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Immigration Act of 1882
In 1882, the United States passed the Immigration Act, which imposed a 50 cent tax on every immigrant and banned the entry of "any convict, lunatic, idiot, or any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge.” -
Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882. This act restricted all immigration of Chinese laborers and declared the Chinese ineligible for naturalization. These acts were passed because of “an increasing pressure brought to bear against immigrants, especially Chinese laborers in California. -
Ellis Island Opens
Ellis Island served as the primary immigration station of the U.S. between 1892 and 1954, processing some 12 million immigrants. By some estimates, 40 percent of all Americans have a relative who passed through Ellis Island. -
Immigration Act of 1907
The Immigration Act of 1907 was enacted to broaden the categories of people banned, or “undesirables,” from immigrating to the U.S. The list excluded anyone who was considered “imbeciles,“ or “feeble-minded“ people, those with physical or mental disabilities that prevent them from working, tuberculosis victims, children who enter the U.S. without parents, and those who committed crimes of “moral turpitude.“ -
Expatrion Act
The Expatriation Act of 1907, which said that women must adopt the citizenship of their husbands. Therefore, women who marry foreigners lose their U.S. citizenship unless their husbands become citizens even though a man could still marry a foreign woman and keep his citizenship. -
Cable Act
Revoked the Expatrion Act. The laws regarding citizenship and marriage before 1907 only included immigrants from Europe. Women were most often seen as a part of a family unit with their husbands being the head of the household. The Cable Act was a huge step for women in their efforts to be seen as individuals. -
Bracero Program
During World War II, many American workers were fighting in war and not able to attend to the farms. In 1942, the U.S. allowed about 5 million Mexican workers to enter the country and participate in the bracero program. This program temporarily allowed Mexicans to work in the U.S. minding agricultural fields. It became the largest U.S. contract labor program. -
Displaced Persons Act
A few years into the war, Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act, allowing 200,000 refugees who were displaced because of war, come to America. -
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952
The immigration policy in the 1952 Act enabled the creation of a system of preferences which served to help American consuls abroad prioritize visa applicants in countries with heavily oversubscribed quotas. This act was the first step in making immigration race neutral. -
Refugee Act of 1980
The Refugee Act of 1980 defines a refugee as a person who flees his or her country “on account of race, religion, nationality, or political opinion.“ Refugees are considered a different category than immigrants. The President of the United States and Congress are granted the authority to establish an annual ceiling on the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. The act also lowers the annual limit of refugees admitted to the country 270,000, from 290,000. -
Immigration Reform and Control Act
In 1986, U.S. President Ronald Reagan passed the controversial Immigration Reform and Control Act. This Act gave undocumented immigrants a chance to gain legal status. Nearly three million migrants were granted amnesty. The act also intensified efforts to crackdown on U.S. employers hiring undocumented workers and increased the annual limit of admitted refugees to 540,000 people. -
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act enacted in 1996 broadened the definition of “aggravated felony“ and increased the number of crimes classified as such so immigrants could be deported for a wider range of crimes. The act also increased the number of Border Patrol agents and established an “expedited removal“ procedure to deport immigrants without a formal hearing. -
Flores Settlement
The 1997 Flores settlement requires the government to release children from immigration detention without unnecessary delay to their parents, other adult relatives or licensed programs. -
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
President Obama enacted a new action plan that amended the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (D.A.C.A.), which allows people under age 31 who were brought to the U.S. as children to apply for two-year deportation deferrals and work permits. Obama's policy change lifted the age ceiling and added a year to the deferral period. -
Trump to phase out D.A.C.A.
Since President Trump was elected in 2016, the White House declared its intentions of phasing out the DACA program passed by President Obama. Republicans and Democrats both were called on to pass a replacement program by a proposed deadline of March 5, 2017 However, lawmakers were unable to reach a consensus, and many beneficiaries of DACA were put into legal/political limbo, and they remain in limbo. -
Family Separation
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that federal prosecutors would now pursue a zero-tolerance policy of criminally prosecuting every adult who illegally crossed the border or tried to do so. Because of the Flores Settlement, children could not be imprisoned for longer than 20 days. This caused the government to begin separating children from their parents who were to be imprisoned. Between October 1, 2017 and May 31, 2018, at least 2,700 children have been split from their parents. -
Proposal to regulate Flores Settlement
The Trump Administration proposed regulations to “ultimately lead to the termination” of the Flores Settlement Agreement. Under the terms of a 2001 Stipulation to the Flores Agreement, the parties agreed that the Flores Agreement would terminate “45 days following the [federal government’s] publication of final regulations implementing this Agreement.” To date, no such final regulations have been published
