What Happened to Worksite Enforcement?: A Cautionary Tale of Failed Immigration Reform

This book examines one of the most consequential failures in the recent history of American governance: the failure of the federal government to stop illegal immigration by enforcing the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). As a result of that failure, IRCA has never come close to the goal that President Ronald Reagan identified when he signed it into law. Reagan said the legislation was intended to "establish a reasonable, fair, orderly, and secure system of immigration." In a more precise formulation, a Department of Justice report in 1996 said the goal was "to reduce the magnet of jobs that draws illegal immigrants to this country and preserve those jobs for U.S. citizens and aliens authorized to work in the U.S." This report is an examination of how and why that failure happened.