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Mexican Revolution
Violence in the Mexican Revolution drove native Mexicans to flee from their homes to America. Along with violence, further conflict from new leaders were causing social and economic upheavel that was ruining lives of farm owners and others pushing them towards more opportunity in the US for years to come. -
Mounted Inspectors On the Border
US Congress authorized officials to man the border between the US and Mexico to prevent further illegal immigration that had been evolving over the past decade. These officials included militants in training, Texas Rangers and other immigrant inspectors. -
Repatriation Act
The Repatriation Act caused an almost decade long push of deportation geared towards illegal Mexican immigrants in the southwestern United States. Unfortunately, the conditions which this process were handled were horrid resulting in deportation of a large amount of legal citizens as well as insufficient resources and treatment while transporting those selected back to Mexico. -
The Nationality Act of 1940
This act implemented a set of guidelines that revised former codes of nationality. It gave more of an accurate and fair process with specific standards to determine the legality of a citizen. The turn around from this act brought a fair process in determining the rights of those born or living in the US and was helpful in large part to families residing here. -
Bracero Program
After World War II, the US Government saw a need for workers after the losses suffered in the war. Over a 22 year period, young men who would be useful in the workforce were transferred to the US to work and would be granted basic human rights and a wage for their work. This begins the use of young men fit to work "manly" jobs that needed to be done in the US for wages that the nation could afford and was still substantial for the immigrants. -
End of Bracero Program
After 20 plus years of the program shipping migrant workers here under United States regulation came the termination of the program. Although Mexico asked for renewal of the program the United States refused since too many undocumented workers and plenty of workers who had not been negotiated about continued to arrive. This was the beginning of undocumented laborers entering the United States illegally. -
Nationality Act and Immigration Criteria
Effective in 1968, it was made illegal to deny immigration and naturalization through basis of age, sex or race. Being predominantly helpful to Asians and Indians, this act helped seal another door on unlawful deportation. People were now being evaluated for their contibutions and legality rather than the way they looked making the determining process of immigration less racially focused and more focused on security and contibutions. -
US Census Finds Large Number of Illegals
The 1980 US census exposed a scary truth. It was found that there were two to four million illegal immigrants residing in the US and half of those were said to be Mexican. This proposed a question of how to deal with the problem both at the border and within our communities. -
Immigration Reform and Control Act
President Reagan signs IRCA allowing illegal immigrants who came to the US before 1982 to gain legal status without deportation. This allowed residents who had not been able to properly immigrate to be able to become legal without the fear of being sent back to their country. This was needed to organize from years of unregulated illegal immigration without extremem action and persecution. -
Revisiting Naturalization
After years of illegal immigration that was getting out of hand, the Nationality Act of 1940 was revisited and revised. This put a limit on how many immigrants could enter the country along with the revision of determining factors for naturalization and admission categories. -
Secure Border Initiative
Bush, in efforts to suppress illegal migration and increase security, announced his plan to tighten immigration security. He called for more forces at the border as well as stronger enforcement of immigration laws especially around worksites where illegals were prone to be working. -
Secure Fence Act
With aims to further increase the security of illegal and dangerous immigrants coming over the borders unnoticed, an act was developed to build a 700 mile fence along the southern US border. With the illegal population growing this begins the trend of the US trying to keep people out rather than ridding the nation of bad influences and helping those who are doing good. -
SB 170 Signed Into Arizona Law
This controversial bill was implemented as the most radical immigration bill to date. It called for harsher sentences for illegals as well as legal immigrants to always carry their paperwork with them at all times. Officers also had the ability to stop anyone they may suspect which, according to most, lead to racial profiling. However, many parts were struck down later that summer due to the unconstitutional nature of aspects of the bill. -
Businesses Penalized For Employing Illegals in Arizona
The Supreme Court upheld an Arizona law that called for penalizing businesses employing illegal immigrants. Many saw this as conflicting federal law however it was ruled that due to the proximity to the border and the amount of cheap undocumented labor needed in Arizona that was contributing largely to the illegal population. -
Obama's Executive Action to Prevent Deportation
Mainly surrounding families President Obama implemented executive action to protect parents and their children who had been legally born here or were legal residents to stay here temporarily with the ability to work legally without threat of deportation. However, this was fonly or those who had resided in the country for at least five years and also would gain no benefits for insurance or the right to vote. At least it kept families intact.