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| 1985 || February || Leadership change || U.S. Department of Justice || [[wikipedia:Edwin Meese|Edwin Meese]] becomes [[wikipedia:United States Attorney General|United States Attorney General]].<ref>{{cite web|url = https://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/24/us/senate-approves-meese-to-become-attorney-general.html|title = SENATE APPROVES MEESE TO BECOME ATTORNEY GENERAL|author = Leslie Maitland Wiener|date = February 24, 1985|accessdate = March 19, 2017|publisher = [[wikipedia:New York Times|New York Times]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://articles.latimes.com/1989-08-09/news/mn-107_1_wedtech-scandal |title=Wallach Found Guilty of Racketeering, Fraud: Meese's Friend, Two Others Convicted in Wedtech Scandal |date=1989-08-09 |first=Robert L. |last=Jackson |author2=John J. Goldman |publisher=Los Angeles Times}}</ref> The Attorney General heads the U.S. Department of Justice, and prior to the September 11 attacks, the INS was under the Department of Justice.
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| 1986 || November 6 || Legislation (landmark) || Immigration and Naturalization Services; current equivalent: United States Citizenship and Immigration Services || The [[wikipedia:Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986|Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986]] (IRCA) is signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, after passing both houses of the [[wikipedia:99th United States Congress|99th United States Congress]] after three years of legislative back-and-forth. The key sponsores sponsors are [[wikipedia:Alan K. Simpson|Alan K. Simpson]] and [[wikipedia:Romano L. Mazzoli|Romano L. Mazzoli]], so the act is also known as the Simpson–Mazzoli Act. This combines an amnesty for people who have been present in the United States for a while, a restructuring of the H-2 program splitting it into the H-2A (unlimited temporary agricultural workers) and H-2B (other temporary workers), and more resources into enforcement.<ref>{{cite web|url = https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-100/pdf/STATUTE-100-Pg3445.pdf|title = Public Law 99-603|date = November 6, 1986|accessdate = March 15, 2017|publisher = [[wikipedia:United States Government Publishing Office|United States Government Publishing Office]]}}</ref>
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| 1987 || October 21 || Deferred action || Immigration and Naturalization Services || Alan C. Nelson, INS Commissioner announces [[User:Vipul/Family Fairness|Family Fairness]], a deferred action policy for children (and, in rare cases, spouses) of people eligible to legalie per the IRCA, to solve the problem of split-eligibility families.<ref name=aic>{{cite web|url = https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/reagan-bush-family-fairness-chronological-history|title = Reagan-Bush Family Fairness: A Chronological History|date = December 9, 2014|accessdate = February 5, 2017|publisher = American Immigration Council}}</ref>
