Immigration Legislation of 1987

In 2019, ABC-CLIO published Michael C. LeMay's book, Immigration Reform: A Reference Handbook. The book is 368 pages of data, opinions, history, lists of resources, and more. It is a comprehensive reference of all the issues and the people who have worked on immigration reform. Available from the publisher, Abebooks.com or Amazon.

The book contains an essay that my dad, Berkley Bedell, and I wrote about the Congressional process that resulted in the Immigration Reform Law of 1987. Dad had some ideas about the process that would make it possible for immigration law to be fixed.

In 1987 Dad was in his final year as a member of Congress after serving a sprawling district in northwest Iowa for 12 years. He was one of 161 Democrats and 77 Republicans who voted to send the final bill to President Reagan for his signature. Dad believes that serious immigration legislation was possible in 1987 because Republicans and Democrats worked hard in committees to craft legislation. They didn't spend their time in Washington on the phone raising money. And the leadership did not control the legislative process by restricting what amendments members, both Republicans and Democrats, could suggest for legislation.

In the essay, Dad says, "There are two steps that could be taken very quickly which would make it possible for American to return to a process of making laws, including fair immigration laws, that would be in the best interest of America and demonstrate compassion for the plight of displaced persons. The first step is to remove money from the political process. ....[Then members of Congress] would think about what is in the best interest of their constituents and country...

"Second, the partisan structure of organizing legislative work needs to be returned to a committee structure....The committee structure benefits from the insights of all members of Congress."

While admitting that the 1987 immigration law was not perfect, Dad believes that the law moved the country in a good direction. Some things did not work out as intended. For example, the law made it a criminal offense to hire an illegal alien. In the years that followed both Republican and Democratic administrations have not enforced this law, so employers soon learned that it is safe to hire people without proper papers. 

There were somethings that were not foreseen. They didn't anticipate the increased demand for foreign workers or the problems resulting from children being brought to the United States at a young age without documentation.

The essay ends with a belief that I share with my dad. "...if we take money out of politics and return to a committee structure of making laws, we can enact immigration laws that are fair to foreign workers and people who want to become Americans and will also promote an equitable and prosperous America."