Essay On 20th Century Immigration Policy

For many decades, immigration has been one of the crucial forces in American society. Immigration has had a significant impact on the process of re-shaping American cities, families, education system, culture, racial dynamics, politics, as well as the American labor market. The influence has been shown in the historical evolution of immigration policies. Immigration to America and the changes in the American immigration policies are accompanied by both economic costs and benefits. The immigration policies have had various effects on the performance of the American economy as well as the immigration process itself. The most renowned policies that changed the course of immigration are discussed in the chapters “Immigrant Voters in a Partisan Polity: European Settlers, Nativism, and American Immigration Policy, 1776-1896” and “Two-Tiered Implementation: Jewish Refugees, Mexican Guest Workers, and Administrative Politics.” These policies arguably changed the course of American history and offered a platform that governed immigrant agendas.

The former played a key role in immigration during the late eighteenth and nineteenth century. The two-tiered bureaucracy, on the other hand, dictated immigration during the early twentieth century. Even though these policies are from two different time periods, they integrate and share similar administrative structures and processes. Both policies encouraged immigration as a source of labor power during these two periods. First, the United States acquired skilled and unskilled labor force from different countries to fill up the labor market gap caused by the shortage of qualified personnel in the country (Tichenor 70). Thanks to this outsourcing, the state acquired sufficient human resources that allowed developing the production and service industries and enhancing the country’s economic