Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy Established, Framework for 1986 Reform

President Jimmy Carter signs legislation establishing the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy (SCIRP), a sixteen-member bipartisan body charged with conducting a comprehensive review of U.S. immigration policy and recommending reforms. Chaired by Father Theodore Hesburgh, president of the University of Notre Dame, the commission includes four cabinet members, four senators, four representatives, and four public members. The commission’s work establishes the intellectual framework for the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, with members Alan Simpson and Romano Mazzoli later sponsoring that legislation.

SCIRP’s final report, delivered in 1981, recommends a three-pronged approach: legalization for undocumented immigrants already present, enhanced border enforcement, and employer sanctions to reduce hiring incentives for future unauthorized immigration. This “grand bargain” framework—legalization in exchange for enforcement—becomes the template for subsequent reform attempts. The commission explicitly frames immigration as an economic issue rather than a security threat, emphasizing labor market impacts and integration challenges rather than criminality or terrorism.

The commission’s work demonstrates both the possibilities and limitations of bipartisan immigration policy development. Its recommendations achieve partial implementation in 1986 IRCA, with legalization succeeding but employer sanctions failing due to business resistance and inadequate enforcement resources. The commission’s careful research and measured recommendations contrast sharply with subsequent immigration debates characterized by demonization and emergency framing. The Hesburgh Commission represents a lost model of technocratic policy development that immigration restrictionists later supplant with crisis narratives and racial anxiety. Its failure to achieve lasting reform despite producing consensus recommendations reveals structural barriers to immigration policy rationalization: business interests opposing meaningful employer sanctions, nativist movements demanding enforcement without legalization, and politicians benefiting from perpetual crisis rather than resolution.