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English Settlers Arrive
Some 100 English colonists arrive along the west bank of the James River in Virginia to found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America. The first immigrants arrive! -
Importation of African Slaves Starts
The continuous presence of persons of African descent on soil that became the United States begins in 1619 with the arrival of twenty Africans at Jamestown, Virginia, aboard a Dutch warship from the West Indies. Their arrival was a part of the trans-Atlantic slave trade; lasting almost four centuries -
Massachusetts Requires Permission to Host Aliens
In May of 1637, the General Court of Massachusetts ordered that no town or person in the colony should receive or host any alien without permission from the authorities. John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, defended the 1637 court order. -
Anti-Quaker Immigration Popular but Quakers still Immigrate
For a period of several years, beginning with 1656, the records of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and indeed of all of the New England Colonies, except Rhode Island, are filled with legislation designed to prevent the coming of the Quakers and the spread of their 'accursed tenets.' -
Pennsylvania Enacts Oath of Allegiance for German Immigrants
At a Sep. 17, 1717 meeting, Williams Keith, Governor of Pennsylvania, said that foreigners from Germany settled in Pennsylvania without any certificates demonstrating their identity, origin and intention. Thus, he and the provincial Council ordered that those aliens take an oath of allegiance. -
Pennsylvania’s Immigration Law Ignored by Ship Masters; New Tax and Health Inspections Imposed on Immigrants
An act was passed September 21, 1727, in Pennsylvania at the suggestion of the colonial governor, who feared that the peace and security of the province was endangered by so many foreigners coming in, ignorant of the language, settling together and making a separate people..A tax of forty shilling was laid on each immigrant by a law passed in 1729 which is quite an early instance of the use of a head tax as a restrictive measure. -
England Stops Emigration to the Colonies; Fines Imposed upon Emigrants and Ship Masters Violating the Law
From the time of James II to the accession of George III, the British authorities generally were active in fostering foreign immigration... After 1773, all naturalization was abruptly stopped, and in the next year, heavy financial burdens were imposed upon emigrants and shipmasters who violated the law--a change in policy that was not overlooked by the American Revolutionists when they compiled their grievances against George III in the Declaration of Independence. -
Articles of Confederation
Under the Articles of Confederation [Enacted in 1781 and Replaced by the Constitution in 1788], the question of citizenship and the naturalization of immigrants remained with the individual states. Pennsylvania allowed any foreigner of 'good character,' who took an oath of allegiance to the state, to acquire property and after one year's residency become a citizen entitled to 'all the rights of a natural born subject of this state -
First Alien Naturalization Act Enacted by the Newly Created US Government
The original 1790 Alien Naturalization Act provided the first rules to be followed by all of the United States in the granting of national citizenship. -
Naturalization Act of 1795 Adds Rules to the Citizenship Process
The act of January 29, 1795 increased the period of residence required for citizenship from 2 to 5 years. It also required applicants to declare publicly their intention to become citizens of the United States and to renounce any allegiance to a foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty 3 years before admission as citizens. -
US President Given Power to Punish and Deport Immigrants
Signed into law by President John Adams in 1798. These acts increased the residency requirement for American citizenship from five to fourteen years, authorized the president to imprison or deport aliens considered 'dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States' and restricted speech critical of the government. -
Congress Reduces Naturalization Residency Requirements to Five Years
The Alien Act was not without effect, causing protests among various ethnic groups, especially the Irish. When he was elected president in 1800, due in no small part to the immigrant vote, Jefferson wanted to get rid of the residency requirement. Congress, believing residency was still a key element of citizenship, only lowered the requirement to the previous length of five years -
50,000 Slaves Become First "Illegal Aliens" in the US
The approximately 50,000 slaves smuggled into the United States after 1808 became the first illegal immigrants -
Irish Immigration to US Begins along with Anti-Irish Sentiments in US
In the century after 1820 [Irish immigration started in 1816], 5 million Irish immigrants came to the United States. Their presence provoked a strong reaction among certain native-born Americans, known as nativists, who denounced the Irish for their social behavior, their impact on the economy, and their Catholic religion -
Naturalizations of Germans and Irish Are Expedited
The buying of votes in local elections was easy where large groups of immigrants could be mobilized by their leaders to march to the polls. -
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
80,000 Mexicans living in the territory are allowed to remain and receive citizenship. -
Supreme Court Rules That Congress Alone Can Regulate Immigration
Although the Constitution said nothing about immigration directly, it was clearly 'foreign commerce,' which the Constitution explicitly reserved to Congress; and Congress's jurisdiction was preemptive so that even in the absence of any federal legislation, state governments could not regulate immigration -
Central Pacific Railroad
The Central Pacific hires Chinese laborers and the Union Pacific hires Irish laborers to construct the first transcontinental railroad, which would stretch from San Francisco to Omaha, allowing continuous travel by rail from coast to coast. -
Naturalization Act of 1870 Extends Naturalization to Former Slaves
The first Naturalization Act of 1790 limited the right of becoming a naturalized citizen to 'free white persons.' Subsequent enactments, legislated during the course of the nineteenth century, all included this racial condition. After the Civil War, the Naturalization Act of 1870 extended the right of naturalization to former slaves, making aliens of African birth and persons of African descent also eligible. -
State Immigration Laws Become Unconstitutional
In Henderson v. Mayor of New York, the Court held that all immigration laws of the seaboard states were unconstitutional because they usurped the exclusive power vested in Congress to regulate foreign commerce. In response to Henderson, states abolished their immigration commissions and port authorities. -
First "Great Wave" of European Immigrants to the United States
The period between 1880 and 1924 witnessed an average of 560,000 immigrants per year, amounting to over 25 million immigrants over a 44 year period.This period saw a large increase in Jewish immigration to the US, largely due to repressive laws enacted in Russia and Prussia -
Immigration Exclusion Act & Chinese Exclusion Act
The 1882 Act to Regulate Immigration prohibited entry to ‘any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge’. It marked the moment when the golden doorway of admission to the United States began to narrow and initiated a thirty-nine-year period of successive exclusions of certain kinds of immigrants, -
The Huddled Masses Yearning To Be Free
'the tired, the poor, the homeless and the tempest-tost,' 'the huddled masses yearning to breathe free... -
Ellis Island Opens as Immigrant Entry Checkpoint
From 1892 to 1954, over twelve million immigrants entered the United States through the portal of Ellis Island, a small island in New York Harbor. While the new immigration station on Ellis Island was under construction, the Barge Office at the Battery was used for the processing of immigrants. -
14th Amendment
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. -
Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization
Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization was put in charge of ‘all matters concerning the naturalization of aliens -
Angel Island Immigration Station Opens
Ellis Island of the West,' within the Immigration Service it was known as 'The Guardian of the Western Gate' and was designed control the flow of Chinese into the country. -
Limit the Number of Immigrants
This law accomplished two things. (1) It reduced the total number of immigrants coming to this country... (2) It favored and stimulated the immigration of Protestant northwestern Europeans and excluded most of the Catholic southern and eastern Europeans -
Ozawa v. US Supreme Court
The issue of U.S. citizenship eventually was decided by the 1922 Supreme Court decision [9-0] of Takao Ozawa v. United States, which declared that Japanese were ineligible for U.S. citizenship. -
Johnson-Reed Immigration Act
The Johnson-Reed Act of [May 26,] 1924 limited the total European immigration to 150,000 per year, and reduced each nationality's allowance to 2 percent of its U.S. population in 1890 -
US Border Patrol Established with Labor Appropriation Act of 1924
On May 28, 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 -
Alien Registration Act
The Alien Registration Act also known as the Smith Act was passed by Congress on 29th June, 1940, made it illegal for anyone in the United States to advocate, abet, or teach the desirability of overthrowing the government. The law also required all alien residents in the United States over 14 years of age to file a comprehensive statement of their personal and occupational status and a record of their political beliefs. -
US President Franklin D. Roosevelt Signs Executive Order 9066
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. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 , dated February 19, 1942, gave the military broad powers to ban any citizen from a fifty- to sixty-mile-wide coastal area stretching from Washington state to California and extending inland into southern Arizona. -
Magnuson Immigration Act of 1943
After China became an ally during World War II, the exclusion laws proved to be an embarrassment and were finally repealed by the Magnuson Act in 1943. This bill made it possible for Chinese to become naturalized citizens and gave them an annual quota of 105 immigrants. -
Ellis Island Closes
In November of 1954 the last detainee, a Norwegian merchant seaman named Arne Peterssen was released, and Ellis Island officially closed. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson declared Ellis Island part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument -
Refugee Act of 1980
The primary goal of the Refugee Act of 1980 was to bring U.S. law into compliance with the requirements of international law. -
Immigration Reform and Control Act
Grants Legal Status to Qualifying Immigrants Who Entered the US Illegally before Jan. 1, 1982 -
California's Proposition 187 Is Approved by Voters
Approved by voters in 1994 [Nov. 8, 1994], the proposition would have denied health care, education and welfare benefits to illegal immigrants. Under Proposition 187, they would have had to report illegals to authorities and to deny them social service, health care and education benefits -
Terrorist Attacks Prompt US Department of Defense to Expand Military Support along the Borders
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, military support was expanded to include counterterrorism activities. Although the DOD [Department of Defense] does not have the 'assigned responsibility to stop terrorists from coming across our borders,' its support role in counterdrug and counterterrorism efforts appears to have increased the Department’s profile in border security -
"Minuteman Project"
In Arizona, a group calling itself the Minuteman Project has stationed scores of men and women along the Mexican border in a controversial effort to track down undocumented immigrants. The Minutmen take their name from a militia group during the American Revolutionary War. -
Secure Fence Act
The Secure Fence Act was signed into law on October 26, 2006. The Act authorizes the construction of [700] hundreds of miles of double-layered fencing along the nation's Southern border. -
Controversial Arizona Bill (SB 1070) Signed into Law
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law Friday [April 23] the most restrictive immigration bill in the country [SB 1070), setting the stage for a showdown with the Obama administration -
US Supreme Court Upholds Centerpiece of 2010 Arizona Immigration Law, Rejects Other Provisions
The Supreme Court on Monday delivered a split decision on Arizona's tough 2010 immigration law, upholding its most hotly debated provision but blocking others on the grounds that they interfered with the federal government's role in setting immigration policy. -
President Obama Announced Executive Action to Prevent Deportation of Millions of Immigrants in the United States Illegally
President Barack Obama imposed the most sweeping immigration reform in a generation. Easing the threat of deportation for some 4.7 million undocumented immigrants
