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We speak student! According to Ronald Reagan a nation that cannot control it's

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borders is not a nation well this was an especially pertinent remark in the 1980s [rockstar pretending to play the guitar]

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when America was facing its first real crackdown on undocumented immigration

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from Latin America we'd cracked down on immigration earlier in our history

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specifically banning Chinese immigrants and severely limiting immigrants from

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other Asian countries as well as Jews from Eastern Europe all those laws were [immigrants approaching US border control officer]

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loosened up with the Immigration Act of 1965 which got rid of a lot of those

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racist ethnocentric ideas of the past sometimes retro just isnt't that cool

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which will be made all too clear the day mullets come back in style well this new

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[two people wearing stylish clothing with mullets] immigration law in 1965 with a cap on immigration from Latin America

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limiting it to 120,000 legal immigrants per year while the 1965 law replaced the

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previously instituted Bracero program that Congress had introduced to

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recruit agricultural workers to the states yep that's right they were invited [legal agricultural immigrant worker carrying a rake]

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to come workers from Mexico were recruited to fill the farm labor

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shortages that America was facing after World War two after they had completed

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their labor contract in America Braceros were sent back to Mexico but

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[US Border officer ordering immigrant family out of their home] many of the workers who put down roots and sometimes started families in

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America weren't so keen on going back so they boarded a train for Mexico and then

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turn right back around and attempted to re-enter the country without visas by

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the 1980s it was estimated that there were between three and five million

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undocumented immigrants living in this country most of them from Mexico to

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combat these ever growing numbers Congress passed the immigration reform [congress meeting taking place]

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and Control Act of 1986 or the Irca this was giving some Americans angina

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and it wasn't from an increase in delicious Mexican food the requires that

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Latin American immigrants were taking jobs from Americans which of course is [latin american man holding his arms aloft in a warehouse]

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highly debatable the irca took a three-pronged approach to deal with the

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immigration issue prong number one stricter

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penalties for the Americans employing undocumented workers and paying them low [employee with his feet up among stacks of dollar bills]

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wages under the table prong two stronger border controls to stem the flow from

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Mexico prong 3 amnesty to undocumented immigrants who

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have been in the country for at least five years wiping the slate clean for [latin american family smiling through a window to a US border control officer]

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over 3 million people and giving them a legal path for citizenship well the

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passing of Irca forever changed the way immigration immigrants are viewed in

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America for instance employer sanctions got the thumbs up from many labor unions [union labor workers smiling with their thumbs up]

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well the unions hoped sanctions would stop the exploitation of undocumented

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workers well also they wanted to prevent employers from being able to turn

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undocumented immigrants into strike breakers well unfortunately the [employees protesting outside a workplace]

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government has been pretty slack about enforcing these sanctions yeah who has the

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time right and when they have been they've mostly led to increase the

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employer discrimination against all immigrants documented and undocumented [man deciding which door to enter]

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or even against Latinos in general while deportations have also increased

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undocumented immigrants have come to be seen more and more as criminals maybe the [immigrants on a boat sailing away from the country]

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biggest effect of the Irca has been to shift Mexican immigration away from

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temporary seasonal migration to permanent settled immigration basically

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when you put a giant fence up and make crossing the border potentially deadly [two people stood at a giant fence trying to climb over]

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people are less likely to want to go back and forth because facing death isn't

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top on most people's bucket list so even though the intentions of Irca [a piece of paper with a list of items on a bucket list]

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may have been good the flood of negative consequences made it seem like a mixed

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bag know kind of like they're one of those dodgy snack mixes well sure there

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are some tasty cashews cheesy crackers and salty pretzels and M&M's [boy sitting at a table with a bowl of snacks and a rabbit]

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there's also something suspiciously like something a rabbit may have put there

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