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Naturalization Act of 1795
Shmoop Congress passes the Naturalization Act of 1795, extending the period of residency required for citizenship from two to five years. -
Alien and Sedition Acts
Shmoop The Federalist-dominated Congress passes the Alien and Sedition Acts, which allow the president to deport any foreigner deemed threatening, and which also lengthen the residency requirement for citizenship from five to fourteen years. -
Alien and Sedition Acts Reversed
Shmoop The Jefferson Administration reverses the Alien and Sedition Acts, reducing the residency requirement for citizenship from fourteen to five years. -
Irish Potato Famine
Shmoop The failure of the potato crop in Ireland leads to widespread famine and massive emigration. Between 1845 and 1849, more than a million Irish starve to death, and at least a million more are forced to leave the country—many bound for America. By the early 1850s, Irish Catholics will make up large minorities in most of the major cities of the Northeast seaboard. -
Japanese Immigration
Shmoop The first significant Japanese immigration into California begins. Early Japanese migrants typically settle in isolated, all-Japanese agricultural communities. -
Homestead Act
Shmoop Congress passes the Homestead Act, which grants 160 acres of free land in the West to settlers who make improvements and occupy the land for five years. The promise of free land inadvertently spurs heavy immigration from Europe, where the dream of land ownership is impossible for most ordinary Europeans to achieve. -
Page Law
Shmoop Congress passes the Page Law, which bans Asians from entering the United States involuntarily for the purposes of either male contract labor or female prostitution. Asians who choose to migrate freely are still free to enter the country, however. -
Immigration Act of 1882
Shmoop The Immigration Act of 1882 renders several categories of immigrants ineligible for citizenship. Besides Chinese, those barred include criminals, "lunatics," "idiots," and persons deemed "likely to become a public charge"—a category that will, in practice, come to encompass many unmarried women. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
Shmoop Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act, banning immigration from China into the United States for ten years. Chinese Exclusion marks the first systematic federal legislation to restrict free and open immigration into the United States -
The Melting Pot Play Opens on Broadway; Its Title Becomes a Metaphor for the United States
With immigration in full effect the United States becomes known as the melting pot as a result of the vast mix of races and ethnicities. -
US Border Patrol Established with Labor Appropriation Act of 1924
Congress passed the Labor Appropriation Act of 1924, officially establishing the U.S. Border Patrol for the purpose of securing the borders between inspection stations. -
US President Franklin D. Roosevelt Signs Executive Order 9066 Sending Tens of Thousands of Japanese Americans (Among Others) to Internment Camps
President Roosevelt, encouraged by officials at all levels of the federal government, authorized the internment of tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident aliens from Japan. -
Cuba Allows 125,000 Cubans to Illegally Depart for the United States
The Cuban government allowed 125,000 citizens to illegally depart from the port of Mariel. This was also known as the Mariel boatlift. -
Immigration Act of 1990 Increases Limit on Legal Immigration and Revises Grounds for Exclusion and Deportation
The criteria that constitutes an illegal alien for deportation was widely revises and rewrites the grounds on which an alien can be deported. -
Secure Fence Act Authorizes Fencing along the US-Mexican Border
This act allowed for the construction of a fence along the entire southern border of the United States. This wall was an attempt to keep out the undocumented immigrants.
