Immigration reform has been making the news for many years - since Arizona passed SB1070 and Alabama passed HB56. In an attempt to curtail enactment of these laws, the United States Department of Justice, United States Department of Homeland Security, United States Department of State, and United States Department of Education filed complaints against both states. Additionally, there are over “865 bills and resolutions relating to immigrants and refugees in 45 state legislatures and the District of Columbia during the first quarter of 2012” (2012 Immigration-Related Laws, 2012) with the exception five states who were not in session at the time of reporting.
Immigration laws in the United States started with the passage of the 1790 Naturalization Act, which limited entry into the United States to “free white persons of good character who resided in the United States for a period of two years” (as cited in Kunnan, 2009, p.38). However, a 1795 amendment would lengthen the time requirement to five years. While the Immigration Act of 1924 replaced race with nationality, limited new entrants to “150,000 persons, [and] established the concept of "ineligibility to citizenship," which applied to all Asians, justifying their exclusion from immigration, and excluded all non-white, and non-European” (as cited in Ngai, 1999, pp. 67-72).
Consequently, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 continued to restrict immigration, introduced an English language and history requirement, and created the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In addition, “allowed for the deportation of immigrants or naturalized citizens engaged in subversive activities; barred those suspected of subversive activities from entering the country; and restric...
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...ent undermine public safety? The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 641(1), 79-98. doi:10.1177/0002716211431818
Kunnan, A. J. (2009). Politics and legislation in citizenship testing in the United States. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 29, 37-48. doi:10.1017/S0267190509090047
Newton, L., & Adams, B. E. (2009). State immigration policies: Innovation, cooperation or conflict? Publius, 39(3), 408-431. doi:10.1093/publius/pjp005
Newton, L., & Adams, B. E. (2009). State immigration policies: Innovation, cooperation or conflict? Publius, 39(3), 408-431. doi:10.1093/publius/pjp005
Ngai, M. M. (1999). The architecture of race in American immigration law: A reexamination of the immigration act of 1924. The Journal of American History, 86(1), 67-92. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2567407
Plyler v. Doe 457 U.S. 202 (1982).
...y Burnett, “The Noncitizen National and the Law of American Empire” , “in Major Problems in American Immigration History, ed. Mae M Ngai and Jon Gjerde (Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2013),278
The Naturalization Act of 1790 was the first piece of United States federal legislation regarding immigration and it provided a national and uniformed rule for the process of naturalization. Under provisions of Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, it granted citizenship to “all free white persons” after two years residence and provided that the children of citizens born outside the borders of the United States would be “considered as natural born citizens” (Naturalization Acts, United States, 1790-1795). This was an important piece of legislation that encouraged immigration necessary for the continued growth and prosperity of the republic. The individuals that it was intended to attract and protect were European whites, specifically men who would bring skills and participate in the emerging manufacturing and mining labor
Gjerde, Jon. Major Problems in American Immigration and Ethnic History: Documents and Essays. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. Print.
The United States’ government instilled a closed door policy with the creation of many immigration laws in an effort to make America a melting pot of similar ethnicities. However, the prejudice of American society that was enforced by immigration policy forced immigrants to form their own communities for the purpose of survival and protection, turning America into a mosaic of different cultures. The Burlingame Treaty of 1868 and Naturalization Act of 1870 both created a false image of acceptance for immigrants while simultaneously restricting immigration. The United States’ government only began clearly restricting immigration with the Page Act of 1875 and Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was established to reduce racial exclusions in America. The key provisions to this legislation was “to have family reunification, to meet the labor needs, and to have a more diverse nation” (Lecture, October 1)
Ngai, Mae M., and Jon Gjerde. "Congressman Jerry Patterson Details Needs of Refugees in California, 1981." Major Problems in American Immigration History: Documents and Essays. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2013. 526-528. Print.
Ewing, Walter. "The Many Facets Of Effective Immigration Reform." Society 47.2 (2010): 110-117. Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 Nov. 2013.
When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Celler Act, he said, “[t]his bill that we sign today is not a revolutionary bill”, underestimating the change that would come about from the signing of this law. The Immigration Act was passed in the midst of much reform and civil rights activism in the United States and banned discrimination in the issuance of visas due to “‘race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence’”(Fitzgerald, Cook-Martin, 2015). It counteracted the immigration policy that had been in place since the 1920’s. This policy was the National Origins Act, which restricted the immigration of foreign-born people into the United States based on nationality. Most immigrants
To properly understand the philosophy of immigration, it is imperative to define immigration. Article I, section 8, clause 4 of the constitution gives the United States Congress the sole power to determine and pass a uniform rule of naturalization. With this express power by the Unites States Constitution, Congress has passed several stringent laws that govern immigration and naturalization. One of this statute that is still in effect today is the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. The law made a clear distinction between a resident alien and a naturalized citizen. Both, however, are considered by the law as immigration.
America is a nation consisting of many immigrants: it has its gates opened to the world. These immigrants transition smoothly and slowly from settlement, to assimilation then citizenship. These immigrants are first admitted lawfully as permanent residents before they naturalize to become full citizens. In her book “Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America”, the historian Mae Ngai draws our attention to the history of immigration and citizenship in America. Her book examines an understudied period of immigration regulation between 1924 and 1965.
For over ten years, efforts to make changes to the United States immigration system have been put aside due to wars, attacks within our homeland and even worldwide financial crisis but it seems as though this being brought up more and more often. The history of the US immigration policy was more concerned with immigration enforcement over immigration reform. It was not until a few years ago that the US citizens voted they were tired of enforcement-only immigration policies and the pain they caused on immigrant families. So most feel now is the time to draw up new immigration laws that reflect American values and beliefs, and it ne...
The first move stopping immigration decided by Congress was a law in 1862 restricting American vessels to transport Chinese immigrants to the U.S. The Alien Contract Labor Laws of 1885, 1887, 1888, and 1891 restricted the immigration to the U.S. of people entering the country to work under contracts made before their arrival. Alien skilled laborers, under these laws, were allowed to enter the U.S. to work in new industries. By this time anti-immigrant felling rose with the flood of immigrants and in this period the anti-Catholic, anti-foreign political party the Know-Nothings, was already born. The problems and issues are still much the same today, as they were 150 years ago, but as the numbers and facts show the immigration problem is growing worse and worse.
Erika, Lee. "U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Laws and Issues." Journal of American Ethnic History. Vol. 20. Issue 2 (2001): n. page. Web. 18 Apr. 2013.
...acts. Cato Institute and the National Immigration Forum, n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2012. < http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/pr-imsum.html>.
The study also took a close look at how the courts deal with the issue, the administrative interpretation of the law, and the application of the reform to be very critical and increasingly impossible. The author discovered that immigration reform has chronic problems, citizens’ disinterest to participate in the political process, government inefficacy, and centralized decision making away from the very communities imparted. The lack of enforcement is mounting pressure on states’ budgets (appropriation and allocations) of resources as the number of beneficiaries for social services increased. On the other hand, Dorsey and Diaz-Barriza (2007) studied President Barack Obama stands on immigration when he was then senator and compared them to conservative and liberal position. In the research, the author lamented that then senator Obama called for a comprehensive immigration reform that would deal with the issues of border security, employers sanction for hiring illegal individuals and a path to earned citizenship. Both sides agreed in part, but disagreed with the issue of path to citizenship which created gray lack. Today, the debate continues between the both political parties and the states leading the president executive action on immigration in recent