Lessons of 1986 amnesty
(MCT) — CHICAGO — It was 1986, and Maria Mercedes Reyes remembers the rush of joy she felt as she sat in her Chicago church and learned that President Ronald Reagan had signed into law a historic overhaul of the nation’s immigration system.
The law offered a path to U.S. citizenship for the nearly 3 million people who, like her, were in the country illegally. The window of time to apply was short, and it would begin not long after Reyes heard about it that day in church.
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