A President’s Day Reflection
Today is President’s Day, and while most people are enjoying a three-day weekend, I’m thinking about a president who changed my life forever. Not through a tweet, a press conference, or a political slogan. But through an act of moral courage that gave millions of people—including me and my parents—the chance to step out of the shadows and become legal permanent residents of the United States.
On November 6, 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act into law. Nearly three million people would eventually gain legal status through what Reagan himself called “amnesty.” My parents and I were three of them. We became permanent residents. Years later, in the early 2000s, I became a U.S. citizen.
The Journey to Pauma Valley
In 1976, my parents made a decision that would define all of our lives. They crossed into the United States with me, leaving everything behind in Mexico with nothing but the clothes on our backs and a dream that felt both impossible and necessary.
We settled in Pauma Valley, a small agricultural community in San Diego County tucked into the foothills of the Palomar Mountains. If you’ve never been there, picture rolling hills covered in citrus groves and avocado orchards, the kind of place where the air smells like orange blossoms in spring and where hard work was the only currency that mattered.
My parents didn’t speak English. We had no documentation, no safety net, no connections except for his kind employer, Verne and Joyce Maynard. What they had was a willingness to work harder than most people can imagine and a faith that America might actually be the place where effort and integrity still mattered.
My father found work doing what so many Mexican immigrants did in Pauma Valley—working the citrus and avocado groves owned by the Maynards. I can still picture him coming home after a full day’s work, his hands rough and stained, his back aching from bending over trees under that relentless California sun. He’d shower, eat whatever my mother had prepared, and collapse into sleep, only to wake up before dawn and do it all over again.
My mother found work as a housekeeper at the Pauma Valley Country Club. She cleaned rooms and made beds for members who drove luxury cars and played golf on manicured greens while she scrubbed their toilets and changed their sheets. They never knew her name. They never knew her story. They never knew that the woman making their beds left behind her entire family to give her son a chance at something better.
We lived with constant fear. Every knock on the door could be immigration. Every police car on the road could mean the end of everything. We were contributing—my parents paid sales taxes, bought groceries from local stores, attended church, were good neighbors. But legally, we didn’t exist.
I grew up undocumented. Think about what that means for a kid. I couldn’t tell anyone my real story. I couldn’t participate in things other kids did. I lived with this secret that made me feel invisible and hyper-visible at the same time. My parents were working themselves to exhaustion for me and eventually my three younger sisters, but I couldn’t even dream properly because there was no legal path forward.
A Conservative President’s Radical Compassion
Here’s what most people don’t remember about Ronald Reagan: he believed in amnesty.
Not as a political calculation. Not as a way to win votes. But because he fundamentally believed in human dignity and the American promise.
In a 1984 debate with Walter Mondale, Reagan said something that would be almost unthinkable for a Republican presidential candidate to say today: “I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.”
Think about that. The father of modern American conservatism, the man who challenged the Soviet Union to tear down walls, who believed in limited government and traditional values, looked at millions of undocumented people and saw not criminals or invaders, but human beings who deserved a chance.
Reagan’s own diaries reveal he was uncomfortable with the idea of a militarized border. In a meeting with Mexico’s president, he expressed hope that the U.S.-Mexico border could be “something other than the location for a fence.” His former speechwriter Peter Robinson noted that Reagan believed America was “fundamentally open to those who wanted to join us here.”
Senator Alan Simpson, one of the Republican authors of the 1986 law, recalled that Reagan was deeply concerned about the exploitation of undocumented people who had no legal protections: “Anybody who’s here illegally is going to be abused in some way, either financially or physically. They have no rights.”
This wasn’t just policy to Reagan. It was personal. He was a Californian. He saw Mexican immigrants working in fields, in kitchens, in construction. He saw their humanity.
November 6, 1986: The Day Everything Changed
When Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, our lives transformed overnight.
I remember my parents talking about it in hushed, hopeful tones. I remember the paperwork spread across our kitchen table. I remember my mother crying—not from sadness, but from relief so profound it had nowhere else to go.
Suddenly, we could exist. My father could work without fear. My mother could drive without panic. I could dream about going to college without that voice in my head saying, “But you can’t because you’re not really here.”
We paid $185 per person, which was a fortune for a farmworker and a housekeeper in the 1980s. My parents had to demonstrate “good moral character.” They had to learn English. They had to prove we’d been in the country since before January 1, 1982. The Maynard family, owners of agricultural ranch land and Republicans, also sponsored and supported us.
They did it all. We did it all. Not because it was easy, but because it was finally possible. For the first time in a decade, their hard work and their integrity actually meant something in the eyes of the law.
Reagan said the law would enable unauthorized immigrants to “step into the sunlight.” That’s exactly what it did for us. We stepped into the sunlight together. We became legal permanent residents—green card holders with a path forward.
Years later, in the early 2000s, I took the oath and became an American citizen. I still remember the ceremony. I still remember feeling like I could finally breathe all the way in.
What This Means for Me
I am the direct product of Ronald Reagan’s moral courage.
Every opportunity I’ve had—my education, my career, my ability to serve the public employees of California as CEO of their association—exists because a Republican president had the guts to look at a farmworker, a housekeeper, and their kid and say, “You deserve a chance.”
I think about my father coming home from those citrus groves, exhausted and aching, but never complaining. I think about my mother scrubbing other people’s floors while raising me to believe I could be anything. I think about being a kid who couldn’t tell the truth about who he was.
And I think about the president who looked at families like mine and said, in effect, “You’ve worked hard. You’ve played by the rules as best you could. You’ve become part of the fabric of American life. You deserve legal status and a path to citizenship.”
That’s not politics. That’s humanity.
Without Reagan’s 1986 amnesty giving us permanent residency, I don’t get to go to college. I don’t get to eventually become a U.S. citizen. I don’t get my MBA. I don’t get to serve 50,000 public employees and their families. I probably don’t get to write this blog post on President’s Day as a proud American.
That’s leadership. That’s compassion. That’s conservatism at its best—recognizing that human dignity matters more than political convenience.
The Road Not Taken
Here’s what breaks my heart: the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 was supposed to be comprehensive immigration reform. It had employer sanctions to discourage illegal hiring. It had amnesty for those already here. It was meant to be a complete solution.
But the enforcement mechanisms were never properly implemented. The sanctions on employers were toothless. The border security improvements were inadequate. And because of those failures, the undocumented population grew from a few million in the late 1970s and early 1980s to roughly eleven million today.
Some people point to this as proof that amnesty doesn’t work. I’d argue the opposite. The amnesty worked beautifully—2.7 million people got legal status, became productive members of society, and many eventually became citizens. What failed was our unwillingness to create a functional legal immigration system that matched economic reality.
Reagan would have been furious at our failure to fix the border and create workable immigration channels. But I also believe he would have been just as furious at the dehumanizing rhetoric we now use to talk about immigrants, the family separations, the cruelty disguised as law enforcement.
President’s Day 2026: What We’ve Lost
As I write this on President’s Day 2026, I can’t help but feel we’ve lost something essential about what it means to be conservative, to be compassionate, to be American.
Ronald Reagan understood something that too many politicians have forgotten: America’s strength comes not from walls and enforcement alone, but from our ability to integrate newcomers into the American story. Our economy needs immigrant labor. Our communities are enriched by immigrant cultures. Our values are strengthened when we live up to our promises.
Reagan wasn’t naive. He wanted border security. He wanted employer accountability. He wanted legal immigration pathways. But he also wanted to acknowledge reality and treat people with dignity.
A Personal Thank You
Mr. President, if you could somehow hear this across the years:
Thank you for seeing my father as more than cheap labor in the groves. Thank you for seeing my mother as more than the invisible woman cleaning rooms at the country club. Thank you for seeing me as a kid who deserved a future.
Thank you for having the courage to sign a law that your own party now pretends never happened. Thank you for believing that America could be both a nation of laws and a nation of compassion.
Because of you, my father worked those same groves for another thirty years, but he did it legally and with dignity. Because of you, my parents became farm owners, like the Maynards, contributing to the economic strength of agriculture for the benefit of American society. Because of you, I was able to go to college, earn an MBA, and build a career serving working people.
You gave my family a chance. And I promise you, Mr. President, we didn’t waste it.
My father worked until his body couldn’t anymore; he is now retired. My mother instilled in me a work ethic and sense of dignity that guides everything I do. And I’ve spent my entire career fighting for public employees—the people who make our cities, counties and states work, who often feel invisible just like my parents did.
We became the Americans you believed we could be.
For Others Walking the Same Path
If you’re reading this and your family has a similar story, I see you.
I know what it’s like to watch your parents work themselves to exhaustion for wages that would make most Americans walk off the job. I know what it’s like to be afraid of police cars and government offices. I know what it’s like to feel invisible and exposed at the same time.
Your story matters. Your parents’ sacrifice matters. The courage it took to leave everything behind and start over in a country that didn’t always welcome you—that matters tremendously.
And if you’re reading this and you don’t understand why anyone would risk everything to come here without documentation, let me ask you something: What would have to be true in your life for you to take that risk? What kind of poverty would make a dangerous border crossing seem like the safer option? What kind of violence would make you leave your home, your language, your culture, everyone you’ve ever known?
My parents didn’t leave Mexico because they were adventurous or reckless. They left because staying meant accepting that I would grow up with no horizon, no possibilities, no way out. They came here not to take advantage of America, but to contribute to it—and they did, for decades, even when the law said they shouldn’t exist.
I’m writing this because I want you to know: if you grew up like I did, if your parents worked like mine did, if you lived with that same fear—your story is American too. You belong here. Your family’s sacrifice built this country just as surely as anyone else’s.
The Legacy We Choose
Ronald Reagan showed us that immigration reform doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. You can have border security and human dignity. You can have legal accountability and compassion. You can honor the law and acknowledge that sometimes the law needs to catch up with reality.
The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act wasn’t perfect. But it was built on a foundation that we’ve abandoned: the belief that people who are here, who are working, who are part of our communities, who are contributing to American life—those people deserve a pathway to legal status.
That’s not radical. That’s not socialist. That’s conservative in the best sense of the word—conserving human dignity, conserving family unity, conserving the American promise that hard work and integrity still matter.
On this President’s Day, I’m grateful for a president who had the courage to act on his values instead of just talk about them. A president who looked at millions of undocumented immigrants and saw not a problem to be solved, but human beings deserving of a chance.
That president changed my family’s life.
And for that, I will be forever grateful.
Sources
For readers who want to dig deeper into the history and policy behind my story, here are some of the materials I relied on:
- “Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986” – overview of the law, legalization programs, employer sanctions, and approximate number of people who obtained legal status (about 2.7–3 million). Wikipedia.
- “Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986” – Library of Congress Latinx civil rights guide, detailing the law’s impact on Latinx communities and its historical context.
- “IRCA in Retrospect: Guideposts for Today’s Immigration Reform” – Migration Policy Institute, analyzing what worked (legalization) and what failed (enforcement, employer sanctions) in the 1986 reform.
- “Lesson 2: The Immigration Reform and Control Act and its Aftermath” – Justice for Immigrants, explaining how IRCA combined amnesty, employer sanctions, and border enforcement and why it fell short of comprehensive reform.
- “The Causes and Consequences of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA)” – F. D. Bean et al., academic working paper examining the law’s design, implementation, and long-term demographic effects.
- “The Impact of IRCA on the Job Opportunities and Earnings of Mexican-Origin Immigrants” – research on how legalization affected work and wages among Mexican-origin immigrants.
- “Effects of Immigrant Legalization on Crime: The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act” – study of how legalization influenced broader integration outcomes.
- “Historical Overview of Immigration Policy” – Center for Immigration Studies, placing IRCA in the larger history of U.S. immigration policy and undocumented population trends.
Robert Larios is President & CEO of the Los Angeles City Employees Association (LACEA) and the Employees Club of California, serving over 50,000 public employees. He came to the United States from Mexico with his parents in 1976 and became a legal permanent resident through the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act signed by President Ronald Reagan. He became a U.S. citizen in the early 2000s. He is the proud son of a citrus and avocado farmworker and a housekeeper who became farm owners and taught him that dignity and hard work matter more than status.
Robert Larios 