Summary: The 1965 Immigration Act

In 1872 and 890 Congress passed laws restricting illegal immigration of people, criminals, prostitutes, mentally ill and unstable people. Over the years the immigration scale has been broken and is trying to be restored. Even though the U.S border is well secured. Today the U.S has over 42.1 million immigrants. The Western Frontier and Immigration have a few similarities and differences.

The Act, signed into law by President Johnson, was an enormous step in liberalizing immigration policy in the United States. It was “iconic text,” that, in Johnson’s perspective, was one of the most important reforms in his administration. The act was significant in that it “eliminated the national origins quota system”(125). The large step however, needs to be seen through the context of the time. Politically, Washington and the entire country were going through significant social and political changes.

The events that occurred in response to the Red Scare not only reveals that the government was willing to discriminate against non-native and non-democratic Americans as a form of protection, but shows that many natural-born Americans still believe in “America for Americans” from the 1800’s, causing nativism to return. In fact, immigration was now limited more than ever, especially since the need for unskilled labors greatly decreased due to the effects of World War I.

Hagedorn reveals that in 1994, six states with the highest immigrant populations in the U.S. filed for reimbursement from the federal government, claiming that the high numbers of illegal immigrants residing in those states had a negative economic impact on the state as a whole. The federal government responded by saying that reimbursing the states may actually encourage illegal immigration, and any states helping the immigrants financially do so voluntarily and at their own risk (Hagedorn, 272-3). This situation flips the previous dilemmas around – the federal government actually left the state governments to deal with immigration on their own here, and offered no help. Unfortunately, this leaves the states in a very difficult position – allowing the undocumented immigrants to remain in the state poses the threat of crippling the state financially, but forcibly removing the immigrants from their homes would have an impact on general citizen welfare. Not only were the states stuck in an uncomfortable situation, but also the likelihood of the state governments being able to forcibly remove undocumented immigrants from the state is close to zero.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 had an effect on the entire world and especially the United States, One important effect in our country was on the development of immigration policies, as U.S. took measures by adding policies to protect the country from another terrorist attack. Migration has always been a substantial part of human life. For ages, humans have traveled from place to place in search for a better life. Human migration is mostly due to starvation, or war, but also to re-unite families, escape persecution, and better employment opportunities. Since 9/11, policies regarding terrorism have misappropriated U.S. immigration laws to promote anti-terrorism goals and this has had profound impacts on people’s rights by limiting the right to privacy, criminalizing undocumented immigration and creating a culture of fear and discrimination towards Arab immigrants.

America is a country with a history founded on people looking for a new start and emigrating from the old world to fulfill their dreams. Immigration is not always happiness, rags to riches, and the American dream. Major immigration periods happened from 1607, 1820-1870 and again in the early 1900’s. Immigrant numbers were growing so exponentially that the National origins Act of 1921 and 1924 was enacted to put a quota limit that blatantly discriminated against immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Immigrants that made it in faced many hardships such as learning new languages, abandoning family, and accepting the American values.

Annotated Bibliography Assignment: Immigration Separating Families Citation: Brabeck, Kalina M., M. Brinton Lykes, and Rachel Hershberg. " Framing immigration to and deportation from the United States: Guatemalan and Salvadoran families make meaning of their experiences. " Community, Work & Family 14.3 (2011): 275-296. This article is about how The United States deportation system has very harsh policies and they were adopted in 1996.

Prior to 1965, immigration was set up on a quota system and allowed 2% of nationalities that America favored, which was Western Europe. Some countries were not allowed to immigrate to the U.S., such as China and the Philippines. From 1924-1965 approximately 6 million people legally immigrated to the United States. By 1960 some countries were claiming that the U.S. immigration policy was discriminating against them. With the civil rights movement happening, President John F. Kennedy and the Democratic Party moved to change the immigration policy.

Those most affected by voter suppression are the marginalized groups in society that have been targeted since the dawn of time. But have trends in voting rights always been this way? I argue that trends in voting rights fluctuate from progress to regression and that this pattern still holds true today.

Having survived the atrocities of World War I, the population of the United States embarked on a newer never before experienced pathway in the 1920s. With over 100 million people now living in the United States, the numbers of immigrants coming into the country was again on the rise (Pop Culture:1920, 2015). The number of immigrants frightened the Americans and sent them into a state of anti-immigrant hysteria called nativism (Tindall & Shi, 2013). Although many citizens conveniently disregarded that their ancestry dated from earlier immigration, the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921 was passed by Congress in 1921 to limit and restrict the number of immigrants allowed annually into the United States (Tindall & Shi, 2013). The Emergency Immigration Act was passed because many population groups believed the newer groups of immigrants were foreign radicals

One law that affected immigrants was the immigration act of 1996 (Mandell & Schram, pg. 296). A second law that caused “panic in the immigrant community, was the personal responsibility act” (Mandell & Schram, pg. 296). California proposition 227 was intent on “eliminating bilingual education across the country” (Mandell & Schram, pg. 307). Proposition 209 was also another act that impacted affirmative action.

The anti-immigration rhetoric in U.S. politics is becoming more relevant in the media, academia, and most importantly, in legislation. By looking at legislation and scholarly research, the history of anti-immigration rhetoric is traced back to the years of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, after the Mexican-American Civil War in 1848. History has shown that early segregation of Mexicans began during the Manifest Destiny ideology. U.S. settlers felt an obligation to expand further west, stealing Mexican and Indian lands along the way. Furthermore, the ideology of superiority became more common as U.S. legislation began targeting any non-Anglo ethnicity during the Great Depression.

The search for a better opportunity was still present in the 1990s and thousands of legal and (illegal) immigrants arrived daily (most from Mexico). Debates over do you immigration policy occurred; majority of Americans believed that they could not accept any more immigrants and proposition 187 cut all education and non-emergency health benefits to be illegal immigrants. The patterns in immigration changed America 's ethnic and racial makeup causing places like California to become major my Nordie states with Asian-Americans, Latinos African-Americans, and Native Americans making up more than half of its

Immigration Law Reform John F. Kennedy once said “Everywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life”. Immigration laws in the past have been changed many times to either help or worsen chances for immigrants. The immigration laws have been changed various times in the past. The immigration laws are fine, but they could use some improvement to make them more fair for other immigrants. First, there have been many events happening that have been prompting change.

Feigenbaum, Harvey. " America 's Cultural Challenge Abroad. " Political Science Quarterly (Academy of Political Science) 126.1 (2011): 107-29. Print