https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control_Act_of_1986

Like everything, it’s ultimately Reagan’s fault. This is the inevitable consequence of neoliberals and conservatives not understanding the system they’ve been sabotaging for fifty years.

The IRCA passed because the amnesty let people pretend it would be fair and a little reset of the state of law. Everyone already here is fine and dandy, let’s move forward with stricter borders.

What it and the other changes actually did was end the system of migrant workers following the harvest. Even funnier from the conservative/white supremacist perspective is that it actually increased illegal immigration because crossing the border was too big a risk. Now instead of being a temporary field worker heading home after your summer harvest you had to stay and start working construction or whatever.

Only now, instead of the government being a little salty you weren’t paying taxes, you get ethnically cleansed if you’re caught because you’ve been in the country for twenty years and it’s your new home.

Literally everyone is worse off and yet Farmer Tim here still sucks off President 666 and his ideological mushroom spawn because that’s what they’re told to do.

Here’s a thought: if your business model relies on exploiting immigrants, fuck you.