Learning from IRCA: Lessons for Comprehensive Immigration Reform

May 2006
by Jimmy Gomez and Walter A. Ewing, Ph.D.

If the current political stalemate over immigration reform is any indication, many U.S. policymakers have yet to heed the lessons of recent history when it comes to formulating a realistic strategy to control undocumented immigration. In 1986, lawmakers passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in an attempt to reign in undocumented immigration through heightened worksite and border enforcement, combined with legalization of most undocumented immigrants already in the country. Unfortunately, IRCA failed to offer a long-term solution to the problem of undocumented immigration because: (1) it did not expand avenues for legal immigration to match the U.S. economy's continuing demand for immigrant workers; (2) it did not create an effective system through which employers could verify that their employees are authorized to work in the United States; and (3) the employer sanctions provisions of the bill were weakly enforced. Lawmakers should take care not to make the same mistakes in crafting new immigration reform legislation.

Among the findings of this report:

• Over the past 20 years, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has recommended numerous times, without success, that Congress and the immigration service reduce the number of identity documents acceptable for proving work eligibility and make those documents fraud and tamper resistant.

• Although the immigration enforcement budget as a whole rose from $1 billion in 1985 to $4.9 billion in 2002, the share devoted to investigations, which was responsible for worksite enforcement and sanctions, fell from 11 percent to 9 percent during that time.

• Since 1997, the annual number of arrests of undocumented workers has fallen from 17,552 to 445, cases completed from 7,537 to 2,194, and notices of intent to fine issued to employers from 862 to 3.

• Border enforcement, which today has become the primary means of controlling undocumented immigration, only had a secondary role under IRCA.

• The shortcomings of IRCA and its implementation over the past 20 years illustrate that: (1) no amount of immigration enforcement can compensate for the inadequacy of existing legal limits on immigration; (2) employers will not be able to accurately determine whether or not their employees are authorized to work until a reliable employee verification process is created; (3) once an effective verification process is in place, policymakers must be willing to expend the resources needed to crack down on employers who continue hiring undocumented workers; and (4) immigration reform must address the status of the 12 million undocumented immigrants now living in the country.

• Family reunification policies have served the purpose of keeping earlier immigrants favorable to new immigration, while purely economic considerations would lead them to turn against new immigrants in order to reduce competition for jobs.