Download The History of United States Immigration Law

The History of United States Immigration Law
1584—1700’s: Colonization of the United States by European settlers marked the first wave of
immigration to the continent. Relations with Native Americans fluctuated, with the natives of North
America often suffering greatly due to the influx of European immigrants.
1619—1865: Enslavement of Africans in the United States. The Emancipation Proclamation in 1862
began the process of freeing the slaves.
1790: The Naturalization Act of 1790 permitted citizenship for “free white persons” living in the
United States for at least five years.
1798: The Alien and Sedition Acts, passed in the aftermath of the French Revolution and during the
U.S. Quasi-War with Britain and France, permitted President John Adams to deport those foreigners
deemed dangerous, increased the residency requirement for naturalization from 5 to 14 years, and
prohibited the publication of “malicious” anti-government writing.
1840s: The Irish Potato Famine, crop failures in Germany, the onset of industrialization and failed
European revolutions began a period of mass immigration.
1848: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War. 80,000 Mexicans living
in the Southwest automatically became U.S. citizens.
1850—1880: Approximately 100,000 Chinese immigrants came to California to work in gold mines
and on the transcontinental railroad.
1857: The Supreme Court declared Africans ineligible for United States citizenship in the Dred Scott
ruling, regardless of whether they were slave or free.
1861—1865: The Civil War began over the fractious issue of slavery; after four years of bloody
combat, the Southern Confederacy was defeated, slavery was abolished, and the
difficult reconstruction process began.
1864: The Contract Labor Law allowed for recruitment of foreign labor; this law was reversed to
prohibit foreign labor in 1885.
1875: The Supreme Court ruled in Henderson v. Mayor of New York that state laws governing
immigration were unconstitutional; instead, Congress must regulate foreign commerce.
1875: The Page Act prohibited the entry of “undesirable” immigrants, including convicts, prostitutes
and Chinese contract laborers. Later laws expanded this exclusion list to include “lunatics”, “idiots”,
people with physical or mental defects, people with contagious diseases, those unable to care for
themselves, polygamists, unaccompanied minors, and anarchists.
1882: With gold growing scarce and a slowing economy, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act,
severely limiting Chinese immigration to the U.S. for ten years and restricting the rights of Chinese
immigrants already here.
1891: The Office of Immigration was created as part of the U.S. Treasury. It was later moved to the
U.S. Justice Department as the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
1892: The Geary Act extended the Chinese Exclusion Act for ten more years and required Chinese
residents to carry permits at all times.
1892: Ellis Island opened when the federal government took control of immigration. 12 million
immigrants passed through it over the next 30 years.
1906: The Naturalization Act of 1906 created standardized naturalization requirements including
some knowledge of English.
1907: The Expatriation Act revoked the citizenship of any American woman who married a foreign
national. The Cable Act of 1922 repealed part of the Expatriation Act, but American women who
married Asian men still lost their citizenship. Congress finally allowed all women who had lost
citizenship by marriage to repatriate in 1940.
1907: A “gentleman’s agreement” between the United States and Japan curtailed Japanese
immigration to the United States and increased taxes on new immigrants.
1913: California's Alien Land Law prohibited "aliens ineligible for citizenship" (Chinese and
Japanese) from owning property.
1914—1918: World War I
1917: The Asiatic Barred Zone Act, or 1917 Immigration Act, prohibited immigration from any Asian
country, imposed a literacy test and tax on incoming immigrants, and restricted the entry of those
with mental and physical handicaps.
1921: The Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, also known as the Quota Act, set an annual
immigration ceiling and limited admissions based on country of origin. The law was designed
primarily to restrict the flow of immigrants coming from eastern and southern Europe.
1923: The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a racist and anti-immigrant group in the U.S., reached its greatest
strength.
1924: The Oriental Exclusion Act prohibited most Asian immigration, including that of foreign-born
wives and children of U.S. citizens. Border Patrol was also established this year.
1924: Despite protests from many native people, Native Americans were made citizens of the
United States.
1930s: The Great Depression
1929—1939: During the years of the Great Depression, between 400,000 and 500,000 Mexicans
and American citizens of Mexican heritage were repatriated to Mexico—some willingly, others by
force.
1939—1945: World War II
1940: The Alien Registration Act of 1940, also known as the Smith Act, required all arriving
immigrants to be registered and fingerprinted.
1941—1964: The Temporary Worker Program (Bracero Program) offered temporary agricultural
work visas to Mexican workers due to the lack of American workers during WWII.
1942: Executive Order 9066 authorized the military to evacuate 112,000 Japanese Americans from
the Pacific coast and place them in ten internment camps. The Redress Act of 1988 later provided
$20,000 compensation to survivors of the internment camps.
1943: The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. By the end of the 1940s, all restrictions on Asians
acquiring U.S. citizenship were abolished.
1945: The War Brides Act allowed the spouses, natural children, and adopted children of United
States military personnel to enter the U.S. after WWII.
1948: The Displaced Persons Act permitted 400,000 persons displaced by WWII to enter the country
provided they passed a security check, had employment and housing, and did not threaten U.S.
citizens’ jobs and homes.
1950: The Internal Security Act barred admission to any foreigner who was a Communist or who
might engage in activities "which would be prejudicial to the public interest, or would endanger the
welfare or safety of the United States." It also accepted many political refugees from Communist
countries.
1952: The McCarran-Walter Act consolidated earlier immigration laws and removed race as a bar to
immigration or citizenship. It also added political ideology to the admission criterion so that persons
who were communists or former Nazis could be excluded.
1954: The Immigration and Naturalization Service began Operation Wetback (Mojado) in an
attempt to remove undocumented immigrants. Methods included police raids of Mexican-American
barrios, interrogations of “Mexican-looking” citizens in the street, and forced deportations of
Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. It was eventually disbanded.
1965: Refugees from Cuba were admitted to the United States with special visas because of the
country’s communist revolution.
1965: The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Cellar Act, abolished the
national origins quota system and replaced it with a preference system based on employment skills
and family reunification. This resulted in increased non-European immigration.
1975: The Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act allocated funding for the evacuation and
resettlement of Southeast Asian refugees in the United States after the Vietnam War.
Approximately 130,000 refugees from South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were resettled and given
financial assistance.
1980: The Refugee Act developed a separate immigration classification for those fleeing
persecution. The president was given the authority to set an annual ceiling on refugees and the
power to admit any group of refugees as needed.
1980’s—1990’s: West African immigrants sought asylum from political upheavals and violence in
their home countries.
1982: Hundreds of churches and synagogues across the United States openly defied restrictive U.S.
immigration laws during the Sanctuary Movement by offering housing and aid to undocumented
Central American refugees fleeing violent civil wars in Guatemala and El Salvador.
1986: The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was passed to control and deter illegal
immigration. The act imposed penalties on employers who hire undocumented workers and
increased enforcement at U.S. borders. It also offered amnesty to over 3 million undocumented
immigrants in the United States.
1990: The Immigration Act of 1990 raised the annual immigration ceiling with a preference for
skilled workers and family unification. It also began the Diversity Visa Lottery program, which
distributes visas to natives of countries with low rates of immigration to the U.S.
1994: The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) reduced barriers to trade and
investment among the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, thereby increasing their economic
interdependence. When subsidized U.S. corn flooded the market, Mexican corn farmers couldn’t
compete with the artificially low prices, so many of them sought work in the U.S.
1994: Operation Gatekeeper began to halt illegal immigration near San Diego, CA. It concentrated
increased border patrol agents and resources in populated areas, forcing undocumented
immigrants to attempt crossing in remote and dangerous mountain and desert areas. Migrant
death tolls rose considerably.
1994: California passed Proposition 187, banning undocumented immigrants from using the state’s
social services, including health care and public education. The referendum passed, marking the
first time that an individual state passed legislation regulating immigration. The law was found
unconstitutional in federal court.
1996: The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) increased border
control enforcement efforts by adding thousands of new Border Patrol agents, mandating
investigation of alien smuggling and unlawful employment, overhauling deportation procedures,
and implementing additional restrictions and penalties for undocumented immigrants.
1997: The Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA) provided
immigration benefits and relief from deportation to certain Salvadorans, Guatemalans, nationals of
former Soviet bloc countries and their dependents who had arrived as asylees.
1999: Justice For Our Neighbors (JFON) clinics were launched nationwide by the United Methodist
Committee on Relief to provide free, high-quality immigration legal services, education, and
advocacy for low-income immigrants and to welcome them into the local community.
2001: The twin towers in New York were attacked by terrorists who were in the United States on
legal tourist visas. 9/11 gave rise to discrimination against all immigrants, especially those who
appeared to be from the Middle East.
2001: The Patriot Act was signed, broadening the scope of aliens ineligible for admission or eligible
for deportation to include anyone related to a group that endorses terrorist activities or otherwise
threatens U.S. national security.
2003: The federal government created the Department of Homeland Security and placed all
immigration services under the authority of its three branches: Citizenship and Immigration Services
(CIS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). By
this act, immigration became an issue of national security.
2005: The REAL ID Act issued new federal standards in order for state-issued driver’s licenses and ID
cards to be accepted by the federal government. These standards included verifying that
immigrants have legal permission to be in the United States. The act also tightened requirements to
qualify for asylum.
2006: President Bush signed the Secure Fence Act. The law mandated construction of a 700-mile
wall along the U.S.-Mexico border; it also mandated the use of cameras, sensors, and robotic
airplanes called “predators” to survey the border.
2006: Giant marches took place in major cities across the U.S. to protest H.R. 4437, a bill which
would have criminalized undocumented immigration (technically a civil infraction). The bill passed
the House but not the Senate.
2007: The DREAM Act was introduced by Senator Durbin. Congress voted on the DREAM Act at the
end of 2010. Although it passed in the House, the bill failed in the Senate by just five votes.
2008: Secure Communities was piloted and later expanded as an administratively created
deportation program. It relies on federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to identify and
remove serious criminal offenders but has been criticized for deporting non-criminal immigrants as
well.
2008: The United Methodist General Conference called on Congress to enact comprehensive
immigration reform prioritizing family reunification, a path to citizenship, and protection of
workers.
2009: The Interfaith Immigration Coalition mobilized people of faith to engage in 180 prayer vigils
and 100 meetings with members of Congress in their home districts in support of just and humane
immigration reform. United Methodists alone accounted for half of these events.
2009: The Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act (CIR ASAP)
was introduced by Representative Luis Gutierrez. The bill did not pass through Congress.
2010: Arizona S.B. 1070 made it a crime not to carry proof of legal residency. This encouraged racial
profiling, harassment, and discrimination against Latinos. Much of the law was ruled
unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012.
2011: The U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Arizona law that imposed sanctions on businesses that
hire undocumented immigrants. Alabama also passed legislation aimed at cracking down on illegal
immigration.
2011: The Interfaith Immigration Coalition mobilized people of faith to host 500 DREAM Sabbath
services educating people about the DREAM Act; United Methodists hosted 250 of them.
2011: The Obama Administration introduced Prosecutorial Discretion, a measure to focus resources
on deporting criminals while temporarily closing the cases of low-priority undocumented
immigrants who have strong family ties to the United States. Unfortunately, fewer than 2% of
reviewed cases have been closed.
2012: The Immigrant Welcoming Congregations program began in seven United Methodist
conferences across the U.S. to equip local congregations to defend and support the rights of
immigrants.
2012: The Evangelical Immigration Table statement, calling for bipartisan comprehensive
immigration reform, was signed by over 150 leaders of major U.S. evangelical organizations.
2012: President Obama announced a provision called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
(DACA), which allowed undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and met
certain criteria to stay in the country and receive work authorization for two-year periods.