1800s
Immigration has played an important role in American history and the United States continues to have the most open immigration policy in the world. Before the age of rapid communications and transportation, America encouraged relatively open immigration to settle its empty lands. After some states passed immigration laws following the Civil War, the Supreme Court declared in 1876 that regulating immigration was a federal responsibility. Legislation in 1891 and 1895 created the Bureau of Immigration.
1900 Ã 1950
From 1900 to 1920, nearly 24 million immigrants arrived in what is known as the "Great Wave". The outbreak of World War I reduced immigration from Europe, but mass immigration resumed at the end of the war, and Congress responded with a new immigration policy: the national origin quota system was adopted in 1921 and revised in 1924. Immigration was limited by assigning each nationality a quota based on its representation in the previous US census figures. This quota particularly favoured immigrants from northwestern Europe. Congress also created the US Border Patrol within the Bureau of Immigration in 1924.
There was very little immigration over the next 20 years, with net immigration actually falling below zero for several years during the Depression. Immigration remained relatively low in the 20 years following World War II, as the national origins system of the 1920s remained in place after Congress re-codified and combined all previous immigration and naturalization laws into the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. US agriculture continued to import seasonal labour from Mexico, as they had during the war, under a 1951 formal agreement between the US and Mexico that made the Bracero programme permanent.
1960s
In 1965, Congress replaced the national origins system with a preference system designed to unite immigrant families and attract skilled immigrants to the US. This bill radically shifted the countries of origin of immigrants away from northwestern Europe. The majority of immigration visa applicants in the following decades began to come from Asia and Latin America rather than Europe. As a result of this legislation, the number of immigrants arriving each year would more than triple, from around 320,000 in the 1960s to more than one million per year by the 21st century.
1980s
The preference system continued to limit the number of immigration visas available each year, however, and Congress always responded to refugees with special legislation. It was not until the Refugee Act of 1980 that the US adopted a general policy governing the admission of refugees.
In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). This legislation had two main components: amnesty and enforcement. The IRCA granted amnesty to aliens who had met one of two conditions: they had resided continuously in the United States since January 1982 or they had performed 90 days of agricultural work between May 1985 and May 1986. The acceptance rate for amnesty applications was about 94%, ultimately giving legal status to about 3 million. It is estimated that a quarter of the accepted cases were fraudulent. In 2000, the IRCA was extended through a late amnesty, which allowed those who were fighting their initial refusal to reapply. As of June 2007, 15,000 late amnesty cases were still pending before the IRCA. The 1986 legislation also contained enforcement provisions to prevent future illegal entry. The provisions prohibited the hiring and harbouring of illegal aliens, but few resources were allocated to enforce these laws. Insufficient funding essentially tied the hands of law enforcement officials. This created an unbalanced "grand bargain" that fueled later generations of illegal aliens.
1990s
In 1990, Congress again reformed the immigration laws. The Immigration Act of 1990 amended and expanded the 1965 Act; it significantly increased the total level of immigration to 700,000, increasing available visas by 40 per cent. The Act retained family reunification as the main route of entry, while more than doubling employment-related immigration. The law also provided for the admission of immigrants from "under-represented" countries to increase the diversity of immigrant flows by creating a lottery system. The 1990 Act also mandated a study on immigration, later known as the Jordan Commission.
The US Commission on Immigration Reform, named after its chair, former Representative Barbra Jordan, operated from 1990 to 1997. The Commission covered many aspects of immigration policy, but began with the perception that the "credibility of immigration policy can be measured by a simple criterion: people who should enter are actually entered; people who should not enter are kept out; and people deemed deportable are required to leave. From there, in a series of four reports, the commission examined all aspects of immigration policy. In the first, it found that enforcement was lax and needed to be improved at the border and inland. For internal enforcement, it recommended that an automated employment verification system be created to enable workers to distinguish between legal and illegal workers. The second report dealt with legal immigration issues and suggested that immediate family members and skilled workers be given priority. The third report dealt with refugee and asylum issues. Finally, the fourth report reiterated the main points of the previous reports and the need for a new immigration policy. Few of these suggestions have been implemented.
In 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigrant Reform and Accountability Act (IIRIRA). The Act added to border controls by mandating the hiring of more Border Patrol and Immigration and Naturalization Service agents. The impact of illegal entry into the country has increased and a border fence has been planned for San Diego. A pilot automated employment verification programme was created in the hope of facilitating workplace enforcement. The law also allowed state police officers to enforce immigration law using the 287(g) programme. Although IIRIRA stimulated de jure enforcement, inadequate funding again hampered effective enforcement.
Also during the 1990s, Congress passed a series of four smaller amnesties. The first, the Section 245(i) amnesty, was passed in 1994 and pardoned approximately 578,000 illegal aliens who were each fined $1,000. This amnesty was then renewed in 1997 and again in 2000. The second, the Nicaragua Central American Adjustment and Relief Act (NACARA), was passed in 1997 and granted legal status to approximately one million illegal aliens, mainly from Central America, who had been living in the United States since 1995. In 1998, the Haitian Refugee Immigration and Fairness Act (HRIFA) was passed after it was argued that the exclusion of Haitians from NACARA was discriminatory.
2000s
The most recent amnesty, passed in 2000, was the Legal Immigration Family Equity Act (LIFE). The LIFE Act was a mini-amnesty for illegal aliens who hoped to become green card holders through marriage, employment or other categories, but were not yet close to being approved, due to the long line of people ahead of them. It was sold as a way to get around the growing backlog of processing resulting from previous amnesties. At the time of this legislation, from 1994 to 2000, millions of hopeful legal immigrants were queuing up abroad.
The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, greatly affected the public's view of immigration. A total of 20 foreign-born terrorists were involved, 19 of whom took part in the attack that killed 2,974 civilians. The terrorists had entered the country on tourist or student visas. Four of them, however, violated the conditions of their visas and became illegal aliens. The attack revealed long-standing flaws in our immigration system, including failures in visa processing, internal enforcement and information sharing.
In 2006, the issue of immigration reform was again debated in Congress, with the House and Senate producing conflicting bills. In December 2005, the House passed the Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism and Illegal Immigration Act of 2005, sponsored by Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-WI). The Act was limited to enforcement and focused on both the border and the interior. In the Senate, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 (CIRA) was sponsored by Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) and passed in May 2006. CIRA would have granted amnesty to a majority of illegal aliens already in the country as well as significantly increasing legal immigration. Although the bills passed their respective houses, no compromise bill emerged.
In 2007, the Senate again attempted to pass an amnesty bill. The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, which would have provided a pathway to citizenship for the vast majority of illegal entrants into the country, significantly increased legal immigration and strengthened enforcement. The law, which had bipartisan support in the Senate, was largely unpopular with the American public. Following unprecedented public pressure, the bill failed to pass a cloture vote, essentially killing it.
2010s
Despite his promise to pass a major immigration bill in his first year in office, President Obama's first major act on immigration came in August 2012. The president announced an executive order called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which resulted in two-year renewals of grants of protection from deportation - as well as work permits and identity documents - for approximately 700,000 illegal aliens who arrived in the country as children.
In 2013, a bipartisan group of eight senators known as the Gang of Eight drafted a major amnesty bill called the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 that would have paved the way to citizenship for an estimated 11 million illegal aliens in the country, including DACA recipients. The bill sought to significantly increase the size of the visa programmes, including raising the cap on H-1B visas for highly skilled individuals from 65,000 to 180,000 per year, depending on demand, and creating a new W visa for an additional 200,000. -skilled workers. In exchange, the bill promised increased border security and mandatory E-Verify for all employers. Despite passage in the Senate 68-32, the bill saw significant grassroots resistance and was not considered by the House,
The following year, President Obama announced an additional executive order entitled Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) in November 2014. This would have granted three-year renewable work permits and exemption from deportation to illegal aliens with US citizen or legal permanent resident children. About 3.6 million aliens would have been eligible. However, several states filed lawsuits against the federal government and a temporary injunction in February 2015 prevented DAPA from taking effect while the lawsuits were pending.
The 2016 presidential election saw Donald Trump win an unexpected victory, with immigration at the forefront of his campaign message. During the election campaign, Trump made a wide range of promises regarding immigration. These included building a border wall and making Mexico pay for it, deporting all illegal aliens, funding sanctuary cities, banning Muslims from entering the US, limiting legal immigration and tripling the number of ICE agents. Trump's hardline positions on immigration won him favour with the conservative base, leading him to upset the other 16 leading Republican candidates in the primary race, such as Jeb Bush, who received more than $100 million from donors but faced significant backlash from the base for his perceived softer stance on illegality. immigration.
After the inauguration, President Trump made varying progress on his campaign promises on immigration. In 2017, he signed several executive orders. He signed a travel ban that limited the admission of citizens of what were ultimately seven countries - Libya, Iran, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, North Korea and Venezuela (Chad was included in the final executive order but removed from the list the following year) , barring more than 135 million potential immigrants and non-immigrant visitors. Trump also rescinded the DAPA order in June. Finally, in September, he announced his intention to phase out DACA, making potential beneficiaries eligible for deportation.
In 2018, Congress attempted to pass several amnesty bills that would have preserved DACA. A bill sponsored by Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) that would have paved the way for citizenship for DACA recipients in exchange for a border wall and significant reductions in family chain migration failed in the House after garnering 193 votes, with 41 Republicans and all 190 Democrats in opposition. A week later, an even larger amnesty bill backed by Paul Ryan and the party leadership went down in flames, receiving only 121 votes in the House. This bill would have granted amnesty to more than two million illegal aliens while preserving the largest categories of chain migration. The fate of DACA now remains uncertain. A federal judge ruled earlier this year that the programme should resume processing new applicants,
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