[4] The Immigration Act of 1990 replaced it with a legislatively sanctioned Family Unity Program, that continues to be in force today.
The Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese estimated that 30% of the legalization applications it was assisting involved split-eligibility families.
[6] Republican Senator John Chafee, from Rhode Island, proposed an amendment to an unrelated bill that would give spouses and children of IRCA-eligible individuals a path to legalization.
On October 21, 1987, Nelson, Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, announced the "Family Fairness" executive action.
[1] A number of people thought that the executive action did not go far enough, including Representative Howard Berman,[2] future INS Commissioner Doris Meissner,[10] and United States Catholic Conference immigration lawyer Gilbert Paul Carrasco.
"[8] Josh Blackman has argued that the Reagan/Bush Family Fairness program differed from Obama's actions in a critical way: the Family Fairness program only provided a "bridge" for people who could eventually qualify for legal status based on already-existing or in-process legislation, whereas Obama's deferred action provided protections for people who did not have any path to legal status with existing legislation.