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The Great Repudiator and Immigration Reform: Ronald Reagan and the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2018

Craig A. Kaplowitz
Craig A. Kaplowitz*
Affiliation:
Judson University
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Abstract:

In 1981, Ronald Reagan created a task force intended to gain the initiative on immigration reform. But immigration reform presented obstacles to his political stance in repudiation of his Democratic predecessors. After four years of wrangling, internally as well as with Congress, many on the Reagan team viewed the immigration task force as having shackled the president to an unwinnable issue. Frustrated politically, Reagan aides shifted focus to an emerging presidential tactic—the signing statement. This allowed the president to sign the Immigration Reform and Control Act while setting important precedents for his larger conservative agenda. The trajectory from presidential task force to presidential signing statement on immigration reform reveals the challenges Reagan faced on policy issues outside his core priorities, and also the development of a tactic to maneuver through the challenges. Immigration reform became less about immigration than about serving the administration’s larger core priorities.

Keywords

Ronald ReaganimmigrationIRCAsigning statement
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , October 2018 , pp. 635 - 656
Copyright
Copyright © Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

The author would like to thank Carl Bon Tempo, Magdalena Krajewska, and the journal’s anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on various drafts of this project.

References

NOTES

1. Remarks on Signing the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, 6 November 1986, available at John Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=36698&st=immigration+reform&st1 (accessed 2 May 2018).

2. See, for example, Zolberg, Aristide R., A Nation by Design: Immigration Policy in the Fashioning of America (Cambridge, Mass., 2006);Google Scholar Tichenor, Daniel J., Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America (Princeton, 2002);Google Scholar Schuck, Peter, “The Politics of Rapid Legal Change: Immigration Policy in the 1980s,” in The New Politics of Public Policy, ed. Landy, Marc K. and Levin, Martin A. (Baltimore, 1995), 47–87;Google Scholar Graham, Otis L. Jr., “Failing the Test: Immigration Reform,” in The Reagan Presidency: Pragmatic Conservatism and Its Legacies, ed. Elliott Brownlee, W. and Graham, Hugh Davis (Lawrence, Kans., 2003).Google Scholar

3. Immigration Act of 1965 (Public Law 89–236, 79 Stat.911).

4. Ngai, Mae M., Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and The Making of Modern America (Princeton, 2004), 261.Google Scholar

5. For an insightful discussion of the relationship between liberal pluralism and nationalism in the immigration policies of this period, see Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 227–64.

6. Zolberg, Nation by Design, 337–55; Gimpel, James G. and Edwards, James R. Jr., The Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform (Boston, 1999), 109–36.Google Scholar

7. Ed Gray and Frank Hodsoll to Ed Meese, Jim Baker, and Mike Deaver, 24 February 1981, “Immigrants and Refugees [Task Force] [3],” B12, Series II, Hodsoll, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library (hereafter cited RRPL).

8. Reagan, Ronald, “Excerpts from an Interview with Walter Cronkite of CBS News,” 3 March 1981, available at Peters, Gerhard and Woolley, John T., The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=43497 (accessed 2 May 2018).Google Scholar

9. “A President ‘Intrigued,’” Washington Post, 6 March 1981, A14.

10. See, for example, “Controls for an Alien Invasion,” Time, 3 August 1981.

11. Patterson, James T., Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore (New York, 2005), 156–57;Google Scholar Ehrman, John, The Eighties: America in the Age of Reagan (New Haven, 2005), 54–55;Google Scholar Troy, Gil, Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s (Princeton, 2005), 72–79.Google Scholar

12. Quoted in Troy, Morning in America, 53.

13. Skowronek, Stephen, The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to George Bush (Cambridge, Mass., 1993), 416.Google Scholar

14. Graham, Hugh Davis, The Uncertain Triumph: Federal Education Policy in the Kennedy and Johnson Years (Chapel Hill, 1984).Google Scholar

15. Maddux, Thomas R., “Ronald Reagan and the Task Force on Immigration, 1981,” Pacific Historical Review 74 (2005): 195–231;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Hodsoll to James Baker, 30 April 1981, Immigration and Refugee Matters (1),” OA6518, Box 13, Edwin Meese files, RRPL.

16. Hodsoll to James Baker, 30 April 1981, Immigration and Refugee Matters (1),” OA6518, Box 13, Edwin Meese files, RRPL.

17. For Reagan’s limited direct attention to immigration, see Graham Jr., “Failing the Test.”

18. Reese and Baker to The President, 3 June 1981, Immigration and Refugee Matters, OA6518, Box 13, Meese files; Hodsoll to Meese, Baker, Deaver, Anderson, Allen, 28 May 1981, Immigration 1981 [1], Box 1 OA 10587, Staff Files of Tutwiler, RRPL.

19. Maddux, “Ronald Reagan and the Task Force on Immigration,” 226–27.

20. Skowronek, Politics, 414–23 (420); see also Collins, Robert M., Transforming America: Politics and Culture During the Reagan Years (New York, 2007), 242–45;Google Scholar Terri Bimes, “Reagan: The Soft-Sell Populist,” in Brownlee and Graham, The Reagan Presidency, 61–81; Hugh Heclo, “Ronald Reagan and the American Public Philosophy,” in Brownlee and Graham, The Reagan Presidency, 17–39.

21. See especially Gimpel and Edwards, Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform.

22. Discussion Memorandum, Re: Immigration Legislation, n.d., Meese Box 22, OA9947, Immigration Policy CM#210, RRPL.

23. Joe Wright to Ed Meese, 27 April 1983, Meese Box 23, OA 10246, “Immigration (1) folder; Statement of Administration Policy, H.R. 1510—Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1983, 4/4/84, Meese Box 18 OA 9451, “Immigration and Refugee Matters (1) folder; William French Smith to the Honorable Peter W. Rodino Jr., 7/27/83, Bach Box 2 OA 12740, Refugee and Immigration (1) folder; Discussion Memorandum, Re: Immigration Legislation, n.d., Meese Box 22, OA9947, Immigration Policy CM#210, RNPL.

24. Cabinet Council on Legal Policy, 4/16/82, Meese Box 22, OA9947, Immigration Policy CM#210, RRPL.

25. Discussion Memorandum, Re: Immigration Legislation, n.d., Meese Box 22, OA9947, Immigration Policy CM#210; Joe Wright to Ed Meese, 4/27/83, Meese Box 23, OA 10246, “Immigration (1) folder; Statement of Administration Policy, H.R. 1510 — Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1983, 4/4/84, Meese Box 18 OA 9451, “Immigration and Refugee Matters (1) folder; William French Smith to the Honorable Peter W. Rodino Jr., 7/27/83, Bach Box 2 OA 12740, Refugee and Immigration (1) folder, RRPL. Cost estimates were included in every discussion of this issue, with four-year estimates for the administration’s proposal coming in at $1.4–1.7 billion, compared with $4.4–$8.9 billion for Congress’s plan.

26. Joe Wright to Ed Meese, 4/27/83, Meese Box 23, OA 10246, “Immigration (1) folder; Statement of Administration Policy, H.R. 1510—Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1983, 4/4/84, Meese Box 18 OA 9451, “Immigration and Refugee Matters (1) folder; William French Smith to the Honorable Peter W. Rodino Jr., 7/27/83, Bach Box 2 OA 12740, Refugee and Immigration (1) folder, RRPL.

27. Fisher, Louis, “The Legislative Veto: Invalidated, It Survives,” Law and Contemporary Problems 56, no. 4 (Autumn 1993): 273–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28. INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983).

29. Fred F. Fielding to Edwin Meese III, James A. Baker III, and Kenneth M. Duberstein, 29 June 1983, 152000–153799, Box 15, IM, WHORM Subject File, RRPL.

30. Nathan, Richard P., “Federalism—the Great ‘Composition,’” in The New American Political System, 2nd ed., ed. King, Anthony (Washington, D.C., 1990), 231–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31. Discussion Memorandum, Re: Immigration Legislation, n.d., Meese Box 22, OA9947, Immigration Policy CM#210; Joe Wright to Ed Meese, 4/27/83, Meese Box 23, OA 10246, “Immigration (1) folder; Statement of Administration Policy, H.R. 1510—Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1983, 4/4/84, Meese Box 18 OA 9451, “Immigration and Refugee Matters (1) folder; William French Smith to the Honorable Peter W. Rodino Jr., 7/27/83, Bach Box 2 OA 12740, Refugee and Immigration (1) folder, RRPL.

32. Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 98th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, D.C., 1985), 231.

33. David Hiller to The Attorney General, 6/2/82; Cabinet Council on Legal Policy, 4/16/82; both in Meese Box 22, OA9947, Immigration Policy CM#210, RRPL.

34. Meeting with Senator Alan Simpson, 9/28/84, Presidential Briefing Papers, Box 10, DFOA 864, RRPL.

35. Daniels, Roger, Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882 (New York, 2004), 224–25.Google Scholar

36. The administration lost this issue, as the final bill specified that a warrant was necessary to search an open field.

37. To satisfy the labor needs of agricultural interests in the context of employer sanctions, the administration, western growers, and their representatives looked to a temporary worker program, also implemented by the executive branch. Tichenor, Dividing Lines, 255–60; Zolberg, A Nation by Design, 361–62.

38. Michael Uhlmann to Edwin Meese III, 9/17/83, Meese Box 23, OA10246; Statement of Administration Policy H.R. 1510—Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1983, 4/4/84, Meese Box 18 OA 9451, “Immigration and Refugee Matters (1) folder, RRPL.

39. Cannon, Lou, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (New York, 1991), 551–61;Google Scholar Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/popularity.php?pres=40 (accessed 27 April 2018).

40. “Attitudes on Immigration,” 26 July 1984, [Reagan-Bush 1984] Attitudes on Immigration, 26 July 1984 [1], OA 11586, Staff Files of Michael Deaver WHSOF, RRPL.

41. Edwin Meese III to Domestic Policy Council, 8 July 1985, Sprinkel, Box 7 of 9, OA17754, 10 July 1985 DPC (1), RRPL.

42. Minutes, Domestic Policy Council, 10 July 1985, Sprinkel, Box 7 of 9, OA17754, 10 July 1985 DPC (1).

43. Edwin Meese to the President, 11 July 1985; Tom G. to Pat, 11 July 1985; in FG010-03, Box 67 302976, RRPL.

44. Kelley, Christopher S., “A Matter of Direction: The Reagan Administration, the Signing Statement, and the 1986 Westlaw Decision,” William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal 16 (2007): 283–306;Google Scholar “The Law: Contextualizing the Signing Statement,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 37 (2007): 737–48.

45. For the signing statement as one of several “presidential power tools,” see Cooper, Phillip J., By Order of the President: The Use and Abuse of Executive Direct Action (Lawrence, Kans., 2002).Google Scholar

46. Cited in Kelley, “A Matter of Direction,” 286–87.

47. Edwin Meese III to Domestic Policy Council, 7 July 1986, Signing Statements (3 of 3), OA 15528, Staff Files of C. Christopher Cox WHSOF, RRPL. Peter J. Wallison to Donald T. Regan, 9 September 1986, Signing Statements (1 of 3), OA 15528, Staff Files of C. Christopher CoxWHSOF; T. Kenneth Cribb Jr. to The President, 29 May 1987, Signing Statements (1 of 3), OA 15528, C. Christopher Cox WHSOF, RRPL.

48. Zolberg, A Nation by Design, 364–70; Gimpel and Edwards, Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform, 170–77.

49. Peter J. Wallison to David L. Chew, 5 November 1986, Immigration Bill (1 of 4), OA 19146, Staff Files of Alan Charles Raul WHSOF, RRPL.

50. Remarks on Signing the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, 6 November 1986, available at John Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=36698&st=immigration+reform&st1 (accessed 2 May 2018).

51. Statement on Signing the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, 6 November 1986, available at John Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=36699 (accessed 2 May 2018).

52. Ibid.

53. Ibid. The signing statement went so far as to call the Commission on Agricultural Workers unconstitutional in its violation of the separation of powers because half its members were appointed by the legislature and half by the executive, but since the commission was purely advisory the matter was left there.

54. Statement on Signing the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

55. Ibid.

56. 401 U.S. 424 (1971).

57. Statement on Signing the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

58. Robert Pear, “Reagan Signs Landmark Bill on Immigration,” New York Times, 7 November 1986, A12.

59. See, on the example of affirmative action, Graham, Hugh Davis, “Civil Rights Policy,” The Reagan Presidency: Pragmatic Conservatism and Its Legacies, ed. Brownlee, W. Elliott and Graham, Hugh Davis (Lawrence, Kans., 2003), 283–92;Google Scholar and Graham, , Collision Course: The Strange Convergence of Affirmative Action and Immigration Policy in America (New York, 2002), 172–75.Google Scholar

60. On Reagan’s brand of conservatism and its application to immigration, see Ted V. McAllister, “Reagan and the Transformation of American Conservatism,” and Otis L. Graham Jr., “Failing the Test,” both in Brownlee and Graham, The Reagan Presidency.