Speaker 1: Hi listeners, just a quick heads up out of the
Speaker 1: shadows tell stories of people fleeing and living in sometimes
Speaker 1: violent environments. M M. There are two old portraits that
Speaker 1: I like to imagine are hanging in a home in Wyoming.
Speaker 1: One is much older than the other. It's faded and
Speaker 1: feathered at the edges, so that the man's suit in
Speaker 1: the photo starts to disappear into the background. He's got
Speaker 1: a nice soft phase, a square jaw that underlines his frown.
Speaker 1: The man has sunken eyes that look like they've seen
Speaker 1: some thing's. Eyes that saw a dangerous boat ride from
Speaker 1: Holland across the North Atlantic Ocean to the United States
Speaker 1: as a child, Eyes that saw both his parents die
Speaker 1: trying to make it in America. Eyes that grew up
Speaker 1: in an orphanage. Eyes that saw railroads being built to
Speaker 1: the west. Eyes that struggled and fought and made their
Speaker 1: own way. Eyes that fought for a better life for
Speaker 1: his children, Which brings us to the second portrait. It's
Speaker 1: of the man's daughter. She's a regal looking woman with
Speaker 1: the same sunken eyes as her father, but she's not frowning.
Speaker 1: She's actually smiling. She's vibrant, even in black and white.
Speaker 1: Her eyes tell a different story. These are eyes that
Speaker 1: learned to play the piano and the organ, eyes that
Speaker 1: love to sing, eyes that studied art and loved to
Speaker 1: travel all over the world. They are happy eyes of
Speaker 1: an actress, of a mom, of a diplomat, Eyes that
Speaker 1: are witnesses to the fact that the American dream for
Speaker 1: immigrants like her father, reached new heights in their children.
Speaker 1: The man with the sunken eyes so immigrated from Holland
Speaker 1: is Peter Coy, and the woman and the other photo,
Speaker 1: his bright eyed daughter, is Lorna Coy. And the house
Speaker 1: in Wyoming where I imagine myself standing looking at these
Speaker 1: two portraits belongs to a six ft seven giant named
Speaker 1: Alan K. Simpson, Peter's grandkid and Lorna's youngest son, who
Speaker 1: would go on to lead the fight to pass the
Speaker 1: Immigration Reform and Control Act of better known as IRKA,
Speaker 1: the amnesty bill that would give millions of children of immigrants,
Speaker 1: a whole new generation of Americans the same shot his
Speaker 1: own mother had to live a life out of the shadows.
Speaker 1: I'm Patti Rodriguez, and I'm rid Glendo, and this is
Speaker 1: out of the shadows. Children of eighty six. Immigrants and
Speaker 1: their children have long lived in the shadows of America.
Speaker 1: Their destinies aren't just shaped by where they come from,
Speaker 1: but by their particular place in history. In the lives
Speaker 1: of millions of immigrants and their children were changed by
Speaker 1: one lucky stroke of a pen by an unlikely ally,
Speaker 1: President Ronald Reagan. This podcast will examine the ripple effects
Speaker 1: the bill had on first generation kids of immigrants, who
Speaker 1: are navigating intergenerational mobility and transforming the cultural landscape. This
Speaker 1: is an untold story of luck, timing, triumph, opportunity, survival,
Speaker 1: and of course hope. So remember when I called you
Speaker 1: Eric and I told you that Ellen Simpson just called
Speaker 1: me back. Of course I do, Okay, the time you
Speaker 1: go what happened? I said, hello, this is Putty and
Speaker 1: yeah it was him, And I got nervous and excited
Speaker 1: at the same time. Do you remember I probably was crying. Huh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you were like, I can't believe he called me.
Speaker 1: And he's still very sharp, he still has he's ninety
Speaker 1: years old and he's very very sharp. Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: very charismatic, and I did not think I was going
Speaker 1: to get emotional, you know, like they say that when
Speaker 1: you're about to die, your life just flashes before your eyes.
Speaker 1: Like that sort of happened to me when I heard
Speaker 1: his voice and I was able to quickly reflect on
Speaker 1: everything that my life has been up to this point.
Speaker 1: I realized right there and then that because of this
Speaker 1: man that just called me is why I'm here, And
Speaker 1: that is really crazy to wrap your head around. When
Speaker 1: we finally got to talk to him, Hello, hello, Mr Simpson. Yes,
Speaker 1: now here we are, he definitely lived up to the
Speaker 1: hype of like Allen Simpson is known as like a
Speaker 1: tough ass, take no nonsense like guy from Wyoming, and
Speaker 1: that is exactly who he is. But I should believe me,
Speaker 1: I'm not here to listen to a bunch of ships
Speaker 1: from a guy who haven't even been through the wars
Speaker 1: that I have mumbling about retol And what I find
Speaker 1: even more interesting, and because one bringing it up is
Speaker 1: that he's a Republican. Yeah, it's funny to think now
Speaker 1: like that it even matters to be like, oh he's
Speaker 1: a Republican, of course she's not gonna like immigration, or
Speaker 1: he's a Democrat, of course he's going to be pro immigration.
Speaker 1: But there was a time when immigration wasn't really like
Speaker 1: Democrat or Republican issue, but it was always like very hard.
Speaker 1: It seemed like they just could not figure it out
Speaker 1: for the longest time. Yeah, you know, in the past,
Speaker 1: it seemed like both parties were able to come together
Speaker 1: to find solutions to big issues, but immigration reform has
Speaker 1: always been a huge fight. The story of immigration policies
Speaker 1: really can be told through two signs. One says help wanted,
Speaker 1: and the other says keep out. That's author Charles Kamasaki,
Speaker 1: who wrote a book about Urka. There have been dozens
Speaker 1: of attempts at immigration reform even before Urka, versions of
Speaker 1: that legislation had been proposed and passed one House or another,
Speaker 1: literally since nineteen seventy two. One of those bills was
Speaker 1: pushed forward by Jimmy Carter, who was president right before
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan. The illegal immigration will increase, American job will
Speaker 1: be lost, the Japanese and others will move in and
Speaker 1: take over the market, said basically and rightly. That's President
Speaker 1: Carter talking about the ramifications of a weekend Mexican economy.
Speaker 1: Like most of US presidents, Carter had a conflicting view
Speaker 1: on immigration. In the last episode, we told you that
Speaker 1: President Carter was the first to quote weaponize our border,
Speaker 1: but Carter was also the first president to try and
Speaker 1: make something like Urica happened. Carter's plan had increased border patrol,
Speaker 1: sanctions for businesses hiring undocumented workers, and a path to legalization.
Speaker 1: But what it didn't have was any bipartisan support. When
Speaker 1: most of those bills were first proposed, they were called
Speaker 1: in the Washington vernacular, you know, dead on arrival, meaning
Speaker 1: it had no chance. But the legacy of Carter's failed
Speaker 1: plan was establishing a bipartisan committee of politicians. It wasn't
Speaker 1: led by politicians, though, it was led by a priest,
Speaker 1: the president of Notre Dame University, Father Ted Hasburg. First
Speaker 1: of all, I only took jobs I felt I could
Speaker 1: do well as a priest because there's some moral issue involved,
Speaker 1: like forgiveness in the case of the Vietnam offenders, or
Speaker 1: justice in the case of civil rights, or justice in
Speaker 1: the case of immigration and refugee policy. Those are all
Speaker 1: things I felt as both an educator and a priest,
Speaker 1: I could do sincerely without compromising myself in any way
Speaker 1: and without taking money for it. Father Hasburg and his
Speaker 1: commission were asked to study the immigration issue and come
Speaker 1: up with a solution, a solution to what Kamasaki says
Speaker 1: was one of the most important issues at the center
Speaker 1: of the American century. Immigration is one of those issues
Speaker 1: that goes right to the heart of American identity. What
Speaker 1: are our values to what do we owe other people
Speaker 1: in the world with respect to what our interests are?
Speaker 1: Who are we what do we stand for as a country?
Speaker 1: What do we stand for? What are our values? Well,
Speaker 1: it depends on who you ask, because immigration has always
Speaker 1: divided this country, and in the eighties it was no different.
Speaker 1: On one side, you have this bipartisan committee led by
Speaker 1: a priest, and on the other hand, this narrative that
Speaker 1: Mexican and Central American immigrants were stealing jobs from good
Speaker 1: old blue color Americans and people like our parents were
Speaker 1: being hunted. Because in the late seventies and eighties it
Speaker 1: was open season for lamigra Here's immigrant rights active as
Speaker 1: Larry Kleinman Amiga would shamelessly and recklessly racially profile anybody
Speaker 1: who was brown. I'll cost them, ask them for their papers,
Speaker 1: arrest them if they couldn't produce them or admitted they
Speaker 1: were they didn't have any The raids were awful. They
Speaker 1: weren't just going to people's homes knocking doors looking for
Speaker 1: someone on a list. They would also barge into nightclubs
Speaker 1: to prey on hundreds of people enjoying a night out
Speaker 1: with friends. LAMGA began detaining anyone that appeared Mexican. It
Speaker 1: didn't matter if you are US citizen living here legally.
Speaker 1: If you looked Mexican, you could get kidnapped, arrested, and charged.
Speaker 1: And the raids happened all across the country, in parks, warehouses,
Speaker 1: the fields, anywhere you'd find Mexican and Central American communities.
Speaker 1: La migra who just round them up. You can hear
Speaker 1: the trauma they cost in the voices of the people
Speaker 1: who witnessed them firsthand, like hote Erardo Lopez, I don't.
Speaker 1: He says the raps were atrocious. Lopez was a reporter
Speaker 1: based in Los Angeles for Opinion at that time, where
Speaker 1: he wrote about immigration. He was living in a serino
Speaker 1: in commuting to the newspaper's headquarters in downtown l A.
Speaker 1: And on the way home after spending the day covering
Speaker 1: the news writing about these exact issues, he witnessed things
Speaker 1: that shook him to his cores and equal equal. He
Speaker 1: saw the migra round up dozens of people from his
Speaker 1: community that looked just like him, on their knees with
Speaker 1: their hands tied behind their backs, humiliated. It is heartbreaking
Speaker 1: and demoralizing, and Lopez says it happened all the time
Speaker 1: SACas Alas. He says immigration agents would jump on busses
Speaker 1: and demand to see people's papers. They also rated factories.
Speaker 1: Here's Kleinman again. The raids really picked up around nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy in the Nixon administration. I stepped into this space
Speaker 1: V six, and they really accelerated through the Carter years
Speaker 1: and UH and the Reagan years. Every district office seemed
Speaker 1: to have a quota of arrests that they were directed
Speaker 1: to make, and so their strategy was to try to
Speaker 1: go where there was a concentration of people. According to
Speaker 1: journalist Marie Lena Salinas, the fear was so strong that
Speaker 1: it actually kept some people from even talking king about immigration.
Speaker 1: They were afraid of lamiga, they were afraid of raids.
Speaker 1: They happened mostly like in public gatherings, you know. Then
Speaker 1: people were would run away and they would hide. It
Speaker 1: was either embarrassment or fear of talking about their immigration status,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't really an issue. It wasn't a subject
Speaker 1: that people talked about. However, the rates became so common,
Speaker 1: lopezs migrants developed a system to warn each other from
Speaker 1: being targeted a latinos are you know? And back then
Speaker 1: there was no Twitter or Facebook. They would alert one
Speaker 1: another through word of mouth as soon as they detected
Speaker 1: any hints of a raid. God, imagine living like that,
Speaker 1: you know, strange enough. I have this really vague memory,
Speaker 1: and I know it might sound crazy because I must
Speaker 1: have been two years old at that time, but I
Speaker 1: still remember that feeling, and I can't describe this feeling.
Speaker 1: Is just a feeling of fear. When my dad came
Speaker 1: home and told us that his warehouse had just been rated,
Speaker 1: and talking to him, I told him that I remembered,
Speaker 1: and we talked about it. He hid inside a large
Speaker 1: garment box while the ian is rounded up all his coworkers.
Speaker 1: Three busses full of men and women that did not
Speaker 1: make it back home to their families that night. No,
Speaker 1: this wasn't the first time it happened to my dad.
Speaker 1: My mom actually told me about this one time. My
Speaker 1: dad and my theos got caught in a raid at
Speaker 1: the factory they were working at. This was before I
Speaker 1: was born. The Isanis agents questioned them and they started
Speaker 1: to pick up their relatives in the neighborhood. And my
Speaker 1: mom she saw as my dad and my deals were
Speaker 1: being taken away. I remember of us and came to
Speaker 1: the apartments where we used to live and got a
Speaker 1: pattista and the and the cousins, you know, the counsins,
Speaker 1: you know, the kids were from here. But the Mira
Speaker 1: got everybody in the family, you know. Thankfully for my mom,
Speaker 1: she benefited from the warning system. And a lady told me, Hi,
Speaker 1: go rue, He told me because the migras coming. So
Speaker 1: somebody helped me. A friend. I had a friend and
Speaker 1: the second Florida department, So she got me and uh
Speaker 1: and hide me in her apartment. This is so heartbreaking
Speaker 1: in and traumatic, and somehow many of our parents lived
Speaker 1: to tell it. During all of this, Father Hesburg and
Speaker 1: his commission were trying to come up with a solution,
Speaker 1: and at this time, the country's leadership was evenly split
Speaker 1: between the Democrats and Republicans. Here's Marie Lena Salina's again,
Speaker 1: it was actually bipartisan Congress that gave us legalization. They
Speaker 1: felt that theers were helping their communities. They were doing
Speaker 1: the jobs that no one else wanted to do. They
Speaker 1: were the you know, the owners, not only the workers,
Speaker 1: but the owners of the restaurants that a lot of
Speaker 1: people frequent. They were the farm workers. Thanks to them,
Speaker 1: we were able to have you know, food on our table.
Speaker 1: According to Dr Rica Figueroa, the Commission was created by
Speaker 1: the Bipartisan Congress for a very cific reason. URKA was
Speaker 1: supposed to control undocumented workers, and in fact, after KA,
Speaker 1: the number of one document workers increased. The growers also said,
Speaker 1: everybody is going to be eating tomatoes growing in Mexico
Speaker 1: because we're not going to be able to grow tomatoes
Speaker 1: or rapples or whatever in the US because we don't
Speaker 1: have the labor. And so this incredible humanitarian crisis, combined
Speaker 1: with the fear that the country was going to collapse
Speaker 1: without immigrant labor, left the door wide open for someone
Speaker 1: to step up and change everything into the straight shooting,
Speaker 1: powerful Republican senator who just wasn't having it well. I should,
Speaker 1: of course, ship I'm not preparing a Republican immigration bill.
Speaker 1: It has to be an American immigration Bill. Out of
Speaker 1: this Attos will be right back now back to the show.
Speaker 1: Alan Kay Simpson was born in y one in Denver, Colorado,
Speaker 1: the son of Millard Simpson, former Senator and governor of Wyoming,
Speaker 1: and Laura coy He first generation Dutch American. Simpson had
Speaker 1: a long career in politics, serving as a House member
Speaker 1: and most notably the Senate Whip, a powerful position in
Speaker 1: the Senate that's charged with getting senators to vote a
Speaker 1: certain way. Here's author Charles Kumasaki, Senator from Wyoming, Republican Conservative.
Speaker 1: He was a larger than life figure. In addition to
Speaker 1: being six ft seven, he had a personality that's even
Speaker 1: larger than you know his height. Ah. He's funny, profane, clever, smart, tough,
Speaker 1: almost like the Central Casting version of you know what
Speaker 1: a U. S. Senator from the West would be like.
Speaker 1: But before he was a state senator, before he wrote
Speaker 1: the amnesty bill, Simpson was a lawyer in Wyoming, and
Speaker 1: that was when he first witnessed the struggles undocumented people
Speaker 1: had getting even the smallest amount of justice. I was
Speaker 1: a practicing lawyer in Cody, Wyoming, and down the valley
Speaker 1: was for the sugar beet people. And a man came
Speaker 1: into my office one day of His name was Ducio Villario,
Speaker 1: remembering the well distinctly, and he said, I understand you
Speaker 1: will help people like me. I said, well, what's up?
Speaker 1: He said, well, I bought a car from Dick Saul
Speaker 1: who was the president of the Chamber of Commerce and Cody,
Speaker 1: and he said, I hadn't even driven a power which
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one mile away when found out it was
Speaker 1: that the transmission was filled with sawdust. And no one
Speaker 1: will take this case because this fellow is the chair
Speaker 1: president of the Chamber of Commerce. So I said, I'll
Speaker 1: take it. I took it. I took it, and uh
Speaker 1: present the Chamber of Commerce was piste, so beyond believe.
Speaker 1: As an attorney, Simpson also fought for sanitation rights for
Speaker 1: valsettos who would come to harvest beats. Then there were
Speaker 1: people here and then oh, there's some of us who
Speaker 1: insisted upon privacy in the fields toilets, and we said, well,
Speaker 1: that's that's inappropriate. These moments helped shape Sinson's views on
Speaker 1: the rights of immigrants in this country. But I also
Speaker 1: like to think that his own personal connection influenced him too,
Speaker 1: which brings us back to those two portraits we talked
Speaker 1: about at the top of the show. Simpson was the
Speaker 1: grandson of Peter Coey, the man in the photo, the
Speaker 1: immigrant who came with nothing and rose to be a
Speaker 1: prominent businessman, who gave his daughter Simpson's mom lorna generational
Speaker 1: wealth and privilege that I believe was only possible because
Speaker 1: Peter didn't have to live in the shadows. I asked
Speaker 1: Centator Simpson about his motivations. I wanted to know why
Speaker 1: he decided to write this bill that would give me,
Speaker 1: Patty and millions of others the same shot his mom got,
Speaker 1: to give a legal protected status to our parents, people
Speaker 1: like his own grandfather. I wanted to know if it
Speaker 1: was personal or if it was political. Did you feel
Speaker 1: like this was just a good business idea or a
Speaker 1: practical idea, or was there was there anything you thought
Speaker 1: personally about, you know, what seemed fair at all. I
Speaker 1: don't know how you cannot say that I didn't have
Speaker 1: those feelings. What the hell are you talking about. Let's
Speaker 1: just do an honest story and then the audience will
Speaker 1: either pick it up or understand it, or they won't.
Speaker 1: I don't question his motivations at all. That's Charles Komisaki again.
Speaker 1: Senator Simpson was from a place with Wyoming with very
Speaker 1: few immigrants, and uh he took on this role, he says,
Speaker 1: and I have ever reason to believe him because he
Speaker 1: thought it was important for the country and that he
Speaker 1: felt like it was only somebody like him from a
Speaker 1: state that didn't have a lot of immigration that that
Speaker 1: could really take the political heat for moving um and
Speaker 1: sponsoring this kind of legislation. I think for me, what
Speaker 1: sort of seals my belief that Senator Alan Kay Simpson
Speaker 1: never let go of his immigrant heritage is the K
Speaker 1: in his name, the middle initial Alan Coey Simpson. It's
Speaker 1: a small thing, to be sure, but my middle name
Speaker 1: is my mom's maiden name too, And I don't know
Speaker 1: that's enough for me, I guess, but the five for
Speaker 1: IRKA wasn't easy, even for a hard ass like Simpson.
Speaker 1: This is a bill that died multiple times before it
Speaker 1: was enacted. In Father Headsburg of the Immigration Commission submitted
Speaker 1: a plan which basically became IRKA. Reagan announced right away
Speaker 1: that he will support the Commission's proposal, but he wasn't
Speaker 1: really that involved. After that, President Reagan was, and the
Speaker 1: administration more broadly was somewhat engaged in the bill, but
Speaker 1: not nearly to the extent that that some other administrations
Speaker 1: have been involved in in signature bill as you know,
Speaker 1: think of the Obama administration and the Affordable Care Act.
Speaker 1: While they were, you know, in every meeting, Simpson says,
Speaker 1: he kept breaking updated, especially when people in his own
Speaker 1: party began to oppost the bill. And one people begin
Speaker 1: to tear my ass off a month of Republican Party.
Speaker 1: I just call him, I say, Ron, where are you
Speaker 1: on this one? Well, what's up? Oh? Yeah, I know
Speaker 1: you're moving the bill. I said, well, they're objecting to
Speaker 1: this or the funding or whatever it would be. And
Speaker 1: he'd said, go right ahead, and I knew I had
Speaker 1: him on the next year, the first draft of the
Speaker 1: bill was introduced to Congress. Simpson and a Democrat from
Speaker 1: Kentucky named Romano Massoli collaborated on the bill, and both
Speaker 1: were the sponsors for their respective parts of Congress. Imagine
Speaker 1: that a Democrat and a Republican putting inside their Twitter
Speaker 1: beef and coming together. It's like Bernie Sanders and Mitch
Speaker 1: McConnell agreeing on tax reform. The bill went by many
Speaker 1: names Urka to the Simpson Massoli Bill S two. They
Speaker 1: called it a three legged stool because it focused on
Speaker 1: three things, increased border patrol, finds for businesses, hiring undocumented workers,
Speaker 1: and a path to legal residency. Simpson introduced Urko in
Speaker 1: the Senate and it actually passed, but it didn't make
Speaker 1: it through the House. They had literally been voted down
Speaker 1: on the House floor and most people gave it up
Speaker 1: for dead, and Congressman Londren later described I think in
Speaker 1: the New York Times what his view was, which was
Speaker 1: it was a corpse. Simpson says, the first draft of
Speaker 1: the bill died because it was too expensive. The following year,
Speaker 1: Simpson tried again, reintroducing the bill as Urka. It went
Speaker 1: to a vote in the Senate and passed seventy to eighteen.
Speaker 1: And this time it did pass in the House, but
Speaker 1: there was a bunch of amendments, and just like that
Speaker 1: again it died. Complicated bills attracted opposition from a lot
Speaker 1: of different places. Um and you know, Congress just wasn't
Speaker 1: ready yet. Fast forward to Reagan is just starting his
Speaker 1: second term, and so is Allan Simpson, and once again
Speaker 1: here comes six ft Giant, the cowboy from Wyoming, Simpson
Speaker 1: walking into the Senate hoping for a different result. Well,
Speaker 1: when I came to the Senate, there was a discussion
Speaker 1: of the fact we hadn't done anything for thirty years.
Speaker 1: We're going to put it in the form of legislation,
Speaker 1: and we're going to do it in a bipartisan ways.
Speaker 1: You know, there's men never gave up. It's been already
Speaker 1: what five years. Whether Congress was ready or not remained
Speaker 1: to be seen. But for people living in the shadows,
Speaker 1: time was ticking away. You could go to work in
Speaker 1: the morning and not have any confidence that you'd come
Speaker 1: back that evening. According to Kleinman, Lamigra's raids continued to
Speaker 1: intensify as Congress debated the bill. Yeah, he was getting
Speaker 1: even worse than what we heard about earlier in the show.
Speaker 1: They had no compunctions about the places they went, uh schools,
Speaker 1: daycare center, movie theaters, the fields, of course, apartment buildings.
Speaker 1: The fear was palpable, and they also had the unbridled
Speaker 1: assistant active assistance of most local police departments at the time.
Speaker 1: UM That was one of our early struggles was to
Speaker 1: pressure and bring legal actions against local police who illegally
Speaker 1: enforced immigration laws. Madonado was undocumented and working long hours
Speaker 1: in a tiny textile factory in l A's garment district,
Speaker 1: ak Como. She says they would hear rumors, stories, reports
Speaker 1: that the amnesty bill was being negotiated, that they may
Speaker 1: have worked permits soon, that there was a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure from interested groups to get this done, and then
Speaker 1: one day the Migra descended in droves. She says that
Speaker 1: because her factory was so small, the owner just locked
Speaker 1: it up and they all sat quietly. The agents probably
Speaker 1: didn't even guess that people could work in such a
Speaker 1: small space, but the factory next door had a thousand workers.
Speaker 1: The scene, she describes, is so fucked up. Miga rated
Speaker 1: the place using every possible entryway. It's scary. They came
Speaker 1: in through the front, the back, the roof, the emergency exits, helicopters,
Speaker 1: police I n S vehicles. They rounded up every single
Speaker 1: one of those people, and the bill that Maldonado and
Speaker 1: her coworkers had hoped for was dying. Kamasaki says, there
Speaker 1: was just too many people stacked against it. I think
Speaker 1: the Latino organizations at the time LOLAC, I'm all death
Speaker 1: the National Council of lear RASA all felt like what
Speaker 1: was being sold as a as a moderate centrist bill
Speaker 1: was actually to enforcement oriented a number of business and
Speaker 1: kind of right leaning interests. The Chamber of Commerce supposed
Speaker 1: the legislation. They thought, uh, the government shouldn't be involved
Speaker 1: in their own hiring decisions. So it became a matter
Speaker 1: of a bill that some said had very little constituency
Speaker 1: in its favor, but a lot of constituencies lined up
Speaker 1: against it. Out of the shadows will be right back now,
Speaker 1: back to the show. Even Senators Simpson was ready to
Speaker 1: give up until they got a little help from a
Speaker 1: little known con risman from New York, Chuck Schumer. When
Speaker 1: I put the bill shot, he was congressman, and he
Speaker 1: came over and he said, you know, what do you
Speaker 1: What are you gonna do? I don't know. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna just gonna show. But no, no, no, don't do that.
Speaker 1: He said, I think part of it is the farm
Speaker 1: labor program. I said, well, that is just one part
Speaker 1: of it. He said, why don't I get an amendment
Speaker 1: together and see what you think. That led to a
Speaker 1: compromise between Simpson and a group of Democrats led by
Speaker 1: Peter Rodino. The compromise gave agricultural workers an easier way
Speaker 1: to get amnesty. It was called the Special Agricultural Worker
Speaker 1: Provision or SAW. Here's author Dr Enrique figaroa explaining how
Speaker 1: SAW changed everything. The SAW provision s a w seasonal
Speaker 1: act workers. That's said that if you could document that
Speaker 1: you worked ninety days in the seasonal at crop, then
Speaker 1: you were eligible to apply for legal status under SAW.
Speaker 1: And prior prior to Burka, the estimates were that somewhere
Speaker 1: between three hundred and five hundred thousand workers would qualify
Speaker 1: for sauce status. Okay, as it turned out there was
Speaker 1: one point three million. The grower community wanted more sauce
Speaker 1: because that meant that you would have a lot more
Speaker 1: you know, legalized labor force, and obviously the farm workers
Speaker 1: wanted to get legalized. It was a win win thing.
Speaker 1: Republicans believe that SAW would undermine US workers and labor protections,
Speaker 1: but Simpson was willing to make the deal with the Democrats.
Speaker 1: If you can't compromise an issue without compromising yourself, if
Speaker 1: you want to stay out of the Congress, and that's
Speaker 1: just what's wrong with people. The word compromise is a
Speaker 1: four letter word. You got the left wear and saying,
Speaker 1: you know, compromise my ass, and then you got the
Speaker 1: right war and saying, you know, compromise my ass for
Speaker 1: we're in the high My lawyer is a highway. And
Speaker 1: with the so amendment, URKA got considerable backing from the
Speaker 1: powerful agricultural lobby, which Kamasaki points out was a big win,
Speaker 1: especially when you consider they were big donors to Reagan's
Speaker 1: political campaigns. There were some quite strong um agricultural interests
Speaker 1: highly represented in in the Reagan administration. Right, Reagan was
Speaker 1: a governor from California, after all, and um agricultural growers
Speaker 1: had had long been important political players in that state.
Speaker 1: But victory for URKA was not assured because after it
Speaker 1: finally passed both chambers, it went to committee, where bills
Speaker 1: have to survive a series of amendments that could kill it,
Speaker 1: and Simpson says things got intense, and everything we talked
Speaker 1: about was filled with emotion, fear, guilt, and racism. There
Speaker 1: was one of men proposed by a Republican Senator from
Speaker 1: Arkansas named Ronald Caldwell. He put in an amendment in
Speaker 1: my bill at which damn near created it he said
Speaker 1: he wanted to make English the official language of the
Speaker 1: United States, and I had to take it out in
Speaker 1: a conference. I said, you know that that can't stay
Speaker 1: in here, because that's not what we're talking about. There
Speaker 1: was an attempt to give it more funding for border enforcement.
Speaker 1: Remember costs killed the bill back, and I said, well,
Speaker 1: you have to be aware of this. That if you
Speaker 1: if I raised that or suggested to the President, he
Speaker 1: will veto this bill. Everything hangs about his thread. He hadn't.
Speaker 1: I was. I was involved with immigration and so security
Speaker 1: reform and nuclear high level radiation and veterans affairs from
Speaker 1: many hell I never there was no open path for anything.
Speaker 1: Nothing scraft, that's what you do. And on the last
Speaker 1: night of the final vote, the part of the bill
Speaker 1: that in Simpson's mind, would have kept businesses from exploiting
Speaker 1: undocumented workers and kept the flow of undocumented immigrants down
Speaker 1: was being tested. There was a sentence in there that
Speaker 1: said that we were going to look or in more
Speaker 1: secure identifier system, the identifier or I D card that
Speaker 1: would have made it so anyone who got amnesty could
Speaker 1: prove they were legally allowed to work in the US.
Speaker 1: Was essentially seen by people as a national I d
Speaker 1: and by others as an unfair tax and grow over
Speaker 1: norkwist wanders of the hall in his white robes, getting
Speaker 1: people to vote against any taxes of any kind. He
Speaker 1: of the right said, this is a national id card,
Speaker 1: and that night lay it. At night they took that
Speaker 1: sentence out of the bill in the House, which took
Speaker 1: the guts right out of the bill, because then they
Speaker 1: the lawyers said, hell, we're not going to be the
Speaker 1: police from the world. Everybody banker stabbed him. It's not
Speaker 1: a pleasant it's not pleasant work. The next morning, the
Speaker 1: bill went up for a final vote. No more willing
Speaker 1: and dealing, no more arguing over the details of when
Speaker 1: and who would get amnesty, and no more chances. If
Speaker 1: the bill died this time, it was going to likely
Speaker 1: fade away into history like that Carter bill we mentioned
Speaker 1: at the top of the show. Simpson wasn't even sure
Speaker 1: he had the votes, but he gave one last speech
Speaker 1: paraphrasing the quote on the Statue of Liberty, give me
Speaker 1: your attire. You're poor, you're huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
Speaker 1: But instead of that, Simpson reportedly said, no fair. Quotes
Speaker 1: from the statue a liberty because it does not say
Speaker 1: on it send us everybody you got legally or illegally.
Speaker 1: Then the vote came. After years of fighting, exhausting long
Speaker 1: hours debating petty amendments, the bill passed sixty two. Senator
Speaker 1: Simpson hadn't been sleeping much throughout the process, with the
Speaker 1: occasional three hours sleep here and there, but after it
Speaker 1: passed he described it as quote absolutely one of the
Speaker 1: most extraordinary days of my life. I cannot really sleep.
Speaker 1: I am high as a kite. Simpson's journey with the
Speaker 1: bill is an inspiring tell that seems impossible and our
Speaker 1: current political climates. But Simpson fought for those who couldn't
Speaker 1: always fight for themselves, and in spite of all the
Speaker 1: wards that Erica might have, it is proof that progress
Speaker 1: wasn't always defined by a political party. For Simpson, it
Speaker 1: all started from helping the bassetto with his car trouble.
Speaker 1: Only a descendant of immigrants could have fought the way
Speaker 1: Simpson fought to pass the biggest immigration reform law in
Speaker 1: American history. And now, after years so fighting in Congress,
Speaker 1: the bill was finally in the hands of the President.
Speaker 1: Then I got a call from from Ed Mas who
Speaker 1: was then with the Justice Department, and he said, I
Speaker 1: think I'm going to recommend to the President of veto
Speaker 1: this bill next time on Out of the Shadows, we'll
Speaker 1: try and do what those people before have not been
Speaker 1: able to do, trying unraveled the mystery of what President
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan was thinking in when the bill landed on
Speaker 1: his desk. If you love this podcast, please help us
Speaker 1: get the word out by following, rating, reviewing, and sharing
Speaker 1: it with your friends. Out of the Shadows is written
Speaker 1: by Caesar Hernandez. It's also written, edited, hosted, an executive
Speaker 1: produced by Patti Rodriguez and Eric Galindo. It's produced by
Speaker 1: Bett Cardanas, Karen Lopez and Gabby Watts. It's sound design,
Speaker 1: mixed and mastered by Jesse nice Longer. Our studio engineer
Speaker 1: is Clay Hillenburg. Karen Garcia That's Me is our announcer.
Speaker 1: Out of the Shadows is the production of Seeing Me,
Speaker 1: Other Productions, and School of Humans in partnership with My
Speaker 1: Hearts Michael Dura Podcast Network. The podcast is also executive
Speaker 1: produced by Giselle Banzes, Virginian Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Chad Crowley.
Speaker 1: Our marketing and our team is led by Jasmine Meheia.
Speaker 1: Original music by a Arenas and if you loved his
Speaker 1: cover of Los Caminos a la viva this podcast theme song,
Speaker 1: you can listen to it on all music platforms. Historical
Speaker 1: audio for Out of the Shadows comes from the Reagan
Speaker 1: Presidential Library and the National Archives. Special thanks to Ian Vargas,
Speaker 1: Alex and Ali, Caitlin Becker, gob Chabran, Daisy Church, Angel
Speaker 1: Lopez Galindo, Julianna Gamis, Ryan Gordon, Brian Matheson, Claudia Marti, Corena,
Speaker 1: Oscar Ramirez, John Rodriguez, On Rodriguez, Joshua Sandoval, Eric Sclar,
Speaker 1: Tony Sorrentino, and Megan tan