling, sex trafficking, illegal drugs and resulting damage to both citizens and immigrants alike.

Conservatives realize that the 1986 promise of a secure border was never serious. Accordingly, they apply the axiom “Fool me once… shame on you; Fool me twice…shame on me!” Until the border has been 100% secure for at least three years… amnesty is off the table. The sooner that the border wall is finished and the border is 100% secured, the better for both Citizens and Immigrants.

Love = Work + Courage