From the Heritage Foundation, I'm Michelle Cordera, and this is Heritage Explains.

This week, we continue with part two of our special series on immigration.

Today we take a look back at the history of amnesty and the lessons we can learn moving forward.

Here's David and Sarah, a policy analyst in Heritage's Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for foreign policy.

One of the biggest pieces of legislation dealing with immigration was the 1986 Immigration Reform

and Control Act, also known as IRCA.

It was passed on a Ronald Reagan, but it's also sometimes known as IRCA. It was passing to Ronald Reagan,

but it's also sometimes known as Simpson-Mazzoli after the members of Congress who led the way

to it passing. President Reagan did sign the sweeping new immigration reform act today.

He said he protects the sacred possession of American citizenship.

Millions of illegal aliens will be eligible for amnesty and will be able to apply for legal

residency status, no questions asked.

This bill, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 that I'll sign in a few minutes,

is the most comprehensive reform of our immigration laws since

1952. It's the product of one of the longest and most difficult legislative undertakings in the last

three Congresses. Further, it's an excellent example of a truly successful bipartisan effort.

So what were some of the most important parts of that bill?

Yeah, so this bill was framed as a comprehensive bill to tackle both how we stop illegal immigration.

And the way they did that was they said, well, we're going to make it so that employers have to hire someone who,

they have to make sure that when they're

hiring people, that those people are actually allowed to work in the United States.

You know this as I-9 forms, which a lot of people have to fill out.

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