Immigration Reform
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift up my lamp beside the golden door.“
-Emma Lazarus
1820s
• 1st mass immigration: 300,000
• Why:
– Post Napoleonic Wars
– Landless
– Employment/land in America, freedoms
• 1820-1890: 15 million immigrants
1840s
• “Old Immigrants”: white Anglo-Saxon,
West/Northern Europe
• Irish: Catholic, work for low wage jobs in cities
• Germans
• Chinese immigrants begin arriving to West
Coast (CA gold rush, transcontinental railroad)
• American Reaction: nativism (ex Know-Nothing
Party), protest
• American heritage/national identity
1880s Immigration Flood
• “New Immigrants”: South/Eastern Europe
(Germany, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Russia)
• Less skilled/intelligent…more of a social
problem
• More xenophobia…Immigration Restriction
League
• 1907 alone: 1 million immigrants, 50% S/E
Europe
Immigration Laws
• 1875: exclude criminals
• Chinese Exclusion Act 1882: 10 year
ban on Chinese immigrants
• 1907: exclude feeble minded, tuberculosis
patients, immoral women
– Dillingham Commision: learn English, acquire
citizenship, abandon native customs
• 1917 literacy test
Immigration Laws
• 1921 Immigration Act (Emergency Quota
Act): 3% of 1910 census
• 1924 Immigration Act: 2% from 1890
census
– Discriminates against S/E Europeans
• 1945 War Brides Act
Immigration Laws
• 1952 McCarran Walter Immigration Act:
confirms quotas, limits total immigration
• 1954 Operation Wetback: return of 1000s
of illegal Mexican immigrants (over 1 mil)
– Increased US border forces
Immigration Laws
• 1965 Immigration & Nationality Act (HartCeller Act): ends national origins quotas,
preferences to families/skilled workers
– LBJ, civil rights legislation
– Opens up more immigration from Asia
• 1971 72% Asian/Latin American, 1928 86%
Immigration Laws
• 1980 Immigration Reform & Control Act
(IRCA): penalties for employers hiring
illegal immigrants, amnesty for illegal
immigrants
– 1980 4,289,000 Mexican
– 1990 7,841,000 Mexican
– 2000 12,000,000 Mexican
• 2001 Patriot Act:
Court Cases
• 1875 Chy Lung v Freemon: immigration
control is an implicit federal power
• 1982 Plyler v Doe: TX tries to deny free
public education to kids of undocumented
alien
• Violated Equal Protection Clause of 14th
amendment
More Recently…
• 1994 California Prop 187: illiegal aliens
ineligible for social services except in
emergency situations, more
documentation control
– Preempted by federal law…dropped
Illegal Immigration: Cons
• 1961-70: 1.6 million
• 1970s: 8.3 million
• 2005: around 12 million
• 50% in CA/TX/FL/NY
• economic/social stress
– Use citizen tax dollars as they benefit from
social services
– Take American jobs
– Dilute America
Illegal Immigration: Pros
• Economic benefit: cheap labor, without
which goods (especially food) in America
would be much more expensive
– Ex 30-50% farm workers in CA= illegal
immigrants (cheaper…less labor standards,
lower wages)
• Add diversity of cultures, languages,
religions…
• America was founded by immigrants
Sources
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http://www.america.gov/st/peopleplaceenglish/2008/February/20080307112004ebyessedo0.1716272.html
"immigration." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 2 Dec. 2010.
Kauffman, Jill. "Immigration Act of 1921." Issues & Controversies in
American History. Facts On File News Services, 30 July 2010. Web. 2 Dec.
2010. <http://www.2facts.com/article/haa00002580>.
Kauffman, Jill. "Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965." Issues &
Controversies in American History. Facts On File News Services, 15 Sept.
2010. Web. 2 Dec. 2010. <http://www.2facts.com/article/haa00002610>.
Rymer, Justin . "Arizona's Tough New Immigration Law:
Background." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 2 Dec. 2010.
"Highway sign cautions motorists." Image. Shutterstock. American
History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 2 Dec. 2010.
"Dillingham Commission." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 2 Dec.
2010.