President Trump unsettled immigration-enforcement supporters Sunday night when he described his deportation policy as “too tough” and suggested he might reach a deal with Democrats allowing some people in the country illegally to remain. In an interview with “60 Minutes,” the president who campaigned on mass deportations reopened the question of legal status.
Trump spoke sympathetically about hotel and landscaping workers who have been here for 10 or 15 years, but offered no details about who might qualify. On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said amnesty was off the table. That is the right position. Still, Trump’s comments bring to mind a bargain the country has tried before—and one that failed.
Migrants are watching the political signals coming from Washington. Congress should consider carefully what its own signals might encourage.
In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which granted legal status to roughly 2.7 million people living in the country illegally. It also established penalties for employers who knowingly hired unauthorized workers and created a process to verify employees’ eligibility. The promise was that legalization, paired with enforcement, would bring illegal immigration under control.
That did not happen. Legalization went ahead, but effective, lasting enforcement did not. The estimated population living in the United States illegally dropped to about 1.9 million in 1988, then climbed to roughly 12.4 million by 2007. Economic conditions and other policies played a role, so those figures do not show that amnesty alone caused the increase. They do show that the promised fix failed to solve the problem.
The law’s enforcement measures were inadequate. A later Government Accountability Office review found serious weaknesses in employment verification and worksite enforcement, leaving employers too much room to hire unauthorized workers. Washington had legalized millions without putting a reliable system in place to prevent another wave.
California’s political history offers another part of the picture. Los Angeles restricted police inquiries about immigration status in 1979, and San Francisco adopted a sanctuary policy in 1985. The 1986 legalization then created a new group of immigrants with legal status. Research has linked the policy to higher Hispanic voter turnout and more Hispanic officeholders in affected communities. Later, the battle over California’s Proposition 187 helped spur an immigrant-rights movement that eventually contributed to the state’s 2017 sanctuary law.
Legalization did not single-handedly shape California politics. But it became part of the story.
Now the country may be asked to make a similar deal, this time for people who have stayed long enough, worked hard enough, or paid enough taxes to deserve to remain. But how long is long enough—10 years, 15? And what would stop a future Congress from changing the cutoff once again?
Amnesty can also create an expectation that people who enter or remain illegally may eventually qualify for legal status if they wait long enough. That incentive is difficult to measure with a single migration statistic, but it should not be dismissed. The message a law sends beyond the border is part of its effect.
That concern is not merely theoretical. Reports this week described caravans from Honduras and El Salvador heading toward the United States, with some travelers hoping that a newly elected Democratic Congress would make the journey easier or change border policy. Those hopes may come to nothing. Even so, migrants are plainly paying attention to Washington’s political signals. Congress should pay attention to the signals it sends.
American workers have a stake in this, too. Employers who ignore immigration and employment rules can gain an advantage over businesses that follow them. Workers in construction, agriculture, hospitality, and service jobs deserve consistent enforcement. Legalizing people who are already working does not, by itself, increase the number of workers in the labor force. The bigger problem is rewarding a violation while leaving the incentive for future violations in place.
The 1986 law also shows why eligibility checks cannot be treated as an afterthought. A Justice Department inspector general later described the immigration agency’s view that fraud had been widespread in the law’s special agricultural worker program. Any new legalization effort would need a credible way to verify people’s identity, residence, and eligibility. It is fair to ask why the public should trust Washington to build that system after granting legal status.
Congress can and should debate immigration policy. What it should not do is make legal status the opening offer while dependable enforcement remains a promise for later. A lasting approach would hold employers accountable for illegal hiring, verify work eligibility, secure the border, and carry out removal orders under the law. It should not leave future migrants with the impression that a change in the political calendar will eventually erase the rules.
Trump has taken on border-security challenges that earlier administrations often avoided. He should not abandon that record because Republicans had a bad election. A loss at the polls is no reason to give up a principle in negotiations. And softer rhetoric, on its own, will not fix the shortcomings that have persisted since 1986.
Mullin and Stephen Miller are right to reject amnesty. Trump should make the same position clear, without qualification. The country has already tried a sweeping compromise that delivered legalization while promising enforcement later. There is little reason to repeat it. No amnesty.
