G. Casey Cassidy
The refugee act of 1980 allowed for both a regular flow of refugees as well as emergency admissions. This action was prompted by the arrival of more than 400,000 refugees from southeast Asia between 1975 and 1980. In 1986, the Immigration and Reform Act imposed penalties on employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers. It also allowed illegal aliens who had lived in the United States since 1981 to become U.S. citizens as well as undocumented agricultural workers. Under this amnesty program, almost three million people gained legal status.
The Immigration Act of 1990 raised the limit on the number of immigrants to 675,000. The same act almost tripled the immigrant totals for people who had specialized skills and their families. When the Immigration Act of 1990 goes into full effect in 1995, over 71% of all immigration visas will go to family members of U.S. citizens and legal residents, 27% will go to specialized workers and their families, and about 8% will be given to immigrants from countries that have received very few visas in previous years. Immigration visas and restrictions are not a concern to our central characters, the Malanquez’s, because they resided in Puerto Rico, and Puerto Rico has been a possession of the United States since 1898 as a commonwealth.
