NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986

The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), also Simpson-Mazzoli Act (Pub.L. 99-603, 100 Stat. 3359, signed by President Ronald Reagan on November 6, 1986) is an Act of Congress which reformed United States immigration law. The Act made it illegal to knowingly hire or recruit undocumented immigrants (immigrants who do not possess lawful work authorization), required employers to attest to their employees' immigration status, and granted amnesty to undocumented immigrants who entered the United States before January 1, 1982 and had resided there continuously. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... The United States Statutes at Large, commonly referred to as the Statutes at Large, is the official source for the laws and resolutions passed by Congress. ... Federal courts Supreme Court Circuit Courts of Appeal District Courts Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures (List) State Courts Local Government Other countries Atlas US Government Portal For other uses, see President of the United States (disambiguation). ... Reagan redirects here. ... is the 310th day of the year (311th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar). ... The United States Constitution, the supreme law of the United States The United States Reports, the official reporter of the Supreme Court of the United States The law of the United States was originally largely derived from the common law of the system of English law, which was in force...

[edit] Legislative background and description

The law criminalized the act of knowingly hiring an illegal immigrant and established financial and other penalties for those employing illegal aliens under the theory that low prospects for employment would reduce illegal immigration. It introduced the I-9 form to ensure that all employees presented documentary proof of their legal eligibility to accept employment in the United States. Illegal immigration is the act of moving to or settling in another country or region, temporarily or permanently, in violation of the law or without documents permitting an immigrant to settle in that country. ... FINE was created in 1998 and is an informal association of the four main Fair Trade networks: F Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO) I International Fair Trade Association (IFAT) N Network of European Worldshops (NEWS!) and E European Fair Trade Association (EFTA) // The aim of FINE is to enable these... Punishment is the practice of imposing something unpleasant on a wrongdoer. ... Illegal Aliens is a 2007 movie starring Anna Nicole Smith and Joanie Laurer. ... This article is about work. ...

These sanctions would only apply to employers that had more than three employees and that did not make a sufficient effort to determine the legal status of the worker. IRCA also established a provision that if "wide-spread" discrimination was caused through employer-sanctions, according to a three year report by the General Accounting Office (now the Government Accountability Office) (GAO), then the sanctions would be repealed. The GAO found discrimination in 10% of cases studied, and the employment sanctions were not repealed. General Accounting Office headquarters, Washington, D.C. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is the non-partisan audit, evaluation, and investigative arm of Congress, and an agency in the Legislative Branch of the United States Government. ...

[edit] Critics of the Act

The legislation is frequently cited by opponents of illegal immigration as a failure in that, for each undocumented worker granted amnesty under the plan, approximately four new ones have since replaced them.^{[citation needed]} That assertion is based on the estimate that 2.7 million undocumented workers were legalized and the current estimate of undocumented workers in the United States between 12 to 21 million.^[1] Legislation (or statutory law) is law which has been promulgated (or enacted) by a legislature or other governing body. ... Illegal alien and Illegal aliens redirect here. ...

Critics^{[attribution needed]} allege the IRCA of 1986 is proof in their view that amnesty is not the solution for the large number of undocumented workers currently in the United States.

[edit] Effect upon the labor market

According to one study, the IRCA caused some employers to discriminate against workers who appeared foreign, resulting in a small reduction in overall Hispanic employment.^[2] If hired, wages were lower to compensate employers for the perceived risk of hiring foreigners.^[3]

The hiring process also changed as employers turned to indirect hiring through subcontractors. "Under a subcontracting agreement, a U.S. citizen or resident alien contractually agrees with an employer to provide a specific number of workers for a certain period of time to undertake a defined task at a fixed rate of pay per worker".^[3] By using a subcontractor the firm is not held liable since the workers are not employees. The use of a subcontractor decreases a worker's wages since a portion is kept by the subcontractor. This indirect hiring is imposed on everyone regardless of legality.^[3] A subcontractor is an individual or in many cases a business that signs a contract to perform part or all of the obligations of anothers contract. ...

Thus, the IRCA's employer sanctions restructured the market for unskilled labor in the U.S., increased discrimination on the basis of legal status, increased discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, and contributed to subcontracting becoming the principal hiring method. Legal Hispanics are now working for lower wages and in bad working conditions "in return of the opportunity to work."^[3] Manifestations Slavery Racial profiling Lynching Hate speech Hate crime Genocide (examples) Ethnocide Ethnic cleansing Pogrom Race war Religious persecution Gay bashing Blood libel Paternalism Police brutality Movements Policies Discriminatory Race / Religion / Sex segregation Apartheid Redlining Internment Anti-discriminatory Emancipation Civil rights Desegregation Integration Equal opportunity Counter-discriminatory Affirmative action Racial...

[edit] References

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[edit] See also

The Foreign Worker Visa is an immigration document allowing a foreign national to temporarily immigrate to a country for purposes of employment. ... Alan Kooi Simpson (born September 2, 1931, in Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.) is a Republican politician who served from 1979 to 1997 as a United States Senator from Wyoming. ... [[Image:Mazzoli. ... Labour economics seeks to understand the functioning of the market for labour. ...

[edit] External links

Illegal immigration to the United States refers to the act of foreign nationals voluntarily resettling in the United States in violation of U.S. immigration and nationality law, see also Immigration to the United States. ... For other uses, see Human trafficking (disambiguation). ... A Labor shortage is an economic condition in which there are insufficient qualified candidates (employees) to fill the market-place demands for employment at any price. ... The border between Mexico and the United States spans four U.S. states, six Mexican states, and has over twenty commercial crossings. ... Those who find positive economic effects focus on added productivity and lower costs to consumers for certain goods and services. ... Immigration reduction refers to movements active within the United States that advocate a reduction in the amount of immigration allowed into the United States or other countries. ... The Guest worker program is a program that has been proposed many times in the past and now also by U.S. President George W. Bush as a way to permit U.S. employers to sponsor non-U.S. citizens as laborers for approximately three years, to be deported afterwards... Image File history File links US_Department_of_Homeland_Security_Seal. ... The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (also called The DREAM Act) refers to a proposed immigration legislation in the United States Congress that is intended to cancel the removal and adjust the status of certain long-term residents who entered the United States as children. ... Radio Station advertisement in Spanish in East Los Angeles against the H.R.4437. ... Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act (McCain-Kennedy Bill, S. 1033) was a comprehensive immigration reform bill introduced in the United States Senate on May 12, 2005, which was the first of its kind since the early 2000s in incorporating legalization, guest worker programs, border enforcement components. ... S. 2691/ H. R. 5744, also known as the â€œSecuring Knowledge Innovation and Leadership Act of 2006â€, or the â€œSKIL Billâ€ from its acronym and rhyme, is targeted at increasing legal immigration of scientific, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workers into the United States by increasing the quotas on the... For the 2007 act, see Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007. ... The Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy Act of 2007 or STRIVE Act of 2007 is proposed United States legislation designed to address the problem of illegal immigration, introduced into the United States House of Representatives (H.R. 1645). ... The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, or, in its full name, the Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (S. 1348) was a bill discussed in the 110th United States Congress that would have provided legal status and a path to legal citizenship for the approximately... Operation Wetback was a 1954 project of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to remove about 1. ... The REAL ID Act of 2005 requires people entering federal buildings, boarding airplanes or opening bank accounts to present identification that has met certain security and authentication standards. ... President George W. Bush signs the Secure Fence Act of 2006, in the Roosevelt Room on October 26, 2006. ... In 2006, millions of people were involved in protests over a proposed reform to U.S. immigration policy. ... Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the largest and primary investigative arm of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and is responsible for identifying, investigating, and dismantling vulnerabilities regarding the nations border, economic, transportation, and infrastructure security. ... The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) is an American political advocacy organization. ... NAOC Logo The Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CCIR), also known as CCIR/NAOC or New American Opportunity Campaign is a non-profit immigrant rights advocacy organization based in Washington, DC, established in 2003 to pass comprehensive immigration reform. ... The National Immigration Forum was established in 1982, dedicated to increasing public support for admitting larger numbers of immigrants and refugees into the United States. ... CCC Logo The Center for Community Change (CCC) is one of the larger community building organizations in the United States. ... The We Are Americe Alliance (WAAA) is a national alliance of immigrant rights organizations and allies in the United States that work towards social justice, including comprehensive immigration reform and immigrants civic participation. ... â€œNCLRâ€ redirects here. ... The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is a non-partisan, non-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization in the United States that advocates for reforms of U.S. immigration policies that would result in significant immigration reduction. ... The Minuteman Project is an activist organization started in April 2005 by a group of private United States individuals to monitor the United Statesâ€“Mexico borders flow of illegal immigrants, although it has expanded to include the United States-Canada border as well. ... The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, often confused with The Minuteman Project, Inc. ... California Coalition for Immigration Reform (CCIR) is a political advocacy group devoted to immigration reduction, based in Huntington Beach, California. ... Save Our State logo â€œSave Our Stateâ€ redirects here. ... The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is a nonpartisan immigration reduction-oriented, non-profit research organization and was founded in 1985. ... NumbersUSA is an immigration reduction organization whose intent is to reduce United States annual immigration to pre-1965 levels, but without the country of origin quotas that were in place during this period. ... The Migration Policy Institute is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank established in 2001 by Kathleen Newland and Demetrios G. Papademetriou. ... The first naturalization law in the United States was the 1795 Naturalization Act which restricted citizenship to free white persons who had resided in the country for five years. ... Amendment XIV in the National Archives The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (Amendment XIV) is one of the post-Civil War amendments (known as the Reconstruction Amendments), first intended to secure rights for former slaves. ... This article is about the former U.S. law. ... The Gentlemens Agreement of 1907 ) was an informal agreement between the United States and the Empire of Japan regarding immigration and racial segregation. ... In the United States, the Emergency Quota Act (ch. ... It has been suggested that National Origins Quota of 1924 be merged into this article or section. ... The Bracero Program, (from the Spanish word brazo, meaning arm), was a temporary contract labor program initiated by an August 1942 exchange of diplomatic notes between the United States and Mexico. ... The Immigration and Nationality Act amendments of 1965 (Hart-Celler Act, INS Act of 1965, Pub. ... The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Pub. ...

Encyclopedia > Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986

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