Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
USINFO | 2013-10-21 16:00

The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), Pub.L. 99–603, 100 Stat. 3359, enacted November 6, 1986, also Simpson-Mazzoli Act, is an Act of Congress which reformed United States immigration law.

In brief the act:[1]
• required employers to attest to their employees' immigration status.
• made it illegal to knowingly hire or recruit unauthorized immigrants.
• legalized certain seasonal agricultural illegal immigrants.
• legalized illegal immigrants who entered the United States before January 1, 1982 and had resided there continuously with the penalty of a fine, back taxes due, and admission of guilt. About three million undocumented immigrants were granted legal status.

Legislative background and description
Romano L. Mazzoli was a Democratic representative from Kentucky and Alan K. Simpson was a Republican senator from Wyoming who chaired their respective immigration subcommittees in Congress. Their effort was assisted by the recommendations of the bipartisan Commission on Immigration Reform, chaired by Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, then President of the University of Notre Dame.

The law criminalized the act of knowingly hiring an illegal alien and established financial and other penalties for those employing illegal immigrants under the theory that low prospects for employment would reduce undocumented 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.

These sanctions would apply only to employers that had more than three employees and did not make a sufficient effort to determine the legal status of their workers.

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. There is no statistical evidence that a reduction in employment correlated to unemployment in the economy as a whole or was separate from the general unemployment population statistics.[2] Another study stated that if hired, wages were being lowered 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]

 

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