Amnesty For Immigrants Spurs Greater Employment in U.S.

Alejandrino Honorato’s journey began with a smuggler who led him across the Rio Grande, into the Texas desert with little food or water and finally to a field where he picked tobacco to pay his passage. Living illegally in a labor camp, he didn’t know lawmakers in Washington were deciding his future.

It was 1986 and Congress was weighing an amnesty plan to legalize millions of undocumented workers. Unemployment was 7 percent. Some lawmakers warned the change would overwhelm the economy and strain hospitals and schools. “Are we going to cause havoc?” said Representative Bill McCollum, a Florida Republican, as the House prepared to vote.