Civics U: Immigration
Immigration and immigration reform have been issues in past American history, and are still issues in American government and politics. This article will not enter that debate, but will review key elements in immigration history and law. Some of these also have a bearing on current issues and decisions.
All of the settlers who came to America were immigrants, and all current citizens are either immigrants or descendants of immigrants, except for indigenous Native Americans, although some would argue that they, too, immigrated centuries ago. Thus, the United States has been called an “immigrant country.”
WHAT MAKES A NATION
A nation normally has these characteristics: a population; a government with sovereignty in relation to other nations and authorities; and a territory defined by land mass and boundaries. Immigration refers to persons entering a nation’s boundaries and territory to become permanent residents.
CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Laws and issues pertaining to immigration are often intertwined with definitions and rights of citizenship. The U.S. Constitution does not define the term citizen or who is a citizen. In U.S. history not all residents and immigrants were always “citizens”, and not all citizens had all “rights”.
U.S. citizenship was finally defined in 1868 in the Fourteenth Amendment to include "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof."
All of the original settlers who came to America were immigrants, and all current citizens are either immigrants or descendants of immigrants, except for indigenous Native Americans (although some would argue that they, too, immigrated centuries ago). Thus, the United States has been called an “immigrant country.”
HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION
A full description of this history is beyond the scope of this article, but here are some of the key developments.
1815: Peace is re-established between the United States and Britain after the War of 1812. Immigration from Western Europe turned from a trickle into a gush, which caused a shift in the demographics of the United States. This first major wave of immigration lasted until the Civil War.
1875: Following the Civil War, some states passed their own immigration laws, but the Supreme Court declared that it’s the responsibility of the federal government to make and enforce immigration laws.
1880: As a rapid period of industrialization and urbanization began, a second immigration boom began. Between 1880 and 1920, more than 20 million immigrants arrived, with the majority from Southern, Eastern and Central Europe, including 4 million Italians and 2 million Jews. Many settled in major U.S. cities and worked in factories.
1882: The Chinese Exclusion Act barred Chinese immigrants from entering the United States. Beginning in the 1850s, a steady flow of Chinese workers had immigrated to America.
1891: The Immigration Act of 1891 further barred polygamists, people convicted of certain crimes, and the sick or diseased from entering the U.S.
1917: On the eve of American involvement in W.W. I the Immigration Act of 1917 established a literacy requirement for immigrants and halted immigration from most Asian countries.
1924: The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed in yearly through nationality quotas allowing 2 percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the U.S. at the 1890 census. The law favored immigration from Northern and Western European countries, limited immigration from Southern, Central and Eastern Europe and excluded immigrants from Asia, aside from the Philippines, as an American colony.
1924: The U.S. Border Patrol was established to crack down on immigrants illegally crossing the Mexican and Canadian borders into the United States. Many of these early border crossers were Chinese and other Asian immigrants.
1948: The first refugee and resettlement law was passed to deal with the influx of Europeans seeking permanent residence in the United States after W.W II.
1952: The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) ended the exclusion of Asian immigrants.
1956-1957: The United States admitted roughly 38,000 immigrants from Hungary after a failed uprising against the Soviet Union. They were among the first of over 3 million refugees admitted during the Cold War.
1960-1962: About 14,000 unaccompanied children fled Cuba and came to the U.S. as part of a secret, anti-Communism program called Operation Peter Pan.
1965: The Immigration and Nationality Act overhauled the immigration system and replaced the national origin quotas with a seven-category preference system emphasizing family reunification (for individuals seeking visas to reunite with their families in the U.S.) and skilled immigrants (for persons with special or advanced professional skills or training).
1986: President Ronald Reagen signed the Simpson-Mazzoli Act that granted amnesty to more than 3 million immigrants living illegally in the United States.
2001: U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) proposed the first Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, to provide a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States illegally by their parents as children. The bill - and subsequent iterations - did not pass.
This history can be found at https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/immigration-united-states-timeline. An excellent article summarizing the immigration Acts of 1924, 1952, and 1965 can also be found at Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 - Ballotpedia .
ELIMINATING NATIONAL ORIGINS QUOTAS
The quotas were numbers that were set by Congress; they do not reflect the actual demand for immigration. The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 eliminated the national origins quota systems and instead established consistent per-country ceilings (i.e., no country was subject to a higher or lower limit than any other country).
The Act established worldwide limits on immigration. As of August 2016, according to the American Immigration Council, this limit was set at 675,000 permanent immigrants. Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and refugees were exempted from this limit. As of August 2016, the per-country ceiling was set at 7 percent of the total number of people immigrating to the United States in a fiscal year.
The following figures show the top 10 countries of origin for immigrants in 2020:
1. Mexico — 100,325
2. India — 46,363
3. China — 41,483
4. Dominican Republic — 30,005
5. Vietnam — 29,995
6. Philippines — 25,491
7. El Salvador — 17,907
8. Brazil — 16,746
9. Cuba — 16,367
10. South Korea — 16,244
The United States has the highest immigrant population in the world at 50.6 million as of mid-2020 - approximately 15.3% of the total U.S. population
(https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/us-immigration-by-country)
ASYLUM
When people make a move to change jobs, residence, schools, et al, there usually is a push factor and a pull factor involved. The push factor is something in the current circumstance that is less than satisfactory; the pull factor is something in the new circumstance that is more attractive or beneficial than the old. People may choose to immigrate to the United States because of various combinations of push and pull factors – familial, economic, political, or others. But asylum refers to people seeking sanctuary due to a particular push factor – being persecuted or fearing persecution in their home country. People applying for asylum in the U.S. cannot do so in advance but must come to the border or a port of entry (an airport or official land crossing) to request asylum.
Seeking asylum is a legal right, but gaining asylum is not automatic and often not easy. The naturalization process can also be complicated and lengthy. But once granted asylum, a person can work, travel abroad, and is legally allowed to remain in the country without being deported. In some circumstances the U.S. Government makes arrangements for a person or group of persons to come to the U.S. as refugees and grants them temporary protection, such as in the current case of refugees from Ukraine. In some cases refugees and those with asylum can begin the process of becoming naturalized citizens.
CONTROLLING IMMIGRATION
The general purposes of limiting and controlling immigration into the country include these: to control population numbers; to provide and limit access to labor and laborers; to provide for internal security. Questions such as these then arise about immigration and immigration policy:
Do we need to limit the number of immigrants coming into the country? How many new residents and citizens can we accommodate?
Do we need more laborers, skilled or unskilled, in various jobs?
Can (some or certain) immigrants be a threat to the country’s security?
Are there any biases reflected in our immigration policies?
Do immigrants contribute to or are they a detriment to the country?
The matter of illegal immigration and enforcement of immigration laws raise additional questions. Meanwhile legal immigration will continue.