The Jordan Commission on Immigration Reform was a bipartisan federal body, formally the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, that operated from 1990 through 1997 under the chairmanship of former Texas congresswoman Barbara Jordan. Congress created it to review the Immigration Act of 1990 and recommend changes to federal immigration policy. Across three reports, the Commission argued for a simple principle of credibility: people who should be admitted get in, people who should not are kept out, and those judged deportable are required to leave. That framework still shapes immigration debates today.
How the Commission Was Created
Congress established the Commission through Section 141 of the Immigration Act of 1990.1Justice.gov. Pub. L. 101-649 Immigration Act of 1990 The statute set up a nine-member body with appointments split between the President and congressional leaders of both parties, and it directed the Commission to deliver a progress report by September 30, 1994, and a final report by September 30, 1997.
President Clinton named Barbara Jordan as chair. Her stature gave the Commission credibility across party lines. Jordan led the work through its first two reports before her death on January 17, 1996, from complications of leukemia. The Commission finished its work and dedicated the 1997 final report to her memory. The name “Jordan Commission” stuck.
The Three Reports
The Commission did not issue one document. It issued three, and the sequence matters because individual recommendations are often quoted without the surrounding logic.
The 1994 report, “U.S. Immigration Policy: Restoring Credibility,” addressed illegal immigration. It laid out seven priorities: better border management, deterring the employment of unauthorized workers, consistent benefits eligibility policies, cooperation with source countries, improved data collection, mechanisms for migration emergencies, and stronger capacity to remove deportable individuals.2Immigration Accountability Project. Full Report to Congress – U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform
The 1995 report, “Legal Immigration: Setting Priorities,” took on the structure of legal admissions. It contained the Commission’s most specific numerical recommendations and argued for a shift away from extended family categories toward nuclear family reunification and skills-based immigration.
The 1997 final report, “Becoming an American: Immigration and Immigrant Policy,” turned to what happens after arrival: English-language education, civics, and the naturalization process.3ERIC. Becoming an American: Immigration and Immigrant Policy, 1997 Report to Congress
What It Recommended for Legal Immigration
The Commission accepted the basic three-part framework of family, skills, and humanitarian admissions but argued the priorities inside that framework were badly misaligned with the national interest.
Lower Overall Numbers
The Commission recommended reducing annual immigration to roughly 550,000 admissions for the family-based and skills-based categories combined, down from about 800,000 total admissions in the early 1990s. The reduction would phase in as the new priority system took effect, and the Commission compared the target to immigration levels during the 1980s.2Immigration Accountability Project. Full Report to Congress – U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform Refugee and humanitarian admissions would stay outside the numerical ceiling, as they had been under the 1990 Act.
Narrower Family Categories
Family-based visas would focus on nuclear family: spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens, parents of U.S. citizens, and spouses and minor children of legal permanent residents. The Commission proposed eliminating visa preferences for adult children of U.S. citizens and for siblings of U.S. citizens, categories often described as chain migration because one immigrant’s admission could eventually generate petitions for many relatives across generations. It also called for a backlog clearance program to speed entry for spouses and minor children of permanent residents already waiting in multi-year queues.2Immigration Accountability Project. Full Report to Congress – U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform
Skills, Not Unskilled Labor or Lottery
The Commission recommended allocating 100,000 slots to skills-based immigrants, with strong preference for those holding advanced degrees.2Immigration Accountability Project. Full Report to Congress – U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform The unskilled worker category would be eliminated unless a specific and compelling national interest justified an exception. The Commission also recommended abolishing the Diversity Visa Lottery, which distributes about 50,000 visas each year by random drawing to nationals of countries with historically low immigration to the United States. The Commission viewed the lottery as inconsistent with a system built around family reunification and labor market needs.
What It Recommended for Enforcement
The 1994 report argued that enforcement was not optional if the system was going to be credible, and that the strongest lever was the job market. Border security mattered, but jobs were what actually drew unauthorized immigrants.
Employment Verification
The Commission proposed an electronic system that would let employers verify the work eligibility of new hires against Social Security Administration and Immigration and Naturalization Service records. The system was to be built around Social Security numbers and designed to be reliable and nondiscriminatory.4Albany Government Law Review. B-Verify: Transforming E-Verify Into a Biometric Employment Verification System When Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act in 1996, it created the Basic Pilot program on that model. Basic Pilot was later renamed E-Verify. The Commission also called for stronger penalties against employers who knowingly hired unauthorized workers.
Border, Interior Removal, and No New Amnesty
The Commission recommended sharply increased resources for the border, including personnel and technology, along with faster and more effective removal of people found to be unlawfully present. It opposed further large-scale amnesty. Having reviewed the aftermath of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which legalized roughly 3 million unauthorized immigrants, the Commission concluded that amnesty without credible enforcement undermined the rule of law. It also recommended restricting unauthorized immigrants from publicly funded services except emergency assistance.
What It Said About Integration
The 1997 report used the word “Americanization” deliberately, defining it as a mutual process in which immigrants and receiving communities both adapt rather than as cultural erasure. It called for stronger English-language programs for adult immigrants, better civics education, and reinforced integrity in the naturalization process.3ERIC. Becoming an American: Immigration and Immigrant Policy, 1997 Report to Congress The Commission argued that integration policy was as important as admissions policy, because admitting people without helping them participate fully in civic life served no one.
Splitting Up the INS
One of the Commission’s sharper conclusions targeted the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS both welcomed legal immigrants and enforced immigration law against unauthorized ones, and the Commission concluded these missions were incompatible under one roof, finding that “both functions are harmed, not helped by being linked.”5U.S. House of Representatives. Final Report of the Commission on Immigration Reform
The Commission proposed distributing immigration functions across several agencies: border and interior enforcement to a new bureau at the Department of Justice, visa and citizenship adjudications to the State Department, immigration-related employment standards to the Department of Labor, and administrative appeals to an independent review agency.
Congress did not act at the time. After the September 11, 2001 attacks exposed coordination failures, the Homeland Security Act of 2002 abolished the INS entirely.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 6 USC 291 – Abolishment of INS The reorganization did not follow the Commission’s blueprint exactly, but it separated enforcement from benefits processing along the lines the Commission had argued for. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services now handles benefits and naturalization, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement handles interior enforcement, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection handles the border, all within the Department of Homeland Security.
What Actually Got Adopted
Congress never took up the recommendations as a package. The proposal to cut legal immigration to 550,000 failed in the mid-1990s when business interests and immigrant advocacy groups united against it. The Diversity Visa Lottery survived. Extended family categories stayed in place.
Enforcement was where the Commission’s influence hit hardest. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 tracked many of its priorities, creating expedited removal, increasing border funding, and launching the Basic Pilot verification program that became E-Verify.4Albany Government Law Review. B-Verify: Transforming E-Verify Into a Biometric Employment Verification System The welfare reform law passed the same year restricted immigrant eligibility for federal public benefits, another area the Commission had flagged. And the 2002 Homeland Security Act eventually delivered the INS split the Commission had recommended years earlier.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 6 USC 291 – Abolishment of INS
Nearly three decades on, much of the Commission’s unfinished business is still on the table. Proposals to shift toward skills-based immigration, end the Diversity Visa Lottery, narrow family-based categories, and mandate E-Verify for all employers surface in Congress on a regular basis. The Jordan Commission did not settle the immigration question, but it built the analytical vocabulary that both sides of the debate still use.