• kreskin@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      You’d think that’d be true judging by the modern republican party, but IRCA in 1986 under Reagan was about the only large scale amnesty program ever done in the US. It legalized 2.7 million undocumented immigrants, which was about 75% of the undocumented at the time. It required that they pay back taxes, had been here 4 years, and had “good moral character”, evidenced by no criminal history. Reagan was well aware of how critical immigrant labor was.

      Modern dems talk about these issues but are either unable to get it done or think along much more limited goals. The Dream act and then daca were targetted at minors who entered the US undocumented, not the general undocumented immigrant population.

      Reagan also appointed the first woman, Sandra Day Oconnor to the supreme court. He was full of paradoxes (he hated unions) and his personal life was an awful mess, but in some areas he’d be to the left of Biden.