“I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here even though sometime back they may have entered illegally,” President Reagan told Americans during his second debate with former Vice President Mondale in 1984.

Two years later, Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which created a path to citizenship for the then-estimated 5 million or so illegal immigrants thought to be living in the United States.

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