By Allan Wall
11/15/2014
Republicans still look back with nostalgia at the Reagan Era. After all, what post-Reagan Republican leader has exhibited the Great Communicator’s talent and winningness?
So, the AP has dredged up an example of Reagan doing something for illegal aliens which it likens to Obama’s planned unilateral amnesty:
President Barack Obama’s anticipated order that would shield millions of immigrants now living illegally in the U.S. from deportation is not without precedent.AP’s Moral to Republicans: It’s OK, Reagan did it. So shut up about it.Two of the last three Republican presidents — Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — did the same thing in extending amnesty to family members who were not covered by the last major overhaul of immigration law in 1986.
There was no political explosion then comparable to the one Republicans are threatening now … ..
In 1986, Congress and Reagan enacted a sweeping overhaul that gave legal status to up to 3 million immigrants without authorization to be in the country, if they had come to the U.S. before 1982. Spouses and children who could not meet that test did not qualify, which incited protests that the new law was breaking up families.
Early efforts in Congress to amend the law to cover family members failed. In 1987, Reagan’s Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner announced that minor children of parents granted amnesty by the law would get protection from deportation … .
Reagan, Bush also acted alone to shield immigrants, By Andrew Taylor, AP, Nov. 15, 2014
What the Reagan administration did was take action to include family members of people who were already eligible for amnesty. At the time, it wasn’t so controversial.
But so what? Reagan wasn’t perfect. For example, he dragged the Bush family into the White House. Now it’s hard to keep them out of it.
Reagan’s 1986 amnesty was an absolute disaster,and he should never have signed it.
It’s a lesson from history. A Republican president signed amnesty, and his party failed to benefit from it. The amnesty only made things worse.
It’s 2014 now, let’s learn from the past, avoid the mistakes of the past and live in the present.
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