IMMIGRATION CONTROL REFORM ACT OF 1986:EFFECTS ON THE COMPETITIVENESS OF
The Immigration Reform Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 was directed at the use of illegal aliens generally by American employers, as opposed to being directed specifically at American agricultural employers.1 Nevertheless, American agricultural employers, particularly those located in California, were quick to perceive potential problems in the law for the American agricultural sector, and sought an amendment to the law to permit farmers to bring in foreign workers.2 The American agricultural employers did not prevail in this quest.
The contentious debate over the effects of the ICRA of 1986 on the American agricultural sector since the law's implementation have largely mirrored the a similar debate two decades earlier concerning the use of imported Mexican field hands by American agricultural employers primarily those located in California and Texas. The earlier program that resulted in such intense debate was the Bracero Program. The word "bracero" is a corruption of the Spanish word for "arms" "abrazo."3 A
1R. K. Robinson and D. L. Gilbertson, "The Immigration Reform Control Act of 1986: Employer Liability in the Employment of Undocumented Workers," Labor Law Journal, 38 (October 1987): 658 664.
2"Immigration: One Up to California," The Economist, 28 September 1985, 33 34.
3V. M. Briggs, Jr., "Non Immigrant Labor Policy in the United States," Journal of Economic Issues, 17 (September 1983): 609 630.
literal translation of the word into English is a descriptive designation of someone who works with his or her arms. In the United States, the word was used to describe a Mexican citizen who was permitted by law to work in this country as an agricultural field hand.
From July 1951 through December 1964, the Bracero Program was institutionalized in government policy in the United States. During this period Mexican agricultural workers ent...