Romano Mazzoli, congressman who led last major immigration act, dies at 89

November 6, 2022

Brian Murphy for the Washington Post reports that former congressman Romano Mazzoli, a Kentucky Democrat who teamed up with a Republican senator in 1986 to achieve the last comprehensive immigration reform legislation in Congress, including the “amnesty” granting legal status to nearly 3 million people, died on November 1 in Louisville.

The Simpson-Mazzoli Act — named after its co-sponsor Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) — was a bipartisan deal. Mazzoli and Simpson overcame to proposals such as sanctions on employers of undocumented workers. The law was also known as the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

Congress has been unable to pass comprehensive immigration reform since 1986.

“Immigration is an economic, sociological, demographic and political issue, but it’s also a moral issue,” Mr. Mazzoli said in 2017.

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