Republished October 05, 2016 - 6:01 AM
Original Publication Date October 04, 2016 - 7:50 PM
WASHINGTON - KAINE: "Our plan is like Ronald Reagan in 1986."
THE FACTS: Hillary Clinton's immigration plan is certainly similar to a bill signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. But Clinton's proposal would offer a path to citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally and would have far broader impact. The estimated population of immigrants living in the United States illegally is now roughly 11 million. In 1986, the so-called Reagan amnesty bill legalized the immigration status of about 3 million people.
There are also some notable differences between the so-called amnesty bill signed by Reagan and Clinton's proposal. The Reagan bill included a provision that made it illegal for businesses to hire workers who don't have the legal right to work in the United States. Enforcement of that provision has never fully materialized.
While Clinton's proposal does include a proposal to deport criminal immigrants, the plan also includes a plan to roll back a law that bars most immigrants who had lived here illegally from returning after either deportation or voluntarily leaving for three or 10 years, depending on how long the person had been living here. That provision actually became law in 1996, while President Bill Clinton was in office but was considered a follow-on to the bill Reagan signed.
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Contributed by Associated Press writer Alicia Caldwell.
EDITOR'S NOTE _ A look at the veracity of claims by political figures
News from © The Associated Press, 2016