Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush protected a higher percentage of illegal immigrants with executive orders than President Barack Obama did, Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said recently. But did they?
President Donald Trump’s position on immigration was “a complete departure of Republican presidents” like Reagan and Bush, Pelosi said during a press conference. “President Reagan was great on immigration. He did more than Congress did after the Congress passed a bill. President George Herbert Walker Bush was great on immigration,” Pelosi added.
Congress passed and Reagan signed legislation in 1986 granting legal status to 2.7 million illegal immigrants, but many children and spouses of those who got amnesty were ineligible. Once Bush expanded the program to include spouses, only about 47,000 people applied for the program. This amounts to about one percent of the 3.5 million illegal immigrants in the country in 1990.
A much larger percentage of the illegal immigrant population took advantage of Obama’s executive orders establishing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. About 800,000 illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. when they were minors — seven percent of the 11.3 million illegal immigrants in the country today — received deferred action from deportation and eligibility for a work permit through DACA.
Why did Pelosi make this false claim? It was likely an attempt to cut Trump off from his Republican base. With the fight over DACA brewing, she wants to make Trump seem like his immigration stance is radical compared to conservative icons like Reagan. But Reagan and H. W. Bush didn’t want porous borders anymore than Trump does.
As Ronald Reagan once said, “A nation that cannot control its boarders is not a nation.”
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