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The first law to define eligibility for citizenship by naturalization and establish standards and procedures by which immigrants became U.S citizens. In this early version, Congress limited this important right to “free white persons.” -
The Haitian revolution led Congress to ban immigration by free blacks to contain anti-slavery campaigners.
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During the presidency of Andrew Jackson, this law authorized the confiscation of land from Native Americans and provided resources for their forced removal west of the Mississippi River.
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During the Civil War, the Republican-controlled Congress sought to prevent southern plantation owners from replacing their enslaved African American workers with unfree contract or "coolie" laborers from China.
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Ratified in 1868 to secure equal treatment for African Americans after the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed birthright citizenship for all persons born in the United States. It also provided for equal protections and due process for all legal residents.
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Negotiated during construction of the Transcontinental Railroad which relied heavily on Chinese labor, this international agreement secured US access to Chinese workers by guaranteeing rights of free migration to both Chinese and Americans.
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Extended naturalization rights already enjoyed by white immigrants to “aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent,” thus denying access to the rights and protections of citizenship to other nonwhite immigrant groups.
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Legislated a few months after the Chinese Exclusion Law, this immigration legislation expanded the ranks of excludable aliens to include other undesirable persons and attributes such as "convicts," "lunatics," and "those likely to become a public charge."
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This law was a major shift in U.S. immigration policy toward growing restrictiveness. The law targeted Chinese immigrants for restriction-- the first such group identified by race and class for severely limited legal entry and ineligibility for citizenship. -
This 1891 immigration law clarified and centralized the immigration enforcement authority of the federal government, extended immigration inspection to land borders, and expanded the list of excludable and deportable immigrants.
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Congress quickly came to realize the challenges of enforcing immigration exclusions, leading it to authorize and fund a dedicated immigration bureau responsible both for processing legal immigrants and enforcing immigration restrictions.
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An international coalition of Chinese merchants and students coordinated boycotts of U.S. goods and services in China and some cities in Southeast Asia to protest the Chinese Exclusion laws. -
Under the principle that women assumed the citizenship of their husbands, this act stripped citizenship from U.S. born women when they married noncitizen immigrant men. -
Although this law is best known for its creation of a “barred zone” extending from the Middle East to Southeast Asia from which no persons were allowed to enter the United States, It's main restriction consisted of a literacy test intended to reduce European immigration.
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After women gained suffrage with the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, Congress swiftly enacted this law to restore citizenship to U.S. born women who had married noncitizen husbands and thereby lost their citizenship under the Expatriation Act of 1907.
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Immigration within the American hemisphere remained uncapped until 1965, however, in 1924 Congress authorized funding for the Border Patrol to regulate crossings occurring between immigration stations.
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During World War II, the U.S. government negotiated with the Mexican government to recruit Mexican workers, all men and without their families, to work on short-term contracts on farms and in other war industries. After the war, the program continued in agriculture until 1964.
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The importance of China as the U.S. government's chief ally in the Pacific war against Japan led Congress to repeal the Chinese Exclusion laws, placing China under the same immigration restrictions as European countries.
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This law further undermined Asian exclusion by extending naturalization rights and immigration quotas to Filipinos and Indians as wartime allies.
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This law added more exceptions to immigration restriction by national quotas by categorizing international adoption as a form of family reunification. -
After Fidel Castro's revolution, anti-communist Cubans received preferential immigration conditions because they came from a historically close U.S. neighbor and ally. This law provided them permanent status and resources to help adjustment to life in the U.S. -
To address the problem of unauthorized immigration, Congress implemented through bipartisan agreement a multi-pronged system that provided amnesty for established residents, increased border enforcement, enhanced requirements of employers, and expanded guest worker visa programs.
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Legislated in response to the brutal Chinese government crackdowns on student protests in Tiananmen in 1989, this law permitted Chinese students living in the United States to gain legal permanent status.
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Building on the steps taken with IRCA in 1986, IIRIRA further empowered federal authorities to enforce immigration restrictions by adding resources for border policing and for verification of employment credentials.
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Passed in October 2006, this law mandated that the Secretary of Homeland Security act quickly to achieve operational control over U.S. international land and maritime borders including an expansion of existing walls, fences, and surveillance.
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Trying to cope with the long-term residence of millions of unauthorized immigrants, this executive order provided protection from deportation and work authorization to persons who arrived as minor children and had lived in the United States since June 15, 2007. -
The "Muslim Ban" refers to a series of the Trump administration's executive orders that prohibited travel and refugee resettlement from select predominately Muslim countries. After several legal challenges, the Supreme Court upheld most provisions of a third version of the ban. -
The Trump administration's Department of Homeland Security finalized a rule that expanded the list of received benefits and other factors to be considered in determining whether an applicant for admission or adjustment of status is likely to become a public charge.